Internal Microsoft Email about Life at Google

An anonymous reader wrote in to give us "An interesting perspective on Google, from an internal email sent around Microsoft. Basically an interview that provides analysis about how Google compares to Microsoft from an employee perspective. Included are suggestions for what Microsoft might copy in order to stay competitive in the job market and criticisms of Google's "college kid" atmosphere."

isn't this normal?

"These kids don't have a life yet so they spend all of their time at work."

"People are generally in the building between 10am and about 6pm every day, but nearly everyone is on e-mail 24/7 and most people spend most of their evenings working from home."

Wow - I dunno about the rest of the world, but for our company that's the norm and we're all in our 30s/40s working for a marketing company :)

Re:isn't this normal?

I just like the combination of "they spend all their time at work" and "generally in the building between 10am and 6pm." Isn't that eight hours per day right there? Then there's the part about how it changes as the employees get older, but he doesn't exactly give a shining example of that supposed change.

Re:isn't this normal?

*shrug* If they get to count time spent in the cafeteria as "time at work," they're getting a better deal that I ever have. Not to mention the excellent meal prices.

Re:isn't this normal?

With the exception of the 'almost always work at home' (doesn't happen a lot) and the hours (they vary according to individual's preference), sounds like here, too.

I have no problem with keeping an eye on email every time I walk by my computer, and responding or fixing a problem or 2 here and there. It keeps Everyone (including my co-workers) happy, and generally doesn't cost me much. There's only been a few times when I had to put something fairly important (to me) away, and almost never that I had to stop something -very- important. (Usually someone else will step in and do it, instead.)

One of my co-workers DOES spend a ton of time at home working, and I kick myself for lack of work ethic whenever I realize he's spent time working at home. I then realize that I already over-work anyhow, so no biggie.

I think a lot of the people that complain about these working conditions have never actually experienced them. I've been in the cube farm of a major OEM and a major telecommunications company, and I've done retails in different stores, and I -far- prefer to work a little harder here and know the people around me are doing the same, for the good of ourselves and the company. It's a completely different feeling and I don't ever think, 'Man, if I have to deal with that lazy bugger again today...' Every other job I've had, I've had to do someone else's work because they were too lazy. I'm not saying that'll never happen here, but it hasn't so far (near 2 years now).

My point: Don't judge a book by its cover. Just because 1 aspect of the job seems to suck doesn't mean there aren't 2 others that make up for it.

Re:isn't this normal?

Staying plugged in to work 24/7 is putting yourself on the fast track to burnout. Most people where I work (procurement for major engine company) work from home occasionally, but management constantly warns about making it a habit. They are aware that it's unhealthy to devote 9 hours in the office and another 5-6 hours out of the office to work each day. Of course, at certain times they expect long days to get a project done.

You have to draw a line between work and life, before work takes over your life. If these guys have to stay in tune with what is going on at work all the time, they are setting themselves up for less enjoyment of life.

Re:isn't this normal?

If workers are "interchangeable parts," as the article seems to suggest, then from the company's point of view, it's best if your work IS your life. So what if you burn out early, there's a class-load of graduates every year, plus stragglers or over-achievers at mid-year.

In other words, you have to set your limits, because many employers will be happy to take all they can get from you, without thought to the future.

Unfortunately, in an employment situation like we have now in the US, there is little-to-no disincentive for employers to put workers on the burnout track, as a matter of course.

Re:isn't this normal?

If workers are "interchangeable parts," as the article seems to suggest, then from the company's point of view, it's best if your work IS your life. So what if you burn out early, there's a class-load of graduates every year, plus stragglers or over-achievers at mid-year.

In other words, you have to set your limits, because many employers will be happy to take all they can get from you, without thought to the future.

Unfortunately, in an employment situation like we have now in the US, there is little-to-no disincentive for employers to put workers on the burnout track, as a matter of course.

There seem to be plenty of places to go after google, or any other "burnout track" job. Although you are kinda like an abused foster kid at that point. It takes you a while to learn to behave in "normal" manner, at least that was my experience. Granted I didn't work at MS or Google, but a place that qualified as "not normal" in many regards. I think in the long run it was a beneficial experience, as it has made me better at what I do. I'll never be a manager, but I am happier that way.

Re:isn't this normal?

10am to 6pm? Damn, that IS relaxed for an IT job.... 24/7 checking email with blackberry doesn't really mean working... maybe the feeling of working? we all have a couple of minutes in our evenings sometimes to answer an email here and there...

I know so many people in IT that work more, 8 or 9am to 7pm, or more, and often work from home too...

