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Google Perks Are Great, But They All Mean Business
megazoid81 writes "While there have been complaints of late, Google was recently named the best place to work according to the widely read annual Forbes survey, in its first appearance on the list. The plethora of perks at Google does make you wonder though what kind of hours the company expects its employees to keep. In the context of Google's perks, a Knowledge@Wharton article explains that there are two kinds of workers: segmentors and integrators. Segmentors want to maintain a strict separation between work and home while integrators don't mind mixing the two. The piece posits that segmentors might actually mind too many perks at their workplace and find their commitment eroding. Does Google have a disproportionate number of integrators in its workforce? What kind of worker are you — segmentor or integrator?"
Can you integrate sleep and work? Or sleep and pleasure? Not very well. Same with work and pleasure. You need down time to throw everything away and see to your higher-order needs, or they will come up wanted (read: affect your work).
Clock out time, that's it. Turn the machine off, leave the building, and forget about it until 9am. If your business can't handle that, they obviously need more staff.
If I am doing the same work at the office that I could at home, I would like to do it at home. If the environment is nicer at my office with a more social atmosphere, then I would go to the office.
I don't see why us peons would care at any rate. Managers have already made up their minds on this issue beforehand.
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The division is easy, but too simplistic. I'm both: I do like to separate my work and my free time pretty cleanly. Because of that I actually appreciate my hour-long train commute as it creates a natural barrier and an external imposition to go to and from work at specified, reasonable hours.
At the same time I really, _really_ like my work, so I tend to mull things over on my off time, and idly reading up on background stuff I find interesting (and that incidentally is really helpful for work).
There is a real difference between wanting to be at work for long hours, and idly reflecting on interesting problems even when off duty.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
That is the only thing that bothers me of "home life" entering into work life. Leave your damn children at home. Other than that, we all bring our personal lives to work, work takes up so much of our lives it is bound to happen.
The only integration I'll ever do was in calculus class.
I work almost entirely from home, and regard my work as my hobby. OTOH, I'm damned if I'm ever going to invite a colleague round here. What does that make me - apart from an unsociable git?
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
That's actually kinda funny, where I presently work, there's one guy in the office who's a total "segmentor." He gets the job done (as far as I know), he's a nice guy, causes no trouble, but socially he's totally aloof, doesn't even eat lunch with the rest of us.
Personally I like integrating, but not too much though, you don't always work with people you share anything significant with (except a job of course). Not being social at all has to be pretty sucky over time, seeing how you spend so much time at work.
Life is Reality
I am a segmentor all the way. My job is just a means to an end, and if I forget that then I will never achieve that end.
...En að Besta Sem Guð Hefur Skapað Er Nýr Dagur
There are two kinds of people: those who divide people into two groups, and those who don't.
This is the thing about programming in particular or creative engineering design in general. If you enjoy, or are into the work, it is very difficult to become a segmentor. Design and coding are very cerebral processes, and as it happens to me that I design and improve in my head whenever my brain finds a few free cycles. If I hit upon a good idea, I like to implement/try it immediately. Most of the better programmers/designers that I have seen do work in this mode. Hence having perks of this kind does help.
Most of the segmentors that I have seen end up in marketing or man-management at the end, even if they might have started in core engineering because of a simple reason they do not enjoy the process.
This of course is my opinion and there are exceptions, but exceptions are rare.
???
Keeping the two seperate is damn near impossible. I'm happier when I don't try, and focus on living my life instead. From my own experience, this is vastly more productive so long as you can manage your time effectively. Methinks that Google might just be onto something.
..don't panic
I work out of a home office and until a life-threatening medical problem last December, I was definitely an 'integrator', never really being off line. BTW, my problem (DVT followed by two large pulmonary embolisms) was almost certainly caused or made worse by a few month work spree - too much time at my desk. I have since set strict boundaries: I set a "get up and walk around" timer on my laptop, place limits on "billable time" each day and even some limits on time for learning new technologies (although my 2/3 time for paid work and about 1/3 time learning ne things ration has stayed about the same).
Anyway, transitioning from an 'integrator' to a 'separator' has been a good thing for me. People do need down time.
At the end of the day, I believe that productivity is about quality work time, not quantity.
I've gotta say, each there is a story about working at Google, everyone seems to talk about how horrible the number of perks are because it must mean they expect you to work crazy hours, and I wonder how jaded we've become?
How about this as an idea, maybe the perks aren't meant to make people work crazy hours but instead just make good business sense?
And on top of all of this, it makes their employees really happy, and gets them really good press!
I, for one, would be more than happy to talk to a recruiter at Google
"What kind of worker are you -- segmentor or integrator?"
I'm the ass-imilator.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
At my last job I was the textbook integrator. I kept on top of email from home, preformed server admin stuff at all hours via VPN, and would even come in after hours when a got a server alert that needed attention. One day, I decided to add up all these extra hours. I was a salary employee, so it's not like I was getting paid extra to work overtime. I was shocked with the totals.
