February 19, 2007
Gothamist Goes To Google
Google turns five this month, five months old since opening its new building on 15th and 9th Avenue in October 2006. To celebrate, Gothamist went on an official tour, complete with watching a game of ping-pong, getting a sneak peak at the famous lunch, and waving at scooter riders whizzing down the hallways, making it by far one of the coolest places to work in Manhattan.
The 300,000 square foot Chelsea building which serves as Google’s largest sales office and second largest engineering office, was converted from the Port Authority building. Its design was developed by not only architects, but a project team which included “the end users-the employees,” explained Facilities Manager Laura Gimple.
From those suggestions, the floor plan evolved to include approximately four micro kitchens equipped with snacks, a game room, idea boards, a lecture hall, two cafes, majestic ten foot tall windows, and conference rooms named for New York City landmarks, such as Belvedere Castle and Rockefeller Center, geographically placed around the building from East to West to correspond with their actual locations. For Facilities Manager Laura Gimple who supervised the design and manages the operations of the building, she says, “I think it’s so fun because there is no limit, anything is possible because we are such a creative environment...the employees can really express themselves.” That creativity is evident throughout the building.
This entry has a slideshow. To view the slideshow your browser must have the Flash Player. (If you are using a newsreader that doesn't support Flash click here to launch the slideshow.)
The fourth floor lobby of Google’s NYC headquarters is as bright and bold as its homepage, accented by a gigantic Google Earth which virtually transports you to view any location in the world as it zooms in on places throughout the day. The primary colors of Google’s logo are reflected throughout the office where every day of the week Google makes life colorful for its employees. Tuesday afternoons, employees enjoy tea and in the evenings relax with Yoga. On Wednesdays, they exercise with pilates.
By Thursday the office is ready to celebrate with TGIF- Thank God It’s Almost Friday- with different teams sponsoring themes, most recently the audio team coordinated karaoke. And twice a month authors come to “campus” to lecture. And those are just the designated days—everyday, employees can head into Game Room, converted from the Port Authority’s old loading dock, to play ping pong, Air Guitar, foosball, and pool or enjoy a relaxing massage in a chair. The game room was the lead in the December New York Times article about the company.
Instead of heading offsite for lunch, employees choose from healthy and diversified options in two cafés, the preparations for which begin around the time most people are just eating breakfast. Local products from nearby farms and sustainable food comprise the menus, as well as employee requests. The chefs will even share recipes with you if you have a favorite dish because the rotation of food options is so frequent, odds are that you won’t see it again, shared Google spokesperson Sunny Gettinger. Nutritional facts, dubbed “Foodles,” complement the food stations in the dining hall. For example, did you know that “Chili peppers help prevent ulcers and break up mucus in the lungs” and “Garbanzo beans are high in protein and fiber and food for lowering blood pressure.”
Chef Gary Gibson loves preparing the meals because of “the freedom to be creative,” he explained, “at many places you don’t have the chance to work with such great products and it’s refreshing that a company finds it rewarding to work with such great products.” The food at Google has created one of the biggest buzzes. New York Magazine which featured a piece solely on what’s for lunch:
Of course, like most modern companies, there is a level of flexibility for employees if they need to work from home. But, with such an amazing office who wouldn’t want to come into work every day?
|
although it may be one of the "coolest" places to work at, I'd assumed that adult scooter riders were beaten into extinction during the first dotcom bust.
Are balaclavas and jester hats par for the course too?
Any place where I can request cases and cases of Guarana would be heaven for me.
Wow, that place looks sweet! Curious, though: I am surprised they have cubicles.
If you can make billions in revenue, bring on the scooters. It was the companies that were burning VC money on foosball tables without a profitable business model that went teats up.
Of course, now it's a Web 2.0 boom so time for another round! Hey, it's more fun than cubicles.
I wish I was smart enough to work at Google.
Right now, any corporation that doesn't force its employees to work on a national holiday sounds great to me.
How does anybody get any work done?
someone has a good pr team...
Look at those smart people playing their smart ping pong eating their free lunches in their fancy office. They even have those comfortable ergonomic chairs in each cube.
I'm jealous. I work across the street from Google and buy my lunch from the cart in front of the post office. My form of entertainment is sitting in a twenty five year old squeaky office chair stained by the fatasses before me and playing solitaire on my computer when no one is looking.
Wait, I don't get it... I mean, this must be some form of irony, right? This long text lifted straight from Google's own publicity department and then presented as an article; it IS sarcasm right? Of some sort... but how? Where? I can't see it! I feel so dumb - where oh where are the small hints that signal that you ARE aware of the fact that this is just a fluff piece for Google and that you, the fine people at Gothamist, are in fact not complete whores for printing this? They must be hidden in there somewhere... right..?
(And YES, I'm obviously bitter for not working in such a cool office myself, thank-you-very-much!)
I'm willing to bet that all of those people are expected to work 60 hours a week there. Which would you prefer - a social life or a foosball table?
>>Which would you prefer - a social life or a foosball table?
I fail to see the difference....
Didn't Bloomberg do all this twenty years ago?
I worked at that building, though not for google. It sends a cold shiver down my spine just seeing it. Remember when you were a kid, and your teacher took your class to the State Fair, but they wouldn't let you go on any of the rides or eat cotton candy, and instead, they forced you go to watch bad theater and and look at giant vegetables? That's what it was like.
bloomberg is very similar.
and 60 hours a week is a far stretch to having no social life.
12 hours a day hardly a bad life. i work 8-8 and have a great social life, sans foosball. ;P
We work hard, but we don't work 60 hour weeks at Google. It's not a burn-out culture.
And we're hiring.
I can't wait for the press visit after the first round of layoffs
We Work hard and we play hard.
Oh, how I love that Corporate BS.
I don't get why anyone would call this one a puff piece - I'd say it's pretty much a fact that this is probably the dream work environment for anyone who works for a big company, particularly in this city. Personally, I'd just like to work with people I know I can share some kind of social experience with - even if its foosball.
Wow, this piece is well written and can I eat a meal at the cafeteria.
It is really great to see that area of the city get invested - just a few years ago, it was the desolate meat packing district that few would want to be near after dark
wow. how did a spam bot have such a detailed comment to make about the state of the meatpacking district?
Actually the building is around 2.5 million square feet. Google has about 10% of it.
All the perks in the world aren't enough to make me go back there.
Don't let the press machine fool you - Google's corporate culture is oppressive, full of red tape and a million and one bullshit meetings and regulations. Their meetings have meetings. And then they have meetings about those meetings.
Google keeps its employees in a gilded cage. They give you benefits, but they basically expect you to hand your life over to them. The hours are long and there's mandatory socialization (dinners, cocktail hours, etc.) that take up any remaining free time.
It's easily the most "corporate" Office Space-like place I've ever worked.