An Apple/Pickle a Day...

‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch.’

So not true.

There is such thing as a free lunch -- and it’s delicious. I’ve blogged about Google’s food before, and it's high time to mention it again. Mainly because I love eating. And, I am eating right now.

Recently I realized that I'm addicted to a 'menu' of dried cranberries, red radishes and deli style pickles. (The weirdest of the three is apparently radishes -- I have yet to find someone who enjoys a good radish as much as I do. Not counting my immediate family. Naturally, I had to get my weird snack cravings somewhere.)

Meanwhile, I’ve had to cut back on a few of the other treats that are readily available to me, such as Peanut M&Ms. I’ve also eaten so many Raisinettes since I started working here, if I don’t stop I might turn into one.

a seriously good time

To motivate Googlers, the company takes a less than traditional route – which I found out at the sales conference that I attended over the weekend.

We began the day with a gorgeous breakfast, and were then able to hear some of the most influential Google execs speak. After squeezing in a phone shift and having a delicious lunch, I heard about our future plans, products and services.

And then, later that evening, came the karaoke.

We hyped each other up, had a drink, squeezed into our spandex and had one final practice. Decked out in 80s gear, we waited for our grand entrance between a Google rendition of 'I got you babe ('I got YouTube')' and 'YMCA (APLA – done by the Asia Pacific and Latin America team).' It was, in fact, a show to remember. We had four singers and four dancers, each of us in total 80s character as we belted and danced to 'Tainted Love' to the best of our ability.

I mean, I don't want to brag or anything...but the Ann Arbor crew can really break it down.

Gotta Sleep it Off...

Well, even though I haven't been sick for a while, I couldn’t avoid getting sick this week. I’d forgotten how much it sucks. Maybe I should pay more attention to what the Google doctor says...

I hope that I recover by the sales conference -- and my karaoke debut! We’ve had a couple of practices so far, and they’ve been hilariously entertaining. It’s awesome to get to know your coworkers in a lighthearted environment where we’re together just for the fun of it. It should be even more interesting when we’re all crimping our hair and putting on our 80s gear.

I’ve recently been able to spend more and more time outside of work with my coworkers. It’s a young office, and everyone is upbeat and eager to not only work hard and get the office to the "next level," but also to have fun. It’s nice to have the professional and social parts of life blended just enough so that you think of your coworkers as friends. Because of this, we can not only enjoy each other’s company outside of work, but also work more productively together while in the office.

I <3 the Internet

I don’t know what it is about my computer, but I am straight up addicted to it. Regardless of the fact that I am on it all day, the first thing that I do when I get home from work is turn it back on.

I’m sure it’s the same with a lot of people who work at Google, which makes a lot of sense. I can’t see being happy at a company like Google if I hated computers and/or the Internet. On top of that, my colleagues and I take our jobs and our relationships with advertisers very seriously – so it’s a job that goes beyond the standard ‘9 to 5’ hours.

Of course, my computer addiction is not completely work-related. I can’t say that I don’t love chatting and emailing with friends, and I really can’t say that I never drool over/shop online for my other major addiction – shoes. Online shoe shopping may very well be the death of me (and my paycheck). Even when I have nothing to shop for, or I am chatted out for the day, I can always occupy myself online by checking the weather or reading up on the newest celebrity gossip.

I knew that I had an attachment to my laptop, but I realized the severity of the issue on Monday, when I was in the middle of my day off, and my internet died. I panicked. I tried everything to reconnect, with no luck. I finally tried closing the laptop and taking a break from the restarts and internet setup troubleshooting – but I just kept staring at it. And opening it back up every 10 minutes to see if anything had changed. It hadn’t.

Not only did I realize the severity of the addiction, but I also grew to appreciate our technical team at Google even more than I already do. Internet goes down? Computer problems? They’re on it. I am relatively computer savvy, however for some things, like the ambiguous death of an internet connection, you may as well give the computer to my cat Fiona and ask her to handle it.