During one calender year, I had worked over 200 unpaid hours. And, since they would have all been considered overtime hours and worth 1.5 regular hours, it totaled 300 hours' worth of lost wages. That's nearly two months worth of time!
So I quit that job after 10 years (I'm kinda a slow learner), and found a company that insists I work no more than 40 hours a week. If I am called on work more, I get to make it up later. So now I am a segmentor. Work is work, home is home, and never the twain shall meet.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
I'm an integrator of the highest order. I integrate so much freetime into my work that even I wonder how I get anything done.
Oh, do think Google wants me to integrate work into my off time?
...which is why I need to work for myself. And I've been working in that direction for... forever now. But anyway, at least if you're working for yourself you can choose when to work and what to work on. I can't help thinking about work when I'm gone, it just happens.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I am an ideal integrator. I would love to work at a place that is completely integrated. I could work for google, have a google wife, 2.5 google kids, live in a google house, drive to google in my google car, drop of my laundry of google brand clothes at the google dry cleaners, eat at the googleteria, taking a break at 5 to go to the google bar to share a few drinks with my google friends, pick the kids up from google school, and head out for a night at the google opera with my google wife. That would be perfect. All of my needs would be met entirely.
However, anything short of that requires me to segment my personal life from work. I need to fulfill the needs that work doesn't provide, requiring necessary non work related period. Perks would be nice, but not if they distract me for fulfilling the other needs. As the article says, they'd get in the way of my real life. At least thats what happened when I tried living a truly integrated workplace, very far from google. I went a whole month without leaving the compound's gates. Needless to say, I was not attending any operas with my wife. Which is why I had to leave. It was like 75% perfect, but anything short of perfection sucks.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
All too familiar.
I used to work for Trilogy, once cited as the best place in the US to work. It was a disaster: they had overexpanded, lacked a lot of process discipline and relied on small groups of super-bright people. Unfortunately you do need some structure and control.
It ended with the CEO in tears firing 1/3 of the company one Saturday. (Yes, they made people come in on a Saturday just to fire them!)
Google may be different, and I'm sure I could get hired there if I wanted to, but I'm scared off by the similarity with Trilogy.
Disintegrator.
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Back in the goodle days in Silicon Valley lots of places had these kinds of perks, too. Google only stands out now because no one else can afford to offer them anymore.
I also have to say I know a few people who work there, and they are the some of the smartest, coolest, and nicest people I have ever known or worked with. So if they load on the perks, it is only to retain good people.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I dunno, I have a pretty easy time integrating sleep and pleasure, in fact if you work all day and somehow bring your work home, sleep may be the only true pleasurable/relaxing time of your day!
stuff |
They are just copying the ideas of having everyon live the Google life with everything provided by the company from Globex Corporation....
I leave work at work for the most part. Exceptions include deadlines and emergencies, and they are few and far between.
However, 4 of my coworkers and myself play WOW (World of Warcraft) on an almost nightly basis together. We don't discuss work when we play, except if we're trying to find the one person who knows how to fix the emergency at work. I think I did that once.
Another caveat, my wife, father-in-law, and 2 of my wifes Uncles work at the same place as me. Separate depts thank god, but still, we talk about work at home, home at work. But that's usually the gossipy stuff.
But if I try my damndest to forget what I was doing the moment I walk out the door at 4pm. My thoughts are on my daughter, wife, and whether I'll have a margarita when I'm playing WOW. Printing problems, MRP issues...I try to let them go.
So it's me I'm a segmentor, but life makes me an integrator.
Sean D.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
Oh, please, "segmentors"? "Integrators"? What's next? "Dronators"? "Dilbertors"?
Seriously, this is just one aspect of the US work culture: the company you work for simply assumes that you are going to put in long hours and work until late at night or early in the morning. This, in my opinion, is simply wrong: the longer you work, the less productive you are and he more exhausted you are as well.
Not to mention that putting in long hours takes a very heavy toll on your family life, if you are married and have children. So Google perks are great, but they simply (a) represent something wrong in U.S. culture and (b) reflect the fact that a lot of people at Google may be young and single adults, who can afford to spend a lot of time at the office.
Personally, instead of free massage and thirteen different restaurant in-house, I'd rather be able to have flexible hours to take care of my kids, telecommute for a couple of hours a day -- I am sure I would be a lot more productive working from my home from 11:00pm until 1:00am, or even have more paid vacation days. I don't really care about in-house restaurants or nerf tournaments. But I guess that's just me.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
While currently, I am a segmentor, I would rather be an integrator. If I could enjoy my job enough to include it as part of my "life" then I would be all about it. Till that time comes, I will continue to enjoy my clean break from work when I leave my office.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
Now where's my benefits? When I was working at Boo.com I only had to show up three days a week for five hours.
There was always a suspicion (thankfully, no-one ever tested it) that if you hurt yourself while working at home, then you'd be completely disowned so far as liabilty went. Same for RSI and other long-term work related problems. "Well your home life contributed to that condition, so it's nothing to do with us"
Now, I always have "commitments" at weekends or evenings. I'm much happier and the work still all gets done.