I was approached by Google, got interviewed, and at the end declined because I wasn't technical enough to be the Director of Engineering (or something like that as a tittle). Which is utter bs. There was not a single question about management. It was 100% technical, which is fine, I am very technical and have always been, and in all my reviews at all my jobs was/am always told one of the most technically savy person. Their style of questions was grilling you more and more and going deeper and deeper into the questions and technicalities until you failed. Started as what is TCP and UDP to going down and down and down the stack, syncookies, handshakes, how it works, to how sequence numbers are generated and more to more obscure points... At one point I couldn't answer anymore.

I used to know but not anymore. I told them, and I told them a 2 minute search on google itself will turn up the results so there is no need to know that by heart. In all my previous jobs, and that is my way of thinking, initial knowledge is not what gets the job done. Ability to do research and learn quickly IS the most important thing.

In my opinion people there at google tend to be pretentious and full of themselves. But that is my personal opinion and I am glad I don't work there in fact, sure there are some nice benefits and all, but it isn't everything. I got a few job offers and work for one of the best company around, and in my mind a much better company than Google...

Re:isn't this normal?

Holy crap!

I thought the US had abolished slavery. Why on earth does anyone put up with that??? Is the job market really that bad?

I can accept a few days of overtime pending product launch, but if a company expected me to me available like that I would tell them to go f*** themselves.

Re:isn't this normal?

You've made the mistake of thinking the only way to be a slave is to be physically coerced.

I haven't made the mistake because it is true.

The definition I am using is: a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant. This is from dictionary.com . The closest definition I can find to the way you are using the word is: a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person . Even if we use the more generous second meaning; it simply does not apply, because one can simply be undominated by work by simply not showing up or doing it.

When the alternative is starving in the gutter, that's close enough to coercion for most people.

Let me ask you this: Imagine we are 8000 years in the past. An prehistoric farmer is carving out a meek farming existence. He carefully tills the soil with hand tools and scratches out a basic existence on what little he can cull from the soil. Is he then a slave to his farm? Is he a slave to the fact that he is an animal, and must, from time to time, feed his belly? What is coercing him to farm?

The answer is, he is not coerced. There is no force. He is free to starve. Just because men must provide for their own survival does not enslave them. If that were the case, using that definition, under no circumstances could a man *not* be a slave. And in which case, all men are slaves and then there's no such thing as slavery.

Re:isn't this normal?

24/7 checking email with blackberry doesn't really mean working... maybe the feeling of working? we all have a couple of minutes in our evenings sometimes to answer an email here and there...

I hate this. When did people become so obsessed with work? I've posted my feelings about doing work on "personal time" before and I'm going to restate it here: When you leave the office, you're done. Regardless of how the company decides to pay you and regardless of your own warped feelings about how you should operate, you should NOT work once you leave.

Leave work at work even if you LOVE your job. You should LOVE your personal time a ton more.

In my opinion people there at google tend to be pretentious and full of themselves.

I feel the same way about people that feel that they are so important that they must work from home... It's as if the world will stop turning if they take vacation or have personal time. I work with a woman like that and being that she spends most of her day taking personal phone calls and playing Hearts, I have a real problem with her telling everyone how important her job is to the institution.

Re:Who died and made you boss?

If someone likes working all the time, why not respect that and move on with your life?

As long as it doesn't intrude on my life, I'm all for that. However, if you work 24/7 and our mutual boss wants to know why I'm not accomplishing 20 tasks a day, that gets annoying and your work habit is affecting me. If our mutual boss decides to make you the "norm" and expects everyone to follow suit, then you've created an environment for burnout and your work habit is affecting me. If you get in the habit of working 24/7 and you catch a cold and come in to work anyway, and I catch your cold, your work habit is affecting me. You infect me with a cold and I'm staying home, dammit. You infect other, saner, people and they'll stay home too.

Allowing someone to behave detrimentally in a work environment sets a dangerous precedent because nobody works in a bubble; it changes the work culture to one that benefits the organization unequally over the individual, it creates health risks, and combined, potentially skews a society's economy. That's why I care if *you* work yourself to the bone. You're not only my colleague but you're a barometer of the world around me.

Re:Who died and made you boss?

Not if he dies before you get to know him.

Not being dramatic, just pointing out the flaw in the argument.

Re:isn't this normal?

Their style of questions was grilling you more and more and going deeper and deeper into the questions and technicalities until you failed. Started as what is TCP and UDP to going down and down and down the stack, syncookies, handshakes, how it works, to how sequence numbers are generated and more to more obscure points... At one point I couldn't answer anymore.

That was exactly how my third and fourth Google interviews went. I did extremely well because I tend to be the type of person that remembers those obscure details about TCP/IP packets that nobody needs to know in the "real world." But I couldn't help feeling that the entire interview was just about a pissing contest between 2 techies to see who knew more. Google has a lot of brilliant people working there, but it did seem extremely elitist and not a very good way to determine how smart a potential candidate is. If they push you long and far enough they will get to a point where you don't know any more.

