Nokia-Siemens officials held a pie-eating contest for workers in the company cafeteria. Saurab Sabharwal started choking and ran to the bathroom. No one thought to follow him. A coworker found him dead an hour later. His father is now asking why medical personnel weren't on hand; doctors in India question whether such contests should be held at all. The point of such contests is to spur competition between employees, in a culture which fosters cooperation. That one proved deadly is perhaps the best lesson about American culture, if not the one the bosses intended.

(Image via Machias Wild Blueberry Festival)

"Every day, you need to create a to-do list," Rose told Kendall. "You put the items you need to do on the list, and you need to review the list with me every day. As you do them, you need to cross them off." Kendall's retort, which he delivered not to Rose but to friends within and without Facebook: "No shit Sherlock, I didn't get to where I am today without knowing how to manage a to-do list!" What's odd about this rumor: Rose doesn't have a reputation as a micromanager, and the two both worked at Amazon.com before joining Facebook. They put on a convincing buddy act for the New York Times recently, too. Anyone care to play Encyclopedia Brown and help piece together this puzzle? My only conclusion: The best algorithms can't predict what will break a friendship.

(Photo by Chris Pan)

Bad managers are everywhere in corporate America. But Google's supposed to be different — a new model of management, driven from the bottom up, where ideas, not rank or hierarchy, are what matter.

Ramsey Allington never got that memo, according to his employees. Google's famous for its 360-degree reviews, where ratings from underlings matter as much as bosses. But Allington's employees say they were never asked to review him until very recently this year — and the negative results of that lone review process were ignored.

His job was not easy. Online sales and operations, the area in which Allington worked, was famously called a "toilet" by top Google executive Shona Brown when Sheryl Sandberg, now Facebook's COO, ran it. Sandberg, Brown suggested, flushed people through the system. Eager young graduates from top schools who wanted to add Google to their resume signed up to answer email and field phone calls, in the hopes that they'd be able to transfer to other departments. Allington's job, more or less, was to keep them down on the farm, doing customer support.

But Allington went too far, his employees say, in blocking their efforts to move up or transfer within Google. He may even have broken the law: He's said to have demoted one woman after a pregnancy leave, moving her from an account-management job into an entry-level position answering email — an allegation which may be a violation of the Family Medical Leave Act, which generally requires that employees who take leave be allowed to return to their same job.

Several employees under Allington have taken medical leave for stress because of the hostile work environment they say he has created. They also say he demonstrated a pattern of retaliating against employees for expressing their concerns about the workplace, punishing them in employment reviews as showing a negative attitude.

Allington is what they call an "IPO lottery winner"; he joined Google in 2002, two years before it went public, allowing him to make a tidy profit on stock options. Though he only holds the title of manager, he's well-connected in the company. He's said to have the favor of top executive Jonathan Rosenberg — who's something of a tyrant himself. Allington is also married to Shaluinn Fullove, a high-profile Googler recently written up in Fortune.

Connections in the tight-knit Googleplex may well have let him escape scrutiny for years. He was close friends with his immediate supervisor, Laura DeBonis. By the time his employees raised concerns about Allington with her, DeBonis had a foot out the door; she left in early 2008. Her replacement, Doug Cook, responded to the complaints by ordering, for the first time, reviews from Allington's employees — but ended up backing him.

Employees finally complained to David Fischer, the online sales and operation executive who oversees Book Search, who started a formal investigation. Turnover in HR slowed the process. One HR staffer told an employee that Google's human-resources department was ill-equipped to deal with complaints of discrimination because it was "such a young department."

Google recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.

But it's understandable that Google's management is ill equipped to deal with bad Googlers. People at the Googleplex take it as a matter of faith that their coworkers and superiors share the company's "Don't be evil" values; if you're a Googler, you're good by definition. There are processes in place that, in theory, route around dysfunctional managers like Allington. In practice, those processes are easy to game.