Just make sure that if you take work home, or let it invade your personal time the home/work balance is actually a balance
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Let me pull this up because there are so many," he says. When his computer produces a list a moment later, Kallayil makes his way down the screen and continues: "The free gourmet food, because that's a daily necessity. Breakfast, lunch and dinner I eat at Google. The next one is the fitness center, the 24-hour gym with weights. And there are yoga classes."
There is a pause before he adds that he also enjoys the speaker series, the in-house doctor, the nutritionist, the dry cleaners and the massage service. He has not used the personal trainer, the swimming pool and the spa -- at least not yet, anyway. Nor has he commuted to and from the office on the high-tech, wi-fi equipped, bio-diesel shuttle bus that Google provides for employees, but that is only because he lives nearby and can drive without worrying about a long commute.
I'd be worried about the fact that Google has the spending habits and business plan of a late 90s dot-com. Isn't advertising something like 95% of their revenue?
My preference at jobs is to go in, get the task done, and then go do something fun.
Most "work" done during workdays could be done in four hours, tops, if people were committed to efficiency.
I think many people like being at work because they feel a total lack of doubt. I'm doing the right thing, earning money, forget about the divorce, the kids, the debt, the extra 25 pounds, the smoking habit, distant mortality, etc.
technical writing / development
Never mix work and home, EVER. This is something I learned hard, because when you let co-workers find out what you do for fun, when they know what friends and acquaintances you hang out with, what music you listen to, then that is ammo that your peers and your office politics rivals will use to get you fired should some bad thing happen, and they have a chance at it.
For example, I've seen a co-worker (who was EXTREMELY talented) fired at a previous job I was at because he listened to heavy metal/goth, and during a major emergency on a Saturday night when servers melted (UPS failure), he ran into work in full club gear in order to get servers back up and running. Even though he got the servers up in an hour, he got fired a week later, not because of performance, but because his boss was a country music type of guy and didn't like anyone who didn't drive a pickup truck and attend rodeos in the first place, and him finding an underling who listened to something totally different caused him to dig up anything to fire the guy by. At the time, it wasn't a big deal, the guy just hopped to a different place and made more money, but these days with jobs being outsourced or handed to I-9 thralls, it may end up causing someone to have their next home for their family be a homeless shelter or park bench.
It seems easy to mix the two, but don't. You don't want co-workers who are potential enemies when it comes raise/promotion time to have knowledge on how to sabotage you.
Personally, I leave work and home totally separate. Even, my work car (a bland, boring vehicle that stays clean and personal-item free) is different from the car I use in other things. If asked about family or whatnot, I give a bland reply back. It sounds bad, but come raise/promotion time, issues that people can bring against me are only work-related... they can't dig up skeletons out of the rest of my daily existence to use.
I work for a monolithic tech co. 80% of the people I deal with (including myself) are telecommuters. Almost every day, I am on a call where I hear someone's kid screaming or crying in the background. These are six figure professionals we are talking about. In my mind, it is totally inexcusable. It is crap like this that gives telecommuting a bad name. Personally, I wouldn't let an employee telecommute if they have kids in the house.
Any article that contains "... two kinds of..." is complete bull$hit that, at best, was written solely to stimulate insipid debating.
I'm an Integrater from about 10am to about 4pm on work days, and a Segmentor the rest of the time.
...is the minute you've become a slave.
Specifically.. work for others.
Must every article these days follow the same lines?
1. Reduce group in question to two, robotic types.
2. Toss about simplistic arguments concerning said types.
3. Leave real world situation utterly unanalyzed.
It's like using approximations in physics and mathematics, only less useful.
My wife - comp sci/math major with honors blah blah blah - has been heavily recruited by Google. It hasn't become annoying or anything, but she's been contacted numerous times before and since getting her B.S. She wouldn't take the job anyway because it would cause her to relocate, but I know that she considers the extent of the perks a significant strike against Google.
From on-campus meals to weights to doctors to dry cleaning she considers the extent to which Google tries to be a part of the lives of its employees creepy and cult-like. I think she's exactly the type of person Google wants to hire in terms of talent and ability, but it's clear that their perks are working against such people.
This doesn't mean the perks aren't working in general. There a possibly many more people who enjoy the perks rather than view them with distrust. But clearly some talented people are going to be turned off by extent to which Google attempts to insinuate itself into every aspect of your life.
As for me, I think the perks a bit over-the-top, but I wouldn't mind at all having to do less travel. But my wife enjoys running errands together - it's a chance for family time - and would consider Google to be competing for family time. And I think she has a point. Anyone know anything about work/family balance for people working at Google?
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Since I was a kid I have always loved to fix things and found that I was skilled at fixing mainframes and their peripherals. But CDC was on the decline so I moved from Minnesota to a smaller company in St. Louis. I flew from city to city fixing equipment that was hopeless and on the edge of a lawsuit. As equipment got smaller and smaller and more disposable I saw the writing on the wall and moved into software.
