Google Offices in Israel are AWESOME!

[MasterGod]

I've visited Google's offices in Israel and it is AMAZING. When they wake up in the morning they don't go to work, they go to a vacation. The guy there was like "keep it quite people are working here" while he gave us a tour and when we started it after about 2 meters there were 3 guys playing at the PS3. We were all shocked and one guy was like "they get paid for that ??" and the guys from Google were laughing and giggling. After that we continued to the next room were there were two dudes playing (I don't know its name so I'll just describe what it is) a table of football (you know with many sticks while each stick has 2-3 players), anyway, it was very cool. While we continued to the next section he mentioned they have XBox 360 and Wii in the other floor ( ) and then we got to a narrow place where there was only a window with the sea at the view with a chair that does massage (and I guess I don't need to describe of which quality this chair is). After that we went back to a room to ask questions...

P.S

[huydotnet]

i want to work in Google !!!

[bitplane]

I'm rather cynical about this idea of working, it's a sneaky way of taking over the personal lives of staff.
Basically in IT work time is usually lost because one team is waiting for another team to finish and hand over some work, so if you employ people for "x hours a week" then a lot of time is lost when there are delays (and there are always delays). So millions of office workers are paid for being sat round pretending to look busy because they have nothing to do.
Google (and Microsoft's, possibly others too) idea is to let you play at work while you're not busy, with the agreement that you still meet deadlines. So you play all afternoon while waiting to continue work, you can finally start at 4pm and you work until 10pm to get the job done. People end up being in work for 14 hours a day, half of this time is spent waiting around for other people. When the crunch comes nobody minds working 90 hour weeks because they're already used to being in work (unpaid) for that time anyway. Mismanagement of time costs the company nothing, but costs the staff their social life. Rather than working late to do the company an optional favour and getting gratitude and recognition for the sacrifice, it is just part of the deal.
I'd rather be working 9-5:30 and spend a couple of hours pretending to be busy than work 8-10 and spend half the day blowing time!

[rogerborg]

100% agree.

It is a smart way to work - from the company's point of view. But (from experience) they quickly go from thanking you for 90 hours of face-time, to expecting it, and then to demanding it.

Also, once they've established that you'll stay as long as it takes to do 8 productive hours - rather than the 4 hours that most of us get done - then that'll get factored into your project plans.

Get in, get your work done, then escape and do fun stuff on your time, not in the office.

[FlyingIsFun1217]

Foosball

FlyingIsFun1217

[MasterGod]

Foosball

FlyingIsFun1217

Thanks

P.S
bitplane && rogerborg: Sounds reasonable, cool. (Still awesome job )

[CuteAlien]

I've had already two such full-time jobs which did actually mean just that: full time = as long as you're awake (which was sometimes very long...). So by now I agree somewhat with Bitplane and Rogerborg that jobs where you can go home after 8 hours and do your own stuff are preferable.

Still working for Google would interest me. Mostly because you can work with excellent people. That would even be worth it if the job would be crap. But the job itself does actually also sound rather good - to work on some of the most influencial projects which are currently done. Many of those are even open source (which I always prefer). And I certainly love this foosball game :-)

[MasterGod]

By the way the Israeli guys invented iGoogle if I remember correctly so it's not just gaming..

[rogerborg]

But are they loved? Can you tell me that?

[CuteAlien]

But are they loved? Can you tell me that?

In 2008 it's:

All you need is code, all you need is code,
All you need is code, code, code is all you need.
All you need is code (all together now)
All you need is code (everybody)
All you need is code, code, code is all you need.

[rogerborg]

Better than in 1998, where all you needed was stock.

[Vsk]

But are they loved? Can you tell me that?

<LOL POST>
HAhaha .

</LODO POST>.

Great information bitplane and rogerborg, I knew about the "fun" part of working in google but didn't know about you working more than 8-9 hours (normally).
Are you sure of that?

In that case I agree with you, but remember that exists people that doesn't want/can to have social life, so maybe they are happy (is all that at the end count right?) with this kind of job-life.

I don't know if you knew it but in APPLE is the opposite!, they boss is known like a job-nazi, and he has even make people cry!!!, yes employees cry!.
But they release Iphone .

Even more there are several article from sociologist, that explain boss-work-employee relationship and Apple is always the exception due to this particularity.

[bitplane]

I have no first hand experience with Google so I couldn't say.
I have worked with/at other big companies who use this working time strategy (including Microsoft) during crunches and I prefer the number-of-hours-in-a-week method myself.

[rogerborg]

... with the option to do extra work from outside the office.

I don't mind putting extra hours in when I've stuffed something up, or when it's in my financial interest, I should hasten to add.

[torleif]

Googlers aren't paid to work, they're paid to think. Other people write their algorithms into code