The 25 Secret Perks of Working at Google
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Chris Kula
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- January 19, 2007
Fortune Magazine recently named Google the #1 company to work for, a ranking based largely on Google's well-publicized employee perks: free meals in its gourmet cafeteria; on-site doctors, dry cleaners, and gym facilities; and even a policy that allows employees to bring their pets to work.
But the benefits of "Googlers" don't end there. The following list of lesser-heralded employee perks should provide an idea of just how far Google goes to keep the human pistons of its search engine pumping contentedly.
1. Google provides free custom detailing on all employee-owned Segways, motorized scooters, recumbent bicycles, and other widely-derided modes of transportation.
2. For recent computer science grads accepting an engineering position with Google, a popular social event is Google's "New Employee Orientation and Arranged Virginity-Loss Night."
3. Google employees who are about to become mothers receive 12 weeks of maternity leave; aging female engineers now coming to terms with the fact they will likely never be mothers receive two weeks of "Crushing Sense of Incompleteness Leave." (It is 50% paid.)
4. Googlers enjoy an Employee Referral Program â€" meaning, they receive a cash bonus if they refer management to any employee even thinking about leaving Google.
5. For all Google employees who've just committed a crime of passion, Google provides a two-bedroom safehouse just outside the city where said employee can lay low until "the heat" dies down.
6. Google affords all employees a $1500 monthly stipend for mandatory lava lamp purchases.
7. Google employees can commute to work via free company shuttle; it is piloted by retired colonel Buzz Aldrin.
8. To encourage collaboration, the hallways at Google are lined with whiteboards where employees can jot down ideas. To encourage active collaboration, these whiteboards are dusted with cocaine.
9. Google engineers make use of free on-site hair salons, specializing in both men's and women's unsavory bowl cuts.
10. To help relieve the stress of being tied to their computers for such long hours, Google provides employees with free online-based massage therapy.
11. Each new grain of sand in Google's beach volleyball pit is imported via extraction from the bikini of Rachel Wacholder.
12. Google offers a unique "literal 401k" retirement plan; for every dollar an employee invests, Google matches it with $401,000.
13. Following its acquisition of YouTube, Google began arranging employee tours of YouTube headquarters where in a windowless room they can rub awkwardly against lonelygirl15.
14. Googlers can enjoy fruit smoothies via osmosis in one of several on-campus Jamba Baths.
15. New Google employees each receive a keepsake Google hacky-sack filled with pulverized sapphires.
16. At Google's summer picnic the employees don't play softball or soccer â€" they hunt homeless men for sport.
17. Google's college intern recruitment video was written by J.D. Salinger and directed by Sidney Lumet.18. At Halloween, Google sponsors a costume contest for engineers who dress up as their favorite line of code.
19. Google employees receive personal mentoring sessions with co-founder Sergey Brin, or at least one of the eight Brin replicants built in late 2005.20. Employees are given beta test runs of exciting new Google software, such as the satellite imaging program Google Maps-of-Gisele's Bedroom and the adult singles-finding service Gspots.
21. The barista at Google's on-campus café is Juan Valdez. (Not the coffee brand icon — just a Latin dude named Juan who happens to make a really great latte.)
22. Google offers training and assistance to all employees planning to journey behind enemy lines in an attempt to rescue their POW fathers.
23. Google arranged that their regular opponent in corporate league basketball is always the team from Washington Generals, Inc. (To date, Google is a combined 238-0.)
24. Google engineers are given "20 percent time" in which they are free to pursue their own personal projects. This incentive has produced such efforts as Gmail, Google News, and 20% more employee masturbation.
25. Google provides free financial planning classes to all its employees. The session consists of just one tip: "Remember â€" Google. Fucking. OWNS You."