OK, OK, you can put your hand down. I'm not a Google recruiter. But, while I have your attention, let me ask you a question: WHY you want to work for Google?
Specifically for Google?
- What a silly question! For the money, of course.
Before we proceed, let me make myself clear: I believe that
all work is paid slavery. The only freedom you're entitled to is to whose whip you're going to submit yourself. You know, there's a reason the money you get for working is called "compensation". They
compensate you for the time you work instead of browsing LOLcats on the internet, masturbating, or whatever non-productive thing there is you would actually
like doing.
Anyways, let's consider that compensation. You see, Google is no much better
than other top-tiers in the IT industry (let alone other industries, we're
talking IT now). According to my highly unscientific research, their
average salary is on-par with Apple, Facebook, or eBay. And average
salaries are misleading, because the top salaries are usually
uncapped - and there's too much variability there amongst companies.
The starting salary is what you're more likely to see, and that's not
so impressive - eBay's is higher.
But
no geek starts cumming over the possibility of working for eBay.
- Yes, but what about the working environment?
The perfect working environment for me is lying on a beach, beer in hand,
under the shadow of some palm tree, doing
exactly nothing, while a
fairy softly scratches my balls. And no mosquitos, thank you. (what do you
mean "
there are no fairies"? It's
my fantasy, if I want fairies in it, they
do exist. End of argument).
Everything less than that, is a compromise. Let's see how good a compromise
it is. Instead of the beach, beer, pear tree and fairy, Google gives
you this :
Doesn't seem like a fair compromise, does it?
That is, unless you're a geek.
- OK, but, Google is GOOD! You know? "We do no evil"? Don't you want to be a
PART of it?
They're not good. They're not bad either, though. Basically, they're a
company - companies don't have feelings or ethics, people do. And
as far as companies can be rated with ethical measures, want to know what
counts as bad on
my list? Offering your help and money to organize a coup to
overthrow the democratically elected Chile government. ITT actually did that
in the '70s.
That's bad.
Whatever Microsoft or Google does, is just peanuts compared to that.
Unless you're a geek. With geek-oriented predispositions and geekly
aspirations, neck-down buried in the geek subculture that Google strives
to adhere to. And this is part of their terrific, clever PR strategy of selling themselves to geeks.
- But you know, you've got to work on all these COOL projects there, like
the self-driving car or the VR glasses.
Oh, yes, you're really going to.
When data mining started being geek-cool?
Of course when Google made it so. Of all the things that google makes money of,
you surely are going to work for the projects that don't.
Because you're so
terrific, they love you. Yes, they'll spare all the boring and un-exciting
things
any serious, production-level job consists of (like actually
user-testing 41 shades of
fucking blue), just to let you play with the
geek-appealing things.
Yes, I'm talking about the "geek appeal" thing. Which is not so much
appreciating the geeks themselves, as appreciating
whichever subculture
norms the geeks are used to identify with - and they get the largest and
most discounted piece of employee ass
ever served to an employer for doing
just this.
They manipulate the entire potential employee pool to their own advantage, and the
geeks still can't grasp the trick! Cornelius Castoriades ought to resurrect himself,
kneel down and blow them a bunch of jobs, just for the feat of them having achieved this!
Who else would have the balls to do that, besides Google?
- But... What about THE CHICKS?
...sorry... which chicks?
- ALL these chicks who'll come running with their underwear wet, upon
learning I'm working for Google!
OK. That's a noble reason, actually. Go for it.
- You're just jealous you aren't working for Google, aren't you?
No. What I'm actually jealous of, is the guy in the beach. The one with the fairy.
- So, all this rant is just to tell us you hate Google?
I'm not hating them. I actually admire them. I admire their engineering,
their products, their services, their strive for excellency, their stance
on public IT policy - everything.
But what I value more than this, is the individual's freedom to choose a
career, without the illusions of whatever sub-culture norms he has
compelled to give value to, either through peer-pressure or just by the dire need for geek
conformity.
And now, consider, for the sake of the argument, that while you're proudly
working for them, they decide - for whichever reason - to fuck you over.
How longer would you choose to stand this - compared to any other job -
just for having the privilege to still work for Google?
That's exactly the price tag you have
already put in your freedom. For a neatly colored bicycle.
And this is no fault of Google. It's just another fault of us, the geeks.