And why not game them? Those in the tight-knit coterie of IPO lottery winners, like Allington, have convinced themselves not just of its goodness, but of its superiority; Googlers who joined the company too late to make a fortune must just not be as smart as them. Their bank accounts prove it. Why not discriminate against them? the market already has.

At any well-run company, Allington would have been long gone, I believe. But the question isn't whether Allington should have been fired for sexual discrimination. It's how many Ramsey Allingtons there are at the Googleplex. And how long it will take us to find them.

Off The Grid's closure is the harbinger of more cuts, a source within Google's kitchens we've nicknamed "Deep Fried" tells us. The building, 2350 Bayshore, is also having its "micro kitchen" snack stations closed. A large number of workers in the building were contractors, Deep Fried says, some of whom are losing their temporary jobs at Google. The closure also leaves a large area of Google's campus without breakfast service.

Food is just one area where Google is slashing costs; under recently hired CFO Patrick Pichette, Google has been having a series of meetings about eliminating expenses, and Googlers have been implementing the cuts with the same slapdash speed with which it rolls out new websites.

Google executives gave food-service operator Bon Appétit sharp budget cuts this year, which has only worsened the already troubled relationship between the companies. Google eliminated dinner at one café earlier this year. But the closure of Off The Grid was sudden, coming after a meeting between Bon Appétit executives and Derek Rupp, the café's executive chef, Deep Fried writes:

The whole staff came into the cafe and sat before the corporate panel and we were told OTG would close, effective immediately. Bombshell. They had their menus for the week planned out, their pantries were fully stocked, everyone working at full tilt, and suddenly they were told it was all over. Nobody expected it. Derek was stunned - OTG was his baby. Some were crying. They were assured from corporate that if an alternative position could not be obtained within the Google account then Bon Apetit would move them to a nearby account. Oh and by the way some may be let go. If so, two weeks' paid severance.

Google has, to Deep Fried's knowledge, never closed a café on its main campus before. The food cuts could be a harbinger to further cost-cutting; Deep Fried has heard that the building might be put up for sublease. To date, Google has aggressively sought to expand its office space in Mountain View; a sublet, too, would be an all but unprecedented retrenchment.

Other cuts are being made throughout Google. Glacéau SmartWater, once commonly stocked in Googleplex fridges, is gone, though that removal was spun as an environmental move to drop bottled drinks. Deep Fried observes:

I think we are doing a good job of keeping this from the Googlers. But should it really be kept from them? Shouldn't they know the real reason we don't have SmartWater is because we don't have the money for it? Shouldn't they know that even a powerhouse like Google is being hit? Maybe they would complain less.

Sunnily optimistic Googlers, convinced of their ability to better the world, complaining? Google has lost more than just a café. It has lost a bit of its innocence.

(Photo by Jatbar.com)

Back in the conference room, the morning meeting winds down, and attention drifts to the window of an adjoining office. On the other side, another Flickr employee smiles politely through the glass. Then he turns his back to us and lowers his pants to his ankles. It's a full and excellent moon, and our room delivers a restrained golf clap.

Had that happened in Yahoo's more restrained Sunnyvale headquarters, I'd bet a pink slip would have been delivered instead. Colin doesn't tell readers who it was, leaving us to guess. Review Flickr's staff list, and place your bets in the comments.

Hello everyone,

There has been a lot of concern and debate on campus about abuse of the guest privilege in the cafes.  We wanted to take the opportunity to review our guest policies and ask for your help in enforcing them.

1 - Every Google employee and intern in Mountain View is allowed two meals per month in our cafes for personal guests. 

We understand that there may be an occasional month when you have special visitors in town and you exceed two personal guests (4 family members visiting from Omaha?) but we trust you not to exceed more than an average of 2 personal guests per month. 

2 - After reviewing the number of guests on campus each day, we have decided to limit the privilege of bringing personal guests on campus to part- and full-time employees and interns only. 

We know that this will be disappointing to our temps, vendors and contractors, but we feel that it is a necessary step to alleviate the over-crowding and congestion on campus.

3 - Everyone is responsible for signing in guests (business or personal) at lobby reception and all guests are required to wear visitor badges visibly while on campus. 