The thing that really, really bothered me about the interview process was that if they are hiring for a "senior level" position (in my case they were), basing their hiring decision on whether you know which bit is flipped on or off in a TCP header is more likely to favor the recent college graduate who happened to memorize his textbook and has no real world experience, than the experienced career veteran that has probably forgotten more than the college grad ever knew. That's most likely why the workforce is "just like college" and "work experience doesn't matter." Like I said, Google has a lot of bright people, but they lack a lot of real world experience. Maybe that's a good thing (look at problems from a new perspective), but there's something to be said for experience.

Marketing had their fun in college

Now they are not supposed to have a life. Techies didnt have a life in college. They need to get their kicks in sometime. Retirement is a nono as with all the soda few will live to see retirement

From the perspective of someone on the outside...

The biggest difference between Google and Microsoft is that Google turns research ideas into products. Microsoft spends something like five billion dollars on research a year, and pretty much any conference has a few interesting papers by Microsoft Research, but five years later you still won't see any products based on them. Google have a good track record of turning employees '20% time' into products. I think the difference here is that Microsoft have a research arm, and a products arm, and are not good at passing ideas between the two, while Google have people doing product work 80% of the time and research 20% of the time, so there is no disconnect.

Re:From the perspective of someone on the outside.

Google is about making a better, quicker, more effective product or filling a need that wasn't filled before. Microsoft's policy has typically been "How do we control the market?" "How do we make this product necessary to the industry?" etc... Not building a better/quicker product but making a product in demand. Kind of like requiring vista to run certain games(while my railroad tycoon 3 causes vista to coredump on my laptop, I'm not touching it on my desktop, which means no shadowrun... damnit).

You can argue it any way you like, Microsoft is a little more agressive in the industry and Google believes if you build a great product people will come(and with their name they believe everything they do is a great product whether it is or isn't because they get people just because of their name). Microsoft has given up on better/quicker and gone for "How to make this necessary?"

Lost me in the first para

"Microsoft is an amazingly transparent company. Google is not. "

Ya, right.

Re:Lost me in the first para

And the name of this new blog: Just Say "No" To Google

Biased?

Re:Lost me in the first para

Just say no to Google! Oh, but here's how we can try to be exactly like them!

College Kid Atmosphere

I find that very amusing. Bill gates ran Microsoft as just such a company for many years.

I heard... Over at Google

I heard, that over at google, they have vat grown clones of Natalie Portman for use by all employee's. How is Microsoft ever going to counter that?

My guess is with an army of brain dead Steve Balmers...

Re:I heard... Over at Google

You know, I have never once considered working at google. The free gourmet lunch thing... yeah, thats great. All of the perks and status attached, thats great too. Yet, at the end of the day, im really more interested in family time then I am work time. I work to live, not the other way around.

That said, give me a Natalie Portman clone and im in! Who needs family time when you have Natalie Portman?!?!

the moment I heard...

... that google abhors private offices and loves open-space plans, was the moment any temptation to go work for them evaporated for me. Now if only there was a company like MS (work-environment wise) that worked in the unix-linux-lamp-python-etc space...

Why negative responses?

Can someone explain to this naive college student why that post is getting responses like

Dude you shouldn't have published this, why do you even work for microsoft. you should quit right away.

and

I cannot believe you posted this. What is wrong with you? Makes me shudder to think what else your pathetic and bereft character would allow yourself to post. No house is perfect, we're all a little dysfunctional. Assuming you have a significant other or children, how would you feel if one of them decided to post something that highlighted your imperfections..? Wait, they wouldn't have to, your lack of integrity has been sufficiently demonstrated here.

The entire post sounded reasonable, and was an interesting peek into the sort of corporate environments I may / may not be hired into in the next few years.

New Communism?

At the risk of getting marked troll or flamebait, it almost sounds like a pseudo communism. There are bins for them to have shirts, and free food... Google takes care of everything for them. Throw in the "you are all alike" attitude, especially evinced by the random desks and overcrowding.

Since most of this sounds a bit non-standard with companies, it will be interesting to see how well it ends up working in the long run.

They've got to do something

Would the last person to leave Redmond for Mountain View please remember to turn off the lights.

Laughable "Google is like my mommy" arguments

Somehow, the author interprets the great perks like free T-shirts, meals, health care, and facilities as Google playing your parent and running your life. That's a hell of a spin job on what I'd consider a dream environment.

Re:Laughable "Google is like my mommy" arguments

Do you, by any chance, fit the "college kid" demographic referred to in the article?