My point is that I would have paid to get to play with the stuff that I fixed but instead got paid well for it.
I would even visit local offices while on vacation and fix some tough dog problems just for the fun of it. I realize now i was an idiot... but I enjoyed doing it at the time.
Today it would be like paying someone to play with an Xbox or Ipod. Ir was like " You mean you are going to pay me for what I really would like to do anyway? Sure! I'll do it"
Over the years though, as several other individuals here have pointed out the company would take a new direction, often with the management from other failed companies and sooner or later it was my turn to be escorted out on a friday afternoon due to across the board cutbacks.
Now I am self employed...This suits me now.
I can understand though how the workers might feel at Google... I had that feeling from the 60's through the 90's and life was effortless.
Sanat
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
Stupid Americans with your self-inflicted workaholicism. Don't blame google when its all in your own mind.
People should feel they can legitimately enjoy the perks then go home after doing an 8 hour day.
Whatever Google's real motivation is for offering free meals and transport, its pretty stupid to feel obliged to put in more hours because of them, especially if no-one has explicitly stated that they are provided in order to commit you to work more hours.
And if they ever do say that, then drive yourself and take sandwiches in.
Apart from anything else, the transport has wi-fi and if you're not driving yourself you can work on the bus. this is all extra time for Google worth more than the cost of the transport anyway. The value of the free food only amounts to maybe 15 minutes of pay at most, but you save more than that time by not going out to get food. So why should people still feel obliged to work extra time measured in hours?
My guess is Google's real motivation for offering those things is becase it differentiates the comapny and attracts hard-to-find developers to apply to work there in the first place. It has nothing to do with hours/week.
As a manager, if members of my team work continually work more than 40 hours/week when its not necessary for their workload, it gives me an indication that they're either not able to keep up or they're brown-nosers, either of which gives me reason and inclination to fire them.
I'm working at home in Detroit doing medical transcription, so I guess I'm an inverse integrator. I've integrated work into my home life, but I'm not really giving up one for the other. I'm home all the time now, and don't need to go out but to run errands or visit friends/family. I get my work done for the day quickly and have time for my wife and other hobbies, like computer gaming, fishing, and traveling. I even traveled during summer last year with the laptop and got work done while at a campground, in hotel rooms, and at my ex's home in Tennessee. I'll have a difficult time giving it up if I go back to my computer technician career working in anything but a telecommute position.
1. Reduce group in question to two, robotic types.
2. Toss about simplistic arguments concerning said types.
3. Leave real world situation utterly unanalyzed.
4. Profit!
I'm a segmentor all the way. I work for a major DoD subcontractor and the environment here is such that people stay late at work for the sake of staying late at work because everyone else is staying late at work...because they feel more professional that way...and because for the most part, most of my peers are still single and in the process of getting their Masters...
It's such a 'status quo' thing here that it seriously pisses me off.
We had an "engineering joke" competition recently...and I submitted the tried-and-true classic about the engineer who finds a talking frog (we've all heard it)...but, the joke that won was a joke that basically praised the fact that the work environment here is such that most people come in during their Fridays off (we have alternate work-weeks available).
WTF? I think a talking princess frog is much funnier than that!
Anyway, I have a wife and soon-to-be two children at home. I finish what I need to at work, then on the drive home, I forget everything so I can get on the floor and play Hot Wheels with my son at home. I get in around 7-ish and leave before 4. When I arrive at work, the parking lot is full...and when I leave, it's still full.
I need to separate home and work.
It's funny because I actually applied for a job at a local Google here, but I was denied. At first, I kicked myself in the butt for it, but after a while and after talking to a good friend who works at the Googleplex, I'm pretty glad I didn't get the Google job.
As much as I'd love Google perks and and the 'prestige' of working for Google, I value my finite free time so much more...and I refuse to be issued a Treo or a Crackberry.
semper ubi sub ubi
Work funds life.
A friend of mine is now a googleite and ended up with some sleep cycle issues for reasons outside of work. Google management provided her with what she needed to sleep in the office and she managed to integrate the two quite well.
So, yes sleep and work can be integrated, but I don't ever care to do that myself.
For example, I've seen a co-worker (who was EXTREMELY talented) fired at a previous job I was at because he listened to heavy metal/goth, and during a major emergency on a Saturday night when servers melted (UPS failure), he ran into work in full club gear in order to get servers back up and running. Even though he got the servers up in an hour, he got fired a week later, not because of performance, but because his boss was a country music type of guy and didn't like anyone who didn't drive a pickup truck and attend rodeos in the first place, and him finding an underling who listened to something totally different caused him to dig up anything to fire the guy by.
That's not "don't mix work and home", that's "don't work for crazy people".
You may think you've integrated your work and you life, but if you have that's because you don't yet a have a life.
You think you do, but someday you'll finally have one and look back and wonder what the hell you were thinking.
