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.

Addicted to Red Bull

My sister sent me a package the other day, just because. She’s a freshman in college, going to school on the west coast. She, like the rest of my family, are much too far away...it’s weird to be done with college, in a new routine, and all of the sudden realize that you have this life somewhere completely different than the place you grew up and swore you’d stay forever.

This week, I started dedicated optimization training. Essentially what this means is that soon, I will be qualified to optimize AdWords accounts to help them reach their full potential. Depending on what the advertiser's goals are, this could mean anything from improving the client's ROI to simply driving more people to their website. The training that we're in now is to help ensure that my training class will be ready, starting Monday, to take on a more dedicated role working with developing one-on-one relationships with clients. To prepare, we’re in training from 9 to 6 every day this week. We're the first class to go through this training program in Ann Arbor, so it's exciting and new. So much to learn, so little time...

This year is going so incredibly fast--my start date in early October seems like it was last week, and already I've experienced so much. The AdWords program, the Mountain View office, the company ski trip...and in two weeks, we’re going back to San Francisco for a sales conference. To be honest, I really don’t know what the schedule is or what will be happening there, but I do know one thing: I am going to be performing an 80s song (which is being kept a secret until the date of the show) with 7 of my coworkers in front of potentially thousands of Googlers. What was I thinking when I decided to head up the performance planning, you ask? No one knows. But we’ve begun the choreography, and it’s looking like it may be a show to remember.

Soon after we get back, we'll be moving into...our new office! It’s in the same general downtown area that we're located now, but it will be bigger and have even more of the Google perks that we’ve come to know, love, and appreciate. And we're getting a gym AKA now I have absolutely no excuse for being lazy and ditching the gym.

OOC in A2

Omg.

I’ve become one of "those" people. You know the ones – the people who abbreviate everything, sometimes incomprehensibly.

At Google, we use an internal version of Google Talk to quickly reach each other across the company. Because we many times have to get in touch with someone quickly and concisely (for example, when an advertiser is on hold), I’ve learned to love abbreviations.

It started out innocently enough, using well-known AdWords abbreviations such as CID (customer identification number) or CPC (cost-per-click) in everyday language at the office. Pretty standard, especially since those around me were doing the same thing.

And then it got a bit more complicated. I soon learned that "you there?" was "yt?" and "no problem" became "np." Before I knew it, entire chat sessions were in abbrevs...er, abbreviations. What you're about to read is a dramatization, though shockingly close to reality.

me: hey BH, yt
(hi bryan, are you by your computer?)

bryan: y w/u
(yeah, i am. what’s up?)

me: #1, went 2 the mall ystrdy & tots spent too much $$$
(nothing really, i went to the mall yesterday, and now i can’t pay my rent)

bryan: omg me 2. got amaz stuff
(i did that too. what’d you get?)

bryan: btw, i am dehydes, prob b/c of 5 cups of coffee/day
(by the way, i think that i am severely dehydrated from all of the coffee that i’ve been drinking today)

me: ya it was ridic. and obvi coffee = amaz
(hmm, let’s see - i got this great pair of boots that i adore. and yes, thank goodness for coffee!)

me: #2 can u ping the CID from the adv. with the Qs on his CPC/DB?
(do you have a minute to send me (via IM) that customer ID number from the advertiser we both spoke with earlier? the one who had questions about his daily budget and cost-per-click?)

bryan: def, i can grab it immeds. brb k
(sure. let me go ahead and grab that now, one second)

me: k, asap would be gr8, thx
(that would be wonderful)

bryan: 123-456-789
(987-654-321)

me: perf, thx. ugh, this day is OOC*
(perfect, thanks so much! ugh, i am so tired today. this day is crazy.)

bryan: i know. tots OOC. but, abbrevs = awes/perf for us
(i know, so busy. good thing we use these abbreviations in chat to cut down on chat time!)

me: obvi. gtg herz, ttys. thx again
(so true. all right, i am going to call this advertiser back. thanks again for the info!)

bryan: np, ttyl
(no problem at all, anytime. talk to you later!)

*OOC = out of control

See? I tots have a prob. Okay, I suppose that it's not a death wish, and it gets the job done in a fast-paced office. That being said, I have no excuse for using abbrevs IRL.

(Side note: I know there are a lot of questions that people may have about Google moving to Ann Arbor, the Ann Arbor office, or Google in general. If there is something specific that you'd like me to blog about, I am always open to ideas! Please feel free to email me at sjduchaine.blog@gmail.com anytime.)

Squaw Valley!

Happy Valentine's Day! As promised, I am absolutely exhausted from last week's festivities, which included wandering around San Francisco, working in our Mountain View office, and finally trying my hand at downhill skiing.

We got to the Resort at Squaw Creek around 1:30 in the afternoon. Because Google had rented out the entire resort, we were surrounded by people from all different Google offices, from Phoenix to The Dalles (Oregon). I was a little nauseous my entire cable car ride up the mountain, thinking about the upcoming situation that could potentially involve me breaking my face/leg/body. Sure, I’d been on skis before, but only on flat ground, or hills with groomed tracks.

After skiing numerous beginner hills with some VERY patient coworkers, I was convinced to try the 3.2 mile intermediate run. I was extremely proud of my ability to handle myself until about halfway through my first intermediate skiing experience.

And then it turned ugly.

I persuaded my coworkers to go ahead down the ridiculous ‘hill’ that lay before us, promising them that I’d be fine and would soon join them at the small landing at the bottom. Twenty minutes later, still at the top and starting to get stressed, I knew that something needed to be done. So, amongst the veteran snowboarders and skiers flying by me on either side, I did the only thing that I could do: laid down and embraced the fact that I was fully clothed in nylon, lifted my skis off of the ground, and slid the 80 yards down to where my coworkers were waiting.

After my little 80 yard sliding adventure, I somehow made it down the rest of the mountain alive. How, I’m not quite sure. I’m glad I did, though, because that night was definitely memorable.

There was a party for everyone that had come to the ski trip, with themed rooms, food, drinks and photo booths. In one room, the 80s cover band Tainted Love played, and they were amazing. It made the party even more fun to be able to be surrounded by everyone from the managers to the newest employees, everyone enjoying the atmosphere, the music, and the company of those around them.

I didn't know what to expect when I entered the work force, but I know that working at Google has far exceeded any expectations that I had.

By the way, this snow is out of control. Snow angels, anyone?