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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.
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.
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
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
Sorry, but all those perks are designed to do is get people to stay in the office. Personally, I do my best thinking when I'm standing in the shower. Getting *away* from the office is the key to coming up with novel solutions, IMHO. Otherwise, one tends to get locked into a certain mode of thinking... change of setting can alleviate this.
Meanwhile, a proper balance between work and personal life ensures that you don't burn yourself out or get exhausted with what you're doing. After all, people can't work 24/7 and remain creative. The mind really does need rest.
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!
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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)
I bring virtually none of my personal life to work, save for the occasional call I take from my mother, and even then it's on a personal cell and kept to a minimum. No family member or friend has my desk or cell number (and the desk number is printed incorrectly in the directory, something I've not corrected in three years, so they wouldn't be able to call and discover it), nor my e-mail address. A couple of them have seen the physical location where I work because I've pointed it out driving by, but I doubt they remember where it is. At work, only HR and my direct manager have my home numbers. I have no photos or personal documents at work aside from certification information on the wall (the latter only because it quiets a few particular people), nor do I keep personal files on any system. If I were to walk in and find out that I no longer had a job, I would be able to put down my work cell and my badge, pick up my keys and personal cell, take down the certs and put them under my arm, and walk out the door holding everything that is mine.
On top of all of that, personal time is mine. When I walk out the door, I'm on my time. At lunch, I do what I please -- which is usually eating a small lunch and taking a 15-minute nap in the car. I answer e-mails only if a response is urgently needed, and the general culture is to never call someone once they've left the building unless it's critical, and there's an unspoken agreement that if someone is in the break room or a particular area outside, they don't get bothered unless it's critical, so I have few concerns about that.
I am not antisocial, and get along well with everyone at work, having lunch with one or more of them once or twice a week. Some people bring in all manner of decorations for their cubicles, with photos and even the odd painting. I wallpaper mine with functional security posters and TCP/IP diagrams. It's simply a choice of where to draw the line, and how heavily it is drawn.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
There are two kinds of workplace analysts- segmentors and integrators:
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
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".
I'm not paid to share my personal life with people who have no right to know what I do on my own time, and who will take any advantage they can. ... The trick is just to shut up, and not bare your soul to would-be attackers.
I read your last two posts on this topic and I see a lot of fear and defensiveness, but absolutely no JOY. What's the point? You say your job is a means to an end, but it's also probably one half of your waking weekday hours!
Add in the time you might spend decompressing, venting, preparing, and discussing your job dissatisfaction at home, with friends, on on forums like this... and there's the proof that you HAVE integrated your job into your personal life. But in a negative way. This adds up. So in the "end", is it worth it?
It is NOT normal to fear your all your fellow workers as "would-be attackers" and be forced to behave as a "vanilla" or "bland" person who is not really you. If you condition yourself to behave like someone else for 7.5 hours per day, you WILL be changed by it in all your off-work time.
Why not? It already happens!!
I've heard it more than a few time "Hey, I need to leave a little early, Sally has a fever at school" or some excuse like that from people with kids. Nobody seems to bat an eye at crap like that. But, can I ever leave for something inane like "Hey, I need to leave..take my dog to the groomers" or something. No..that is frowned upon. People with kids constantly take off or come in late or leave early for some kid reason....and it is ok, the single and/or childless worker is naturally expected to pick up the slack.
So..what's wrong with having it the other way around for a bit to balance things out?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?