I am a family man. The idea of eating 3 meals per day at work doesn't fit at all. Dentistry at work? Interesting, but I'd prefer a traditional plan, because I personally am only 1/6 (less, actually) of the dental needs that I am responsible for. Am I making sense? It seems like the benefits are all based on the employee/company relationship, but most of those needs are already met by my other relationships, and maintaining those is a higher priority for me. Instead of a gourmet meal for myself at work, I'd rather have the cash towards some hamburgers I can eat at home with my family.

So that's it? We just believe this blog? Not me

I'm amazed to see discussions, not just here but elsewhere, based on blog posts which supposedly give "an insider's look" or "confessions from a former...." and are taken as the gospel truth.

Admittedly, I am cynical, but isn't it common sense to take these things as false until proven true?

Personally, I give this kind of thing as much credence as forwarded-forwarded-forwarded email.

#1 Tip

#1 Tip for MS employees: tell people you work at Google.

I've got to have an office.

I've tried to write code in a cubicle, and it sucks, big time. I can share an office, but two-up in a 10x20 is about my limit.

So, if I find myself competing with Google for a candidate, I can see the main lever to apply. Besides matching their salaries, I've got to provide a private office, and make sure that the work is as interesting as whatever they'd be doing at Google.

-jcr

My own experience at Google

I blogged about my own experience at Googleplex [demodulated.com] in Mountain View. I concur that Google is very hush hush in general. My most surprising observation was that the security guards were rather laid-back while some engineers were very solemn and confrontational. This is not indicative of the overall feel of the place though - it's like a cruise ship party where people do work.

Pay for food?

Wow. I'm self employed so I pay for all my lunches anyways, but I wouldn't work somewhere where they make you pay for food in the cafeteria unless they give you 1 1/2 hrs for lunch. Sounds like my corporate brothers are having a shitty time right now. :(

I'd say even with the less pay Google offers a better working environment, although career wise it sounds like Microsoft is the way to go(coming from a Microsoft memo, that's the way you would expect it to sound too).

I guess it's hard to demand stuff from the "corporate overlords" but crappy food for $15 isn't going to win me over. They say that I say 1 1/2 hrs for lunch so I have time to get out and get back. I love the ideas of a "tech stop" at google. That sounds just awesome.

Wrong about private office space

The memo is wrong about private office space. Microsofties are used to it because they all have private offices (with doors and all), which is far better than cubes, but his dismissal of shared working spaces comes with no backup arguments (other than a link to a JoelOnSoftware article that talks about them expanding space--how is that a backup argument?)

I used to work in a team room environment, where all the developers sat together in one room (there were 10-15 of us or so), working on the same product. I loved working in that environment. You could talk to anyone just like that right away. Not having to walk for a minute or half a minute makes quite a difference, believe it or not. Since the barrier for asking someone for help or ideas is so low (lean over and speak), it's much easier to quickly bounce off ideas without having to interrupt your own flow. Also, you overhear others' problems and ideas, and pitch in with your own. Countless times I've heard someone lamenting some problem and was able to chip in with "oh I just solved the same issue."

Yes, you must have headphones in the team room, because sometimes you just need to concentrate and headphones are essential to drown out the noise.

Unfortunately, I am back to working in a cube and I miss the team room days.

is Google doomed?

As many have pointed out, many successful companies have started off similarly.

So is Google doomed? Doomed to be a bureaucratic mess with 800 levels between me and, say, Bill Gates with the only people who can really profit off of my work being closer to the top of the pyramid. I've interned a lot of places, but haven't actually had a job. Friends who have tell me such horror stories. Are the creme of the crop CS people destined to either pinball around the tech companies as the are founded and inevitably turn crappy hoping that once they'll get in early enough to ride the wave for the rest of their lives? Or is there a better way? :)

It says volumes about Microsoft...

...that there are so many replies along the lines of

"Dude you shouldn't have published this, why do you even work for microsoft."
    and
"You should quit right away"
    and
"this is horrible, man you ARE the reason microsoft is suffering!"
    and
"What is wrong with you? Why would you publish this? This is internal only"
    and
"I cannot believe you posted this. What is wrong with you? Makes me shudder to think what else your pathetic and bereft character would allow yourself to post"
    and
"Idiot, idiot, you should quit. You should be ashamed. Hopefully HR will figure out who the hell you are and can your ***."

When I read the posting, my thought was that both Microsoft and Google sounded like interesting places to work, with different profiles of plusses and minuses.

When I read the responses, my thought was that Microsoft must be as full of paranoid conformists as the second circle of Hell. If these responses are typical of the environment, goodness knows what Microsoft does to people who post Dilbert cartoons on their office walls.

Evil Empire

Just wait another 5 years and Google will be the new evil empire, they are almost already there with all of the privacy concerns.