And don't forget the sunscreen.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
I'm naturally a segmentor (probably the product of being a lazy bum and wanting to do the minimum amount of work). I loved working 40 hours per week at my internship last summer, as opposed to the 30 or so I put in every week in school, because it felt like significantly less work. I left work and didn't feel guilty about not thinking about what I had done that day, because I was "not at work" instead of "procrastinating". Granted, a CS internship is a lot less stressful than a real CS job.
I'm starting at Google this summer, and it's my intention to, if at all possible, continue what worked for me on the small scale and segment my life. Unfortunately, the work segment may just be 90% of my waking hours.
Segmentors are detrimental. Do not hire.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
Well, because I am a full-time telecommuter, I don't have to live in an urban or even suburban environment. I live in a rural area on 3 acres so I don't have to be bothered by my neighbors. I do hear lots of birds all day long, but I find that kinda nice while I am working.
Segmentor or whatever, I have no cell phone and it's none of your darned business what I'm doing.
If you don't like it, move to Russia.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I could work for google, have a google wife, 2.5 google kids, live in a google house, drive to google in my google car, drop of my laundry of google brand clothes at the google dry cleaners, eat at the googleteria, taking a break at 5 to go to the google bar to share a few drinks with my google friends, pick the kids up from google school, and head out for a night at the google opera with my google wife. That would be perfect. All of my needs would be met entirely.
So long as I can have lots of sex at work, that's fine by me.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
When I was working for someone else I tried to keep work and personal life separate. It isn't easy, because sometimes in my thoughts I'd be preoccupied with work. Like it or not, sometimes it's just not possible to completely stop thinking about work once I leave the office. That can certain sour personal life.
Having started my own business I find but worlds overlapping. In great in some ways and bad in others. If I have personal matters to attend to in the middle of the day, or I just want to take a break, I can. I'm free to give myself as much vacation time as I like. I can work on my own schedule, although I do still try to adhere to a regular work day.
The catch is, however, that I'm thinking about work a lot more often now. I have the added stress of trying to build a successful business. I have no one to answer to but myself, but it's very difficult nonetheless. There's a reason most people don't go into business for themselves, despite some benefits in doing so.
Ultimately, if you want a successful business you're almost definitely going to end up working a lot harder than you would for another employer. The advantage is that you will reap the benefits directly.
I've ultimately come to the conclusion that to be successful you have to work hard. Being able to get out at 5pm every day sounds nice, but chances are your career won't be going anywhere in such an environment. I've seen plenty of mid-level managers who sit on their asses all day doing nothing, but they aren't really decision makers, they're just filtering someone else's orders. I know numerous people in important positions and running their own companies who work longer hours than any employee working for them. Clearly, things aren't so black and white. There are people who can smooth-talk their way to the top. And there are those who work themselves to death and get nowhere. But I'm not talking about the exceptions here. The fact is, if you want to get ahead you're going to have to put a lot of effort into it.
Obviously, it's important to strike a good balance between work and personal life. I've been in situations where I was working 7 days a week, and getting out of work at 10pm almost every single day, for months on end. It can be soul-crushing. It ultimately comes down to where your priorities lie. If you feel that your personal life is more important than anything else that's fine. If you're more eager to be successful you have to understand that it may require some sacrificing, at least until you reach a point where you're in a comfortable enough situation that you can start taking it easy.
I like what I do, but not all aspects of it, and I don't love it more than the many other aspects of my life. However, I have known a few lucky souls who did exactly what they loved and they loved every minute of it. These are people who would be doing their work AS downtime if they weren't getting paid for it. Your post is certainly sensible advice for the vast majority of people who aren't in that situation. I just wanted to point out that a few people do have another viewpoint.
;-)
I like to think that some time in the future, no one will have to distinguish between work and play. But I'm guessing we'll have to work very hard to get there.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
its Fortune..
There is one kind of person: a person.
...you could always burn the building down.
When you go from university to an IT career, the integrator role is not much of a shift. You are already used to the crazy hours, and crunch time to get a project done at the last moment. Your friends in school are your classmates in CS and you expect co-workers as friends. You are young, and a perk filled job even with being on job even when you are off seems like fun, after all you are doing what you dreamed of.
I wanted to be a programmer since I was 9 years old, and after I was done school and working full time, work was my life. I'd often work from 7 am until 11 pm, and I would hang out with co-workers off hours too. Although my co-workers and I had diverse conversations, the subject easily slid into work related matters, so it seemed I never really escaped the topic of tech very often. We didn't have Google level perks, but I was having a great time, making pre-dot-com-crash cash and had almost no time to spend it.
The crash happened. I was now 30, work was my life, and "real life" was slipping by me. I had grown apart from "non-work friends", relationship with my family, and my love life suffered too. I felt like I was one dimensional, because work had taken up almost every moment of my waking life, the other interests I once had, were sitting on the shelf. I hadn't seen a live band, gone to the theatre, spent the afternoon in an art gallery, instead I was working or talking about work. Being out of work for a year gave me time to think. I remembered how much I enjoyed so many things other than IT - and took up hobbies, contacted old friends, and found a new boyfriend and by the time I found a full time job again I knew I did not want to work for any company who was offering too many perks because I knew from experience that if they give you too many perks they expect too many hours back from you.