This holds true for lunch and dinner.  Much of the abuse of the guest meal privilege in Mountain View is occurring at dinner time.  To help us maintain security, please refrain from bringing guests on campus on weekends and late evenings. 

4 - Prepared meals in containers are provided at dinner time for people who are working late on campus. 

We know that there has been a lack of clarity about this, but the intention of this meal service is not for people to grab meals "to go" on their way out the door, or to "stock up" on multiple meals.

5 - Anyone bringing a group of business guests to a cafe for lunch should bring them after 1 pm to avoid our peak lunch hour.

To help us to monitor and enforce these guest policies, we will be adding a simple step to the process of signing in guests on campus beginning later this year.  When visitors sign in at reception, they will be asked to identify themselves as a personal or business guest, and to indicate whether they are having a meal in one of our cafes.  If they are, the word "MEAL" will appear on their visitor badge. 

Our on-site meals are intended to foster community building among employees.  We want there to be enough room in our cafes for employees and teams to enjoy meals together.  Abuse of the guest privilege creates over-crowding and congestion, at great expense to the company.  This is an incredible perk that we benefit from each day.  Please do your part to use this privilege appropriately and honestly.

Many thanks,

Laszlo

(Photo by blmurch)

These are people that have worked in the industry and the company for years, and will now have to log our lunch hours and time spent in meetings.

A Microsoft flack issued a nondenial when we reached the company, only saying: "We are not commenting on rumors or speculation about the 100 employees who were allegedly switched from salary to hourly wages." Which is funny, because in the same email, the flack was happy to comment on "rumors or speculation" regarding the nondeparture of MSN executive producer Jeff Dossett. (Photo by »Philo)

Facebook will not make you rich.
On a job board for University candidates, Facebook says its hiring engineers, product managers and customer service reps. That means unless you're an engineer or you've started your own business during school, Facebook probably plans to hire you into customer service. Its where the company needs bodies as it staffs its ad sales operations and grows its user base. It's also the area Facebook COO and former Googler Sheryl Sandberg knows best. Working Facebook customer service will not make you rich. The job only pays $18.75 per hour.

You are not going to change the world.
At some point during the interview process, Velencia and Facebook HR will expect you to say that one reason you want to work for the company is that like Mark Zuckerberg, you want to change the world by connecting people. It's fine to say this in order to get the job. Just don't believe it. If you want to change the world go work for Teach for America.

You will not be technically challenged. Code will not iterate quickly.
I interviewed then Facebook CTO Adam D'Angelo in 2006 and I asked him what he liked most about working there. He said he loved how fast the company moved, pushing new code and making changes to the site. D'Angelo is gone from Facebook now and soon, so will that ethos. The site redesign that's users are just now moving to in September? It was supposed to launch in April.

Minion work at Facebook will be like minion work at Google — awful. Though it could turn you into a champion political in-fighter, which is a crucial talent for a career in tech.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg built Google's customer service operation. She will try to replicate it Facebook. Here is how one Google employee described her division:

I'm surprised that you guys don't shed more light on this, but AdWorders only make $45,000 base plus meager bonuses that are only a few hundred per quarter. It's the worst department because everyone hates their job "Hello, this is AdWords, how may I help you?" The dreaded phone shift, chat shifts, answering emails is the core job. They don't tell you that when recruiting and hiring kids from elite universities.

Managers that started as entry level and 'made it' to manager level are extremely paranoid and neurotic because they only have measly community college bachelor degrees and feel threatened (and rightfully so) by the new hire managers that are straight out of Harvard, Northwestern, INSEAD & Stanford MBA Programs. Yet they can't get the boot because they're well-connected and the people who suffer from their poor management are lower on the totem pole and could never risk the backlash that would undoubtedly result.

I know of one manager who everyone hated, yet nothing ever happened to her. Instead, her direct reports just prayed that they'd get to switch managers within the quarter. Her name is Tracy-Lee Blumberg. I know of at least 6 different employees who cried every single day that she was their manager. THREE were male. And other bad managers include Heather Huffman and Stacy Brown-Philpot.

