Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
There&#x27;s algae in the tube feeding the ice machine in my company&#x27;s break room, multiple wet ceiling tiles all year long, signs telling us to literally not wipe our feces on the walls in the bathroom, shared desks with other shifts, a constant smell of mold and I make 35k a year, no chance of promotion at all without taking on tens of thousands of dollars of debt to get a 4-year degree in literally anything, at a rabidly anti-union company, in a state where an employee can basically fire you for no reason at all.<p>Man, I wish I had the problems of these Goooglers.<p>Sure, sexism and racial discrimination is bad bad bad, but this happens at the vast majority of employers. If I and&#x2F;or my co-workers tried to do one of these walkouts, security would be there when we came back to take our badges and tell us to leave or the police would be called.<p>I find it <i>extremely</i> difficult to feel any sympathy for these folks because they have it much better than I do, and extremely better than millions of people in the United States and billions of people worldwide.<p>A cursory Google search (ha, maybe I should have used Bing) on-site physicians, paid PATERNITY leave, death benefits, leave of absence to pursue education, having Google on your CV probably helps tremendously if you try and get a job somewhere else, Google allows employees to spend 20% of their time pursuing a project that they are passionate about, apparently Googlers can bring their pets to work, have access to all sorts of other benefits like shuttles&#x2F;food&#x2F;recreation that simply do not exist for the vast majority of people in the world.<p>The lifter in my work chair has been broken for years now, it has recently started tilting to the left as well, it is 12 years old. Our windows 10 upgrade removed a functional calculator, something I use every few minutes, requiring me to either buy a calculator or use Google for work-related maths. There are 3 microwaves and 2 small refrigerators for 100~ employees. In the winter the upper 60&#x27;s are not uncommon in the office with the upper 70&#x27;s and lower 80&#x27;s not uncommon in the summer with business casual dress mandatory. Need to go to the doctor, be prepared to at least take a half day which you have to request well in advance most of the time with about a month and a half blacked out every year where no one can take time off. Need a personal day, well you better fake sick and call in and if you call in 2-3x in a 6 month period you&#x27;re now on their radar and risking verbal warning territory.<p>I&#x27;m sorry, but I just can&#x27;t feel sorry for them.