I now separate. I show up for work at 9am and leave at 5pm. My current job does not expect constant overtime (maybe once or twice a year) and in an emergency I will check my email or VPN in - but that too is rare. My co-workers are in their 30's and 40's so they have lives too. I see them during work hours only and although I like them and enjoy working with them, they are co-workers, not friends.
I see my real friends after work and on weekends, and instead of talking about technology, we talk about independent film, politics, art, music, theatre and just about everything but computers. I don't talk about work to my friends except when I have had a busy day, I let them know it was hectic and I'd love to go out for a beer to forget it.
Despite less money and no perks, I enjoy my job just as much as my pre-dot-com-crash job, and I have a very interesting life outside of work. Both sides are fulfilling, and I now prefer both sides separate.
I think my experience is not uncommon. Started off as an integrator - energy and enthusiasm high. Through exposure to cultural stupidity and repeated banging against said stupidity's wall, I've become much more the segmentor - the quality of my life was not improving by giving my all to the company.
...if you on the one side have the person that forgets work the moment he walks out the door, I'm not him. ...if you on the other have the person that is half-way at work / on call 24/7, I'm not him either.
I don't have a problem mixing the two during a regular day, but I have a very clearly defined opinion of what's work and what's personal time. I can usually be flexible with working hours but I take equal time off from my regular working hours. When I'm at home I'm not in any way on call or check my email, but if my head is spinning with a work problem I might as well work on it proper. The point is that I integrate it on my terms, not my employer's. If I don't want to work overtime, I don't (unless they say I have to, in which case they have to pay me extra). I like the flexibility, but I certainly don't want it to blend and become one big mix.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I asked the boss if that makes is integrators, he replied we are more like "slackors."
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
Possibly you don't need that job. This heads into Pointy territory, where there are always things to squeeze in.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Why just two choices? Seems a bit arbitrary, not to mention limiting. What about people who choose not to have a life outside of work? Those people aren't integrators because they have nothing to integrate. Does this mean that anyone who keeps to the '40 hours of work for 40 hours of pay' ideal is a 'segmentor'? This smacks of managment speak and PHBs.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
(Don't mod me down unless you know D&C.
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
I'm a PhD student, there is no difference between home and work. I do my research mostly because I enjoy it. It sure as hell isn't for the stipend I get each month. Getting a real job would be easy, and I could be making a boatload of money in no time, but is that what I want? I'd rather take less pay and do something I enjoy than get paid a ton for something I'd want to forget about the second I get home.
I imagine the reason people see google as having lots of the "integrators" is that many of their workers are research-oriented. With the number of PhDs working there, it's not really surprising. These are people who are working on their research projects and likely enjoy doing their research and feeling like they make a difference etc. We're not talking about the rest of the world.
Phil
Actually, there are 10 kinds of workers: those who can understand binary, and those who can't.
Not Live to work.
...is (or, at least, has been) that I don't have clear boundaries between work and non-work. It makes me feel burnt out, hurts my relationships, and actually makes me less productive.
When I'm at home, I'm almost always on my PowerBook. The problem is that it's the same PowerBook I'm almost always on at work.
There's no real difference between being at work or at home, other than my surroundings. From either place, I can write code, run simulations, writeup documentation, or even talk with my coworkers online.
When I'm physically at work, I feel justified in screwing around, working on personal stuff, and even posting on /.
I've clocked myself and found that, not including time spent thinking about work, I 'work' something like 60-80 hours per week, even though I'm only paid for 40.
Recently, I've been working on building a division between work and home (given that I'm posting this from work, you might gather that's not going entirely well).
The funny thing is that, as I've made the effort to work less at home, I've found that I actually work more at work. My hours spent on 'work' have gone down, but my productivity has somehow increased. I also don't have the feeling that I'm constantly swamped and in dire need of a vacation.
I'm not saying that I'm representative. Maybe most 'integrators' are better able to balance their lives. Then again, I used to think that I could do just that.
No actually many companies offer such perks (I work for one that does), but google being the media darling that it is just gets all the press about it, maybe it is due to a lack of anything else to say about them. BTW when google has it's big layoff, and it will, what are all these people who's life revolve around google going to do?
Work has my balls for 8 hours (sometimes more) a day. I love what I do and sometimes I allow work to spill over into my non-work life. It's not that I prefer it segmented or integrated, but that I can say "Yes" or "No" and no one can say sh*t about it. It's my option and I reserve the right to change my mind whenever I want.
Lots of comments here that *almost* make sense.
Huge swaths of people around me have their jobs on their minds, because they have to cut their finances really tight. When someone else skips a day, they are glad to get the "Extra hours".