It really is a crazy system because everyone is cut throat and if you happen to land a good project or get an opportunity (to work on a coveted project or work from a remote international office) people really try to bring you down.

From: Gopalkrishnan , Hari (Technology)

Sent: Sun Sep 14 19:51:49 2008

Subject: Business Support for Monday

Team,

Given the recent press reports regarding Lehman, I wanted to communicate that we are counting on you to be at work on Monday and ready for business as usual. In fact, I ask that you take the extra time necessary to coordinate with your teams to conduct a "ready for business" check on all mission critical activities before the day begins. As I learn more, I will communicate with you.

Thanks as always for your commitment.

Regards

Hari

Wilkinson himself only considers the Googleplex redesign “partially successful.” The Times reports:

Many engineers and the company’s chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, were not happy with the shock of change, including orange and green carpets, glass workrooms with yurt-like tented fabric roofs to absorb reverberations and “clubhouses” with beanbag chairs for brainstorming that some employees just avoid. “The acoustics in the yurts made people woozy,” said a Google executive who asked to remain anonymous to protect his job. While neither Google nor Mr. Schmidt would comment, Mr. Schmidt, by many accounts, moved out of the building and his large glass office into a tiny but secluded space. “Tour groups and passersby were always rapping on his glass wall to say hi,” said the Google executive. “Eric felt it was unproductive.”

Undocumented workers chop vegetables and wash dishes throughout the food industry; why would Google's cafes be any different? The hypocrisy of America's immigration rules isn't the issue, though; it's the foolishness of Google's management.

Even if everybody does it, Google executives claim that it runs its business differently — and better. Claiming the moral high ground may prove harder now. Google's chief people officer, Laszlo Bock, has lobbied Congress vigorously to expand the number of H-1B visas the company gets. Getting caught with an undocumented nanny has torpedoed many political careers. The next time he appears in Washington, D.C., don't you think Bock will get pointed questions from self-righteously huffy Congressmen why he doesn't think American citizens are fit to serve his employees' meals?

Google, which has been feuding with Bon Appétit over the running of its kitchens for months, may be addressing the problem. "There are rampant rumors in all the kitchens that Guggenheim [sic] will be taking over the account come December," Deep Fried tells us — actually referring to Guckenheimer, a less highfalutin' food-service competitor to Bon Appétit. "Everyone is paranoid that when [Guckenheimer] comes in all the undocumented workers will get the can."

If that happens, who will serve Googlers the free meals they've become accustomed to? We suggest Larry, Sergey, and Eric don hairnets and gloves.

(Photo by midom)

Last year, when we aired the mildest speculation about Google cutting back on free food, commenters were outraged. Google has long milked its cafeterias for their publicity value; company executives have crowed about the company's resistance to recessions and its commitment to coddling its employees. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin even promised shareholders they'd add perks, rather than cut them.

In 2004, they wrote:

We provide many unusual benefits for our employees, including meals free of charge ... We are careful to consider the long term advantages to the company of these benefits. Expect us to add benefits rather than pare them down over time. We believe it is easy to be penny wise and pound foolish with respect to benefits that can save employees considerable time and improve their health and productivity.

What went wrong? For one, Google handed its restaurants over to an outside management company, Bon Appétit, which runs many Valley corporate cafeterias. The change did not go well, with Google and Bon Appétit constantly clashing — even over minor things, like whether kitchen workers could use Google's foosball tables. Star executive chefs like Nate Keller and Josef Desimone left. Desimone, who was recruited by Facebook, took many chefs with him.

The departures left Google's kitchens understaffed even as it undertook an expansion of its cafes to Alza Plaza, an office complex close to the Googleplex it acquired last year. Bon Appétit simply didn't have the staff to keep offering dinner, and Google didn't want to foot the bill to hire more.

