All the reasons you want to work for Google

Google has been rated the number one best company to work for by Fortune for the fifth time this past Thursday. It’s kind of getting silly now. We mean people are going to stop trying to beat them soon, and just sell their own companies to go work for google. They have a roller hockey rink for crimeney’s sake.

Here’s some of the reasons why you want to work for Google. We’re sorry if you’re reading this at work.

Google donates $50 for every five hours an employee volunteers. Cos they’re GOOD PEOPLE, ya get it? They’re rich and smart and good people.

Google employees get free onsite haircuts. Cos they’re rich and smart and good people and they’re pretty.

Google employees have a full gym and laundry service, both for free. Because they also have nice bodies and have well laundered clothes.

They also have access to swim-in-place swimming pools ( kind of what they use with racehorses… a bit weird).

Also available are ping pong, billiards and foosball tables as well as video game consoles.

There are onsite doctors and nurses at Google as well as a subsidized massage program. (subsidized? C’mon Google, that doesn’t sound like best rated company behavior!)

What does sound like top rated company behavior is the 20 percent program. Basically, every employee gets to use up to 20% of their working time on their own unrelated projects. To let creative freedom do it’s thing you see?  If we had something similar, we would be working on creating our tiny pet dinosaurs, obviously. Rawr!

Then there’s the food. Google employees get breakfas,t lunch, snacks and dinner all free of charge. We’re not talking bagels and oranges here, guys. We’re talking more than 30 cafeterias serving fresh, organic foods ranging from vegetarian to Japanese to Morrocan and back to good old American food.  There’s also snack rooms full of delicious snack type things. Mmmmm snack type things.

To rub in how awfully good they are, Google donates leftover food to food banks and collects the used cooking oil from its cafeterias and sends it to another company to convert it to biodiesel. Then Google buys back some of the biodiesel to supplement its power needs. Because obviously.

To get around, employees can hop on free electric scooter found littered around the Mountain View campus, or alternatively they can use real pedal powered bikes, or one of the all-electric cars that they can check out for several hours each day.

Googlers and their families are covered with travel insurance and emergency assistance even on personal vacations and Mama’s get to spend time with new bundles of joy as well as a bundle of extra spending money. Because Google cares about the future!

Google will reimburse you for classes or degree programs that help you with what you do, give you legal aid for less, and they provide a free schedule of classes called Learning@Google which apparently ranges from sign language to open source web applications.

Every week, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin sit in the main Google cafe and give everyone a run-down of what happened that week. Afterwards, they open up the floor to questions from Googlers.

Ready to quit your job yet?

But wait there’s more!

When you start at Google, you’ll be taken to the ergonomic center where you pick out your laptop, mobile phone, keyboard, monitor, mouse, desk and chair. An ergonomic expert takes your measurements and shows you the options. The IT team installs your chosen configuration overnight.

When you’re stressed out from all the free food you’re eating, you can go rest and de-stress in the community gardens. The food grown here goes either home with the employees, used in the google kitchens or given to food banks. Cos Googler’s are so healthy!

You can also get to take naps in sleep pods.

AND just in case you’d forgotten what kind of people we’re talking about here, three winners of Google’s annual talent show opened for Bruno Mars at his Las Vegas in April at the Global Sales Conference. Because obviously they did.

Ok, ok, we’ll stop now. But hey, think of this as inspiring rather than annoying ( stupid googlers with being so lucky and stupid and pretty). Make a new years resolution to incorporate one of the above into your workplace. Boss or not, it’ll impress, improve the workplace and everyone will love you. 

We’re going to start with the free onsite haircuts and the learning program. Learning how to do haircuts. Sounds pretty sweet to us.

Images courtesy of Google, Edition.cnn.com, The Guardian, Sodahead, Quickmeme, Geek.com & Sodahead.

Thanksgiving yaya!!

Brace yourselves: Thanksgiving is coming!

You guys probably don’t really need to brace yourselves though, cos thanksgiving means yummy foods and cool leaves and family (maybe brace yourselves a bit).

It also means holidays! And this year, like many in the past, Apple employees are in for extra special thanksgiving- with extra days off to be thankful for!

Thanks Tim Cook! (Is what we’d say if we were given days off for thanksgiving. And we worked for apple).

Apple employees all over the world get the entire week of thanksgiving off WITH pay. WHHHOOOOOOOP!

Peeps who work in retail and customer service, as well as those for whom thankgiving means, well, not a lot, i.e. those in other countires, can take those paid days leave at other, convenient, staggered times.  Whoop.

Here’s the email Tim Cook Sent to his loved and thankful staff regarding the extra paid days off, thanks to 9to5mac.

Team-

It’s been an exciting summer. For the first time, we’ve launched two new iPhone product lines. iOS 7 was created from a deep collaboration between our design and engineering teams, bringing to our customers a stunning new user interface and amazing new features. We unveiled OS X Mavericks and the most powerful Mac ever. The App Store celebrated a new milestone — 50 billion downloads. And we continued to express our love for music with iTunes Radio and the iTunes Festival.

I had the opportunity to visit a few of our stores during the iPhone launch. There is no better place to see and feel why Apple is special. The best products on Earth. Energy. Enthusiasm. The best customers in the world. Passionate team members focused on enriching people’s lives. Innovative products that serve humanity’s deepest values and highest aspirations.

And I am proud to tell you that Apple is also a force for good in our world beyond our products. Whether it’s improving working conditions or the environment, standing up for human rights, helping eliminate AIDS, or reinventing education, Apple is making a substantial contribution to society.

None of this would have been possible without you. Our most important resource is not our money, our intellectual property, or any capital asset. Our most important resource — our soul — is our people.

I realize many of you worked tirelessly to bring us this far. I know it required great personal sacrifice. In recognition of your incredible efforts and achievements, I’m happy to announce that we’re extending the Thanksgiving holiday this year. We will shut down with pay on November 25, 26, and 27 so our teams can have the whole week off.

Retail, AppleCare and a few other teams will need to work that week so we can continue to serve our customers, but will receive the same number of days off at an alternate time. Please check with your manager for details. Our international teams will schedule the vacation days at a time that is best suited for their specific country.

I hope you find the extra time restful and relaxing. You deserve it. Details will be available on AppleWeb soon. I am exceedingly proud of all of you. I am in awe of what you’ve accomplished and couldn’t be more excited about the future.

Enjoy the time away!

So that’s cool. But hey, even if we’re not Apple employees and aren’t getting more full paid days off over Thanksgiving, at least we’ve got Captain Halloween to look forward to.

And, if you guys are anything like us, lots to be thankful for.