Scores of personal advice books advocate "be willing to work whatever is necessary to make it in today's world...". I've generally found this to be true. The only compromises I negotiate are to try to encourage the senior team from crash scheduling stuff in the 12th hour of a day - for me that really does lead to fatigue errors. I usually offer to have it by the next morning, or even better, over the weekend.
I find work has rhythmic cycles, and I'd far prefer to work on the weekend than have to smash 6 hours of work into time that simply isn't there the following Tuesday.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
...is surrounded by an event horizon.
rj
>Stupid Americans with your self-inflicted workaholicism. Don't
:)
>blame google when its all in your own mind.
Huh?
I think you mean "stupid [whoever actually buys this stuff]".
Me, I'm an American, I work 40 hours a week, *and* I have perks.
Boy, am I stupid
...those who divide groups of people into two kinds, and those who don't.
Let me tell you (and this is true), I did an internship at Google (not in MV though), and I found a lot of the employees there to be some of the most arrogant and pedantic people I have worked with in my life. This includes other areas out of engineering. Also, I wasn't impressed at all by the performance. They seemed to spend a lot of their time interviewing and later making fun of candidates, which I always though was not aceptable. Overall, working for several months at Google was probably the worst experience of my (quite long) professional career.
So anyway, bear in mind that being contacted by Google HR doesn't mean much in terms of getting hired. And also, don't believe much from them. I was told things that later were not true (like the 20%, which doesn't exist in the site where I worked, or telecommute, which is not well seem at all).
I know some google engineers, and they are expected to work very long hours. There's nothing in writing that says you have to be there all day, but the pressure is there. Sure the rules say you only have to work eight hours and wear thirteen pieces of flair, but if you want to be a true Googlan you should voluntarily work until the last shuttle to Caltrain leaves, and voluntarily wear as many pieces of flair that will fit on your ultrawide suspenders.
Another "incentive" is even more subtle. You're told all day long by Slashdot and the tech media that you are a genius. You have to be a genius otherwise Google would never hire you. But you're not a genius, you're just the average software developer. So you have to prove to your boss that you're a genius. What you lack in the way of perceived intelligence you make up for through longer hours.
Because Google is concerned for your well being and health, you won't die of a heart attack by age thirty. But you will be single by age thirty (either divorced or never married).
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I don't get it. Corporations all say they want to provide the most value at the least cost. That's capitalism. Segmenters also want to provide the most work (value) for the least hours (cost). An integrator isn't a capitalist!
I actively force myself to be a segmentor; yet I'd rather work as an integrator. After four years in the professional world, I've found that the only projects worth working as an integrator are those of my own choosing. I've always forced myself to work as a segmentor because I've never been paid to work on a project that's really fun.
No, I will not work for your startup
It seems like that this Segmentor/Integretor nonsense is on one end, a time management issue for the employee. If you plan your day and are productive, instead of surfing, etc; there should be no need for your work tasks to intrude on your personal life. It also seems like people are allowing the prestige and false perks of Google to affect their personal life. People need to take a stand and set their limits, or else people will walk all over you. It's the same everywhere. Only have to work 8 hours but are expected to do 12, if you're not getting paid for it then that company's problem not yours. Weekends are not workends, insist on taking our time off; turn off the cell phone and Blackberry, and don't do business outside of the office. Stop and smell the roses for once! Your time is more precious than the company. The company should be of zero importance when it comes to your family, personal time, and personal growth. It's just a job, don't take it too seriously. What you do on your off-time is none of the company's business. Go out and enjoy yourself.
On the corporate end, Google is just another company and nothing more. I'm probably going to get modded. Perks are just perks. What's expected and what you are required to do are two completely separate things. Whatever they offer is at their expense, and shouldn't concern you in the least. It just looks like that Google is trying to get the most out of their employees before outsourcing to India, or moving its whole operation to Dubai. Even without the perks they wouldn't see beyond the $$$$. Just my 2 cents, Let the modding commence.
All it takes to create a new segmentor is for an integrator to get laid off (maybe a couple of times).
Have your ever seem an integrator after a layoff? They have a complete mental breakdown. I'm serious! That really teaches integrators about identifying themselves through their workplace.
Someday Google will have layoffs. It happened to every other "Excellent" company 20 years ago (just look at where the "In search of Excellence" companies are now, or the "Good to Great" companies.
All those Google integrators are going to be severely depressed after their layoff.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
...but all my bosses have been integrators. Try getting paid like you should as a segmentor with a boss that's a integrator. You just won't. Word to the wise.
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
Stock options are useless as the strike price is too high and the company is too big now. I mean, you gotta get paid, but it sounds a little to communist to me. Free lunches, playing at work, hanging out late at night at work. WTF? Go
get a life. Google is a cult.
FWIW, that should read widely read annual Fortune survey.
Google provides lots o perks, but they pay 20-30% below the norm.
If you want that 20% to be controlled by the company, so be it. We hear all the time how Americans don't like to save, and for average adult child, it seems to be true.
you're ten minutes late. 1337 as you are, it might be time to consider upgrading from aol dialup...