Could this all stem from a change of heart by Google's formerly perk-crazy founders? Sergey Brin is said to have complained about employees' overweening sense of entitlement to "bottled water and M&Ms," a comment company flacks denied he made. Regardless of what Brin precisely said, it makes sense that he'd rethink his generosity. Brin has made his billions already. Spending to keep his employees motivated at startup levels won't pay off. Tightening the belt to keep profit margins high? That, and not free dinners, will preserve Brin's outlandish wealth.

The savings from cutting dinner, as well as some snacks, should be substantial. By one estimate, Google spends $7,500 a year on food per employee. But the phrase "per employee" is used loosely here. Employees often took their spouses and children out to dinner at the cafes, or wrapped up food to take home for the family — on shareholders' dime.

Fine, some Googlers abused the perk. Even then, consider the message Google is sending to employees: Go home and have dinner with your families. What will Thunder Parley, Google's self-appointed in-house food critic, say? This is a slashing of benefits Google executives can't sugarcoat.

(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images))

It's not the enthusiastic geeks they can't stand, it's the control freaks who ban iPhones and create 18-month projects for themselves that could be replaced by Google Docs. But oh, the hate: “Get out of the data center,” snaps the analyst. "Eat lunch with the regular people." I tried that once. The regular people got up and left.

The Microsoft stuff created a certain amount of anxiety. We're in a tight ad market and people are nervous in general and they're kind of assuming — speculating — that there's going to be some big change in strategy. As far as I know — and as far as I believe — there's nothing imminent. I think it's a matter of people getting too spun up, getting worried and leaking — it happens all the time at Yahoo.

"The company pays for a personal trainer and gym membership for everyone. A doctor calls round each Friday, after the weekly barbeque, to see if everyone’s in good health. Employees drift in an out at times that suit themselves." That's just one of the wide-eyed reactions to Valley work culture in a deleted blog post by Irish Sunday Times columnist Sarah Carey. Carey, who lives in the rural town of Enfield, briefly moved to Palo Alto and served as "strategist to the CEO" for Cuil's Irish-born founder Tom Costello. As her fellow journalists, we've protected Cahey's right to free speech by un-unpublishing her entire post below.

GUBU

An Irish woman’s social, political and domestic commentary
17.06.08
Life in the Valley

Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 5:10 pm

Note: one of the ones that I had to let a few days pass before I could post it as I didn’t really like parts of it - especially the end - it seemed twee. Jet lag is the excuse. Still, already a couple of people said they enjoyed and emailed me. So for the record..here it goes…

I have a secret life. You may know me as a domesticated, rural housewife and while this is true, for the past year I have also tasted the life of an international software executive.
Last summer an old friend from college rang me from Palo Alto in California. He was starting a software company and wanted me to do some work for him. I tried refusing but he wasn’t going to be put off. “How long does it take to write a column?” he demanded. “Er, a day,” I replied. “And what you are doing the rest of the time? The boys are in a crèche aren’t they?”
“Well, only part time,” I defended, “and I have the house to manage. And the garden. I’m really very busy.” “Yes, very busy Sarah.”
A contract arrived which informed me I had just been appointed as a “Strategist to the CEO” of a fledgling company. That means I help him plot stuff, as he says himself. Fortunately, this plotting requires my presence in sunny California from time to time and on each trip I am amazed at the number of other Irish technology people I meet on their way to “the Valley”.

Silicon Valley is the name given to the southern suburbs of San Francisco that run about 150 miles down to the quiet town of Almaden where IBM has its research centre. At its heart lies Stanford University in Palo Alto, surrounded by the offices of many of the world’s greatest technology companies. It’s the undisputed global capital of high-tech. How did this happen?

Everyone’s got a theory. Some say that the DNA of Californians is embedded with the adventurous spirit of the first settlers here - the ones who followed the Gold Rush. John Markoff, a New York Times journalist, has argued in his book What the Dormouse Said that the mind-expanding virtues of drugs helped too. In California in the 1960s, hippies + acid = flower power. PhD graduate hippies from Stanford + acid = modern-day computing. Stanford graduates such as Messrs Hewlett and Packard set up here in the 1950s and within twenty years Xerox were inventing many of the technologies we use in every day computing.

