(no subject)
I realize I haven't written much of the paradise that I've gotten myself into:
Google is a life of ups and downs. You know you've found the right job when you say proudly to your friends "You know, if you guys hadn't called, I was just gonna go in and fix some bugs".
I love my desk. Every morning I get in to work around 9ish. If it's a training day, I'm in the gym til about 10:15, having Jeff (my trainer) giving me a lesson in both weight lifting and also philosophy. The two apparently go hand in hand. That guy's done more for me this summer than a lot of folks. But I digress!
So, back to my desk. I walk down this long kind of corridor of cubicles to the GMail section, which is really only indicated by some stuffed animals and a teammates' new dog, Sparky (who doesn't like it when humans jump...at all). My desk looks out to the south through a giant window that goes up to a 30 foot ceiling. I grab my free smartwater bottle and just enjoy the sun's reflection in the water. I also have a bit of glow in the dark silly putty that my host got for me. The story: Silly putty was given out to you if you promised to fix tests. It was offered on a bad day for me, and I wasn't going to lie. My cubemate lied like a brick. As soon as the testing folks were gone, I jokingly turned to face across the cubicle hallway thing and yelled "Emillly (my host), Alan lied and got free silly putty and I don't get anything...." When she finally got me some, I was all like "What? No T-shirt to go with?" We have fun.
Once I'm done being amused by shiny objects, I turn to my computer, which has two wide screen LCDs, and try to figure out what needs to be fixed today. My feature's taken weeks, mostly because each teammate has a different vision of how to implement it. My vision was to hack it together, as was my host's (I like her. The whole "Make it work, then fix it" mentality). Anyhow, whenever I have to refactor the entire thing, my mood drops like a rock. THAT'S why Google has all the perks. It's so when people have to write massive amounts of code, they keep their mood up by going to the gym, getting a massage, grabbing free food, playing pool, playing arcade games, or hanging out in the ball pit.
Last Friday, I submitted a change that basically said "Deploy my feature". Tomorrow @ about 11:00 PM PST, some folks in the company will start seeing a new thing in GMail, and I will start getting bug reports.
It's just so lax @ work for the most part, I wish I could stay here for the entire year. MIT is much more of an "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" culture, as I remembered clearly yesterday, hanging out with a gaggle of MIT students. I prefer much more the "Oh look at what Sparky's doing!" culture.
Dear Google-
Hire me.
Love, Pete
The million dollar question is what I should do next year. Branch out? Or if they offer me another internship, stay put? ILM and Pixar still look extremely attractive to go check out....but I don't hear nothin bout no free food...
Google is a life of ups and downs. You know you've found the right job when you say proudly to your friends "You know, if you guys hadn't called, I was just gonna go in and fix some bugs".
I love my desk. Every morning I get in to work around 9ish. If it's a training day, I'm in the gym til about 10:15, having Jeff (my trainer) giving me a lesson in both weight lifting and also philosophy. The two apparently go hand in hand. That guy's done more for me this summer than a lot of folks. But I digress!
So, back to my desk. I walk down this long kind of corridor of cubicles to the GMail section, which is really only indicated by some stuffed animals and a teammates' new dog, Sparky (who doesn't like it when humans jump...at all). My desk looks out to the south through a giant window that goes up to a 30 foot ceiling. I grab my free smartwater bottle and just enjoy the sun's reflection in the water. I also have a bit of glow in the dark silly putty that my host got for me. The story: Silly putty was given out to you if you promised to fix tests. It was offered on a bad day for me, and I wasn't going to lie. My cubemate lied like a brick. As soon as the testing folks were gone, I jokingly turned to face across the cubicle hallway thing and yelled "Emillly (my host), Alan lied and got free silly putty and I don't get anything...." When she finally got me some, I was all like "What? No T-shirt to go with?" We have fun.
Once I'm done being amused by shiny objects, I turn to my computer, which has two wide screen LCDs, and try to figure out what needs to be fixed today. My feature's taken weeks, mostly because each teammate has a different vision of how to implement it. My vision was to hack it together, as was my host's (I like her. The whole "Make it work, then fix it" mentality). Anyhow, whenever I have to refactor the entire thing, my mood drops like a rock. THAT'S why Google has all the perks. It's so when people have to write massive amounts of code, they keep their mood up by going to the gym, getting a massage, grabbing free food, playing pool, playing arcade games, or hanging out in the ball pit.
Last Friday, I submitted a change that basically said "Deploy my feature". Tomorrow @ about 11:00 PM PST, some folks in the company will start seeing a new thing in GMail, and I will start getting bug reports.
It's just so lax @ work for the most part, I wish I could stay here for the entire year. MIT is much more of an "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" culture, as I remembered clearly yesterday, hanging out with a gaggle of MIT students. I prefer much more the "Oh look at what Sparky's doing!" culture.
Dear Google-
Hire me.
Love, Pete
The million dollar question is what I should do next year. Branch out? Or if they offer me another internship, stay put? ILM and Pixar still look extremely attractive to go check out....but I don't hear nothin bout no free food...