You may think you've seperated your work and your life, but if you have that's probably because you hate your work.
You think your work isn't part of your life, but in reality, you've just wasted 40 hours every week of your life. That's one-quarter of your life doing something you probably hate.
And don't give me crap about wanting to do tons of things. Heinlein may have said specialization is for insects, but when you look at things that have been around a long time, like biological organisms, you notice that the only cells that do general things are the stem cells. Generalization is for those who haven't decided their calling yet. For the stem cells of society.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I have found that "doing whatever is necessary to make it in today's world" leads to people expecting exactly that out of you. This translates to even more hours that you have to work with no increase in pay and, ironically, no real chance for advancement at the company because you're "too valuable" (read - too much of a sucker) to be moved out of your current position.
Of course, your milage may vary, but past experience has shown me that setting boundries and sticking to them puts you ahead more often than "doing whatever it takes" especially if you're salaried.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
... In some cases I integrate, in others I segment.
There have been jobs I've had where I slept at work and there have been jobs I've had where I left everyday at 5pm and not a second later.
A lot of what determines that is how I feel about my job, if I'm happy and feel the company appreciates me for my contributions, I'll integrate and give my all. If I'm unhappy and feel they're basically out to screw me and don't care about me then I segregate... I think most people are that way.
To answer the question above though, yes, most google employees would be integrators... but thats because integrators are made by having a good work place, segregators are made by having a bad work place. Previous experiences can also flavor that quite a bit, if you keep getting screwed at work why give them more than the minimum if they seem like every other job?
Shadus
Knowledge@wharton says that there are two types of management consultants: those that make up arbitrary catagories and simplify reality in order to box things up in neat charts, and ... oh. There is only one type of management consultant.
If you're working on the weekend so that you can do other work tuesday, it is like you are competing in a pie eating contest where the prize is more pie.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Those who get laid and those who don't. Those who work constantly and put in tons of hours do so because they can't get laid. Those that get laid don't work all the time and have a life because they are getting laid.
My theory,
Employment is to survive in life.
Entrepreneurship is to succeed in life.
Slashdot = Sarcasm
My hive is the best. It makes the best honey and is closest to the best flowers. I am a good worker bee.
By the way, Thoughtworks allows half a day a week for your own open source project.
I can confirm that Google inside has similarities with a cult. They call it the "Google culture" and includes a dressing code, a vocabulary and a scary submission to the company policies and practises. It is extremely rare to hear an employee complaining about anything at all, even in cases where people should stand up against big fuck-ups (some "googler" reading this will remember the payroll meltdown last year, where thousands of people were not paid and the payroll manager resigned). No one complained about anything. Actually, if someone is not prepared for it, knowing Google can be quite shocking. And of course and fortunately a lot of people just don't adhere to the "culture" and just don't care about Google.
Likewise, if you are an integrator, then don't be a wage slave. If you do you just screw yourself down for no gain to anyone. You need to be a segmentor to leave all the office shit behind you.
Personally, I'm both. I work 9-5 in regular employment and I also do moonlighting. I have a 9-5 segmentor relationship with my employer and evenings, early mornings and weekends integrator lifedyle for moonlighting. This has worked for me for over 20 years.
If you can't get all your regular work done between 9 to 5, then you're just trying to compensate for some screw up (bad management or perhaps poor skills) and giving them extra time for nothing. If you really want to spend extra time being a geek, then do something different and maybe make a buck or two too. Apart from making money, this builds your skill base which means you benefit and quite likely your regular emplyer will benefit too.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Mileage varies heavily, and at the moment, I'm doing well enough. This depends so heavily on individual company politics. I've mis-judged a couple times and found myself "alone with my boundaries" a couple times.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Same mistake as the last poster.
"Self Esteem" is a lot easier to negotiate into when you have a 2-year cushion of savings, rather than living week-to-week. I've seen my share of ugly times. My hard work is paying off for now.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
If you really like eating pie, what's wrong with doing that?
Howdy All,
I'd call myself an integrator - I certainly don't have any clear work - life boundary either way. I have no hesitation to interrupt work to attend to life (mostly family but also interests) and attend to work at all hours of the day and on weekends.
Pros: I feel like my life is very flexible, so I can be where I need to be and do what I most need to do at most times (e.g. help out with the family in the mornings and evenings), not miss being a part of our children's lives.
Cons: It's hectic, I never really know if I am doing too much work or not enough, many things are always happening at once, and it is difficult (but not impossible) to get good stretches of uninterrupted time.
If I was working entirely for myself (I'm only partially at the moment) then I would have less concerns (about being exploited or exploiting). I do mostly work on stuff I am interested in working on anyways, so its not like it is mundane work (that one would want to leave behind).
I find it a difficult question (integrator or segmentor) because I think segmentors must also be losing something as well (e.g. going to work at 8am and returning at 5pm just before the kids go to bed and so missing school events, after school events ).
Interesting discussion.
Cheers,
Ashley.