Throw in the Venture Capital industry and soon the Valley filled with enormously rich geeks.

Irish people pop up everywhere in this unlikely environment. On the flight out, engineers and middle-ranking executives sit at the back of the plane while up the front there are the likes of Niall O’Connor from Limerick, the chief information Officer of Apple.

Other leading lights are John Harnett, also from Limerick,at Palm; Tony Redmond the chief technology officer at Intel, Brian FitzGerald at Intuit and Conrad Burke of Innovalight, a solar-energy start-up. The Irish have a history of emigration but from the mid-1980’s we started to churn computer engineers instead of civil engineers out of our universities. That’s when we stopped building skyscrapers and tunnels and started building semi-conductors and cutting edge software.

With all those stock options, Silicon Valley is a rich place. I stay in a hotel in Palo Alto and walk around to the office each morning, slowly adjusting to the fact that I am supposed to smile and greet fellow pedestrians and joggers. The tree-lined streets are perfumed with flowers and weirdly quiet. They have so much space here that buildings are low rise, mostly only two-storey and the noise of their huge cars is lost into the atmosphere.

The serenity is catching – I become conscious of my foot fall. People speak quietly, even the children. It’s beautiful, but surreal. You can’t help wondering if all the loud, crazy people have been rounded up and shipped into San Francisco.

The signs of an ailing economy are evident though. When I pop over to the Stanford Shopping Centre, there’s hardly anyone there. Hardly any staff either.

Hilary Keane works for Enterprise Ireland in their Palo Alto office, helping Irish software start-ups work on their pitches to the venture capitalists. She lives in the city and commutes to the Valley each morning. She pays $75 a week now to fill her 2 litre car, the smallest she could buy when she moved out here. Before you didn’t notice the price and now you do.

The result is that like in Ireland people are getting cautious though due to the software billions, this part of the US is suffering least.

In our little company there are about 25 staff, over a dozen of whom have PhDs. Attracted to Stanford from all over the world, these are some of the smartest people on the planet. Lunch is ordered in every single day. Huge fridges burst with snacks and drinks. Bowls of strawberries and muffins lie around the rest area.

The company pays for a personal trainer and gym membership for everyone. A doctor calls round each Friday, after the weekly barbeque, to see if everyone’s in good health. Employees drift in an out at times that suit themselves.

When I observed this behaviour first I was appalled and took my CEO friend aside. This was disastrous! His company would never succeed if he wasted money like this and didn’t crack the whip. He laughed. This is the way it works out here. You have to be nice to people.

Well if that was the case, he could be nice to me. I wasn’t going to fly home in the back of the plane. I summoned up the audacity to ask for business class travel and was granted it without hesitation. Knowing the cost of the ticket was over €2000, which is about $5 million given the current exchange rate, I had to walk around for 15 minutes afterwards chanting “I’m worth it. I’m worth it. I’m worth it”.

But am I worth it? What on earth was I expected to do amongst these doctorates and luminaries. Within minutes of my arrival it all becomes clear. They may know something about computers, but I know a thing or two about people. All the fancy programming in the world won’t convince people to use their product and they need me to figure out how to tell people what they do. I am a devotee of the Internet and email but nothing can replace coming out here and looking them in the eye. When you’re in the same room as someone, one look can explain far more than a phone call or email.

Officially then my job is to develop a communications strategy which simply means working out how to talk to people.

I’ve got a PhD in talking alright, and I appear to have talked my way into the American Dream. For the moment it is still a dream though. Then I tap my shoes and wake up back in Enfield. I have the best of both worlds. Theirs is good, but I confess, I’m glad I live in this one.

McClain can’t just block streaming videos. Some Brunswick employees, the marketing department for example, have to watch the Olympics for work reasons. And blocking sites doesn’t fit with the company culture. Instead, she’s letting workers do whatever they want. But if the network becomes strained, a message will pop up on employees’ computers asking whether they’re watching the video for work-related reasons, and if not, could they please wait until off-peak hours.

The messages explain that Brunswick is trying to save money and McClain includes her phone number so that anyone who has a question can call for an explanation. And they don’t block the video — they just ask workers if they have to watch right now."

How low do things have to go before workers start treating their office like a public toilet? This low: A sign posted in a bathroom at Yahoo headquarters in Sunnyvale accuses employees of urinating in porcelain receptacles not meant for such output.

One Yahoo employee who photographed the sign and posted it to Flickr, Micah Laaker, blames corporate raider Carl Icahn "for allowing things to devolve so much that this is what execs, visitors, and employees now see in our corporate restrooms." Another, Zach Graves, posted the same sign to the Yahoo-owned photo-sharing site, but thinks it was just a "lame joke." Joke or not, the sign doesn't suggest Yahoos have much respect for their coworkers. (Photo by basictheory)

I think Google approached daycare the same way they did their in-house cafeterias — with an assumption, born of sheerest hubris, that an age-old business needed reinventing, and that the brains at Google could provide a value-add to a matter on which they really knew nothing at all.

What they forgot to consider: If you mess up a meal, you can throw it out and start over tomorrow. People take their children rather more seriously than their lunches.

That said, what Googlers are really upset about is not the outcome, but the process. The old Google culture was one where anyone's idea counted, and if you did the work and proved your point with numbers, you'd be listened to. Here, the process of gathering input seems to have been a farce, tacked on at the end for appearance's sake to a top-down decision.

Also ludicrous: Google is spending time and money on something it doesn't even advertise as a perk. Why is it in the childcare business again? It's not to attract talented employees; if anything, this "privilege" of spending too much money on needlessly luxurious childcare might drive employees away. So no one's well served: Not employees, not shareholders, and certainly not Google users.

This must seem utterly ludicrous to anyone not in the airtight bubble of Larry and Sergey's inner circle. In that rarefied atmosphere, "don't be evil" has become confused with "we can do no wrong."

Corporate Concierge - Mountain View

This position is located in Mountain View, CA
The Area: Human Resources - Benefits

Google employees have a wide variety of interests both inside and outside Google. We strive to design a unique benefits package that helps Googlers balance their busy lives and allows them to focus on the things they love to do. To that end, the Benefits group has developed a wide variety of comprehensive programs to meet the various needs of our diverse population. The programs we offer at our US headquarters include a world-class children's center, a wellness center with on-site physicians, four full-service fitness centers and massage services. We provide free gourmet food and self-service laundry plus access to many vendors who offer onsite services such as haircuts and car wash. All of these are offered are in addition to our top-tier health plans and a generous 401(k) matching program.
The Role: Corporate Concierge

As Corporate Concierge, you'll be responsible for fulfilling U.S. employees' personal requests and creating perks that make employees' lives easier in a fast-paced environment.
Responsibilities:

* Work closely with all levels of employees throughout the company and help coordinate personal services, including making restaurant reservations, ordering flowers, recommending places to dine
* Source and administer regional perk programs, including discount ticket programs and corporate partnerships
* Establish and maintain an online resource center for personal services such as event planning, housekeeping services, restaurant recommendations and spas
* Develop, design and negotiate creative personal support and entertainment offers
* Support other perk programs and events

Requirements:

* BA or BS degree
* Excellent customer-service experience
* Strong knowledge of the community, area and region
* Demonstrated professionalism, confidence, strong organizational skills, efficiency, initiative, resourcefulness and adaptability to change
* Highly trustworthy at all times and able to deal with confidential information
* Strong verbal and written communication skills
* Strong computer skills (knowledge of HTML and web design preferred)

I work for a fairly large ad network that competes with Google Adsense. A couple of days ago, a new employee was sportin' a Google shirt and I was a little upset. What's the protocol on this? People have brought in embroidered bags from the likes of eBay and Yahoo, which is understandable because the logos are smaller and bags have more utility than a t-shirt. We also have our own company shirts available. So what are the rules? Can you represent your previous companies and what if your previous company is a competitor?

The first rule is, wear something nicer than a t-shirt. A pressed, button-front shirt or blouse, for instance. Haven't had time to do laundry? Light sweaters over a wrinkled shirt have saved many a morning. In fact, keeping a light sweater at the office (along with a full change of clothes tucked in a drawer) can save many, many embarrassments, from inappropriate logos to coffee stains are a romp in the janitor's closet.

If you have to wear a t-shirt, be a team player. If you're going to wear a shirt from a previous employer, make sure it's not a direct competitor or a company with better pay and benefits — with turnover what it is in the Valley means managers are constantly on the lookout for disloyalty. Though if you actually have a job offer from the competition, feel free to play it up for a raise.

Other acceptable options would be companies that have tanked, startups you know are hot but your boss hasn't heard of (as long as they aren't challenging your business), something from Threadless, an independent local artist or designer or a concert souvenir from either a new and hot or ironically old band. That is, if it were acceptable to wear a t-shirt to work.

• PMs spend more time writing Power Point Slides (PPT) then writing PRDs
• It take 10 meetings to agree on something and eventually, the project got scrap or delayed for another 10 weeks
• When an engineer leave the company, the company hire a clueless director.
• The folks in Burbank has no clue about banner advertising and they are managing new products for graphical advertising
• Only 20% of the Yahoo! staff actually work and the rest just WFH and less than 5 hours per day
• When you ask someone to fix or do something, common answer is “Talk to my manager first”
• When you have new project, all managers ask for headcount when they have idle folks doing nothing
• Yahoos only want to work to get recognition and not to get things done or fix anything.
• Everyone only want to work on projects that has top management and executive visibility
• Everyone care for themselves and not for the good of the company as it used to be in 2000

I have heard grumblings of a hiring freeze at Google. Apparently the service staff haven't been able to bring on new people and an external company has been "auditing" the company since february. (read: efficiency experts and axe sharpening) While not bringing on new service people might not raise much an alarm, there also seems to be a significant cut in engineering recruiting with qualified candidates not even getting a phone interview.

We're pretty sure that Google is still aggressively courting top talent, and with unemployment up that means they can be even pickier about granting interviews. Don't lash out at Google just because they don't pick up the phone — after all, a 3.49 undergraduate GPA doesn't get you a callback to take care of Googler spawn.

The newcomer's name is Eran Hammer-Lahav and, despite what they say about the fervor of new converts, even he's not very optimistic about Yahoo's state. He told Silicon Alley Insider: "Without the plan, I would not have joined Yahoo -– a move that would have been extremely risky, like say, running into a burning building."(Photo by Petteri Sulonen)

In the Bill Gates Microsoft you got promoted based on technical knowledge. Since ~2003/2004 when Bill really ceded to Steve, then you pretty much had to have marketing knowledge and AT LEAST an MBA. It actually makes people quite mad. There are a lot of people who deserve promotions, but won't get them until they have MBAs. Most of Microsoft software is split into three sections. Test, Dev, Management. Test and Dev tracts hit a wall eventually, there are no test or dev VPs. You can be a technical fellow if you are a dev, but not test.

(Photo by likeyesterday)

What we hear from Googlers is that supervisors are cracking down on use of 20 percent time when employees' main projects are behind schedule. A sensible management move, but against the spirit of 20 percent time, which was meant to liberate creative employees from meddling middle management.

As well, Googlers are finding it harder to get their side projects approved. A mess of side projects — Google This, Google That, Google Whatever — launched and then ignored by users, led Google to tighten up the criteria for what Googlers can work on.

The end result: Ideas like Gmail Labs. Googlers can innovate, but only in tiny sandboxes; on core products, not on big new ideas. Only Larry and Sergey, and their favored minions, get to dream big dreams about overturning the telecom industry or revolutionizing the world's energy infrastructure, or whatever the founders' power-mad geek fantasies are this week.

Which means Google is increasingly just another company. And 20 percent time? A dressed-up version of the office suggestion box.