Free food, a free gym, ski trips, flexible hours and bosses who don't like being called boss: can a job at Google really be that good? Kate Holmquistjoins in the fun at the internet giant's summer party
AUGUST IS the cruellest month for those of us stuck at office desks while everyone else seems to have decamped for sunny paradise. Who in their right mind wants to work while everyone else is playing? Why can't we be like the French and just shut down for the month?
For some reason, workers at Google's Dublin office don't seem to mind. Could it have something to do with the free food, the free gym, the play areas, free ski trips each winter by chartered jet - and the flexible hours? A good place to find out was at Googlefest at Shelbourne Park, where about 1,800 Googlers plus their partners and families gathered for an Oxegen-style music festival last Friday evening. Their average age was 25, they spoke 52 different languages and only one in five was Irish-born.
There was a silent disco (dance to your own music on your iPod), a soft play area (for grown-ups) and other toys to play with. Fancy dress was encouraged, though it soon became clear that a lot of people dressed unconventionally anyway.
And they're replicating themselves at a rapid rate. The "little Googlers" in prams and on wobbly legs (average age two) danced to the rock bands when not playing in their own special area, complete with mini-camping tents. This brought the age profile down further so that when the head of Google's Europe, Middle East and Asia operation, Limerick man John Herlihy, confessed shyly that, at 41, he's the "old man" about the place, you couldn't argue.
There were 100 employees in Dublin when Herlihy returned from 12 years in California to join Google in 2005, and today there are 1,800 of them. His job doesn't seem to have a title. You can't call him the boss, because Google doesn't have bosses. It's all about "lateral" or "flat" management. "We have a cracking team, and in the last year we have moved on to leading certain things internationally," he says.
THE OTHER THING they seem to have cracked is an enthusiastic workforce. Every year, in addition to Googlefest, the entire staff of 1,800 is brought by Herlihy on ski holidays in the Alps and on bonding sessions in places such as San Francisco and Seville. Face-to-face contact in enjoyable surroundings is the best way to get people who relate daily by e-mail from locations around the world to network, he says.
Maybe it's their age or their global view, but the traditional notion of taking a family holiday in August doesn't enter their consciousness.
Isabel (26), from Spain, works in the advertising area and has travelled around the world with Google. "You don't feel it's August because it's always raining. In Spain I would mind working, but here's it's just fine. Why take holidays in August? It's less expensive to take holidays in October. I'm going to Dingle tomorrow for the weekend."
Alistair, a Goth from the UK who is a Google engineer, has been based in Dublin for two years and wouldn't think of taking long holidays in August. "Why would I mind working in August? I take long weekends." How many? "Lots." In fact, in the past six weeks, Alistair has travelled to the US twice, to Germany twice and to Greece once. What was he doing? "Everything." (Googlers, perhaps because they speak only English in common and do most of their communication by e-mail, have a habit of replying to sentences with the most concise word.)
He says he prefers the term "industrial" to Goth and that two of his trips have been to "industrial" music festivals in Germany. "I enjoy coming back to work after a long weekend. They look after the staff really well."
I meet another worker, in advertising, who doesn't want to give her name, but says that every autumn she inevitably has four weeks of holiday time due to her because it never occurs to her to take more than a day or two. "When you go away for a long time, you worry about the workload you'll come back to," she says. And while hours are flexible, "a lot stay after 6pm. You can go off and play PlayStation or football, but you still have to get the work done."
BREDA DOHERTY FROM Mayo has worked for Google for 18 months. "Google has a system of flat management, which means you can drive processes and procedures in your area - they let you make decisions and they are very flexible and accommodating in regard to the working day," she enthuses.
There seemed to be more than the usual quota of man-skirts at Googlefest - at least three that I could see. Skirt number one, Manuel from Germany, who works in research quality, had a Gaultier-inspired number. "Why would I mind working in August? I really, really love my job. I don't dream about holidays and when I go on holidays, it's nice to get home. This is my ideal job - fantastic and fun and flexible. As long as the work is done, they don't mind when I do it. I was a headhunter before, and so I had a lot of time to research what I wanted to do. My background is in computing and I took extra courses with the Open University in London before I applied for this."
Skirt number two, Guido from Italy, was wearing a kilt of a pattern specially designed to spell out DEBIAN, the operating system he helped create. The skirt was created for a Google conference in Scotland. "I only wear it on ceremonial occasions, like this one," he says.
Skirt number three from Bologna was dressed as the Pope, which made sense considering that fancy dress was encouraged at the party. On further questioning, however, it turned out that skirt number three was actually a real priest named Fra Luca, who was visiting Guido on his summer holiday. But, hey! Easy mistake to make when you're meeting a melting pot of people whose styles of dress are sometimes as unique and unfathomable as their job descriptions.
When you ask Googlers what they actually do for a living, their faces take on a patient expression as they explain that they'll tell you if you really want to hear, but you probably won't understand it.
Not only are these people a global tribe, they're doing work that only they understand. No wonder Herlihy feels like the old guy.
A PR person couldn't write the sort of good press that Google workers give their own company. "Is working for Google as good as they say? It's even better," says a worker from Amsterdam.
It seems that the only person who is actually taking holidays in August is Adrian (25), from Italy, who plans to spend three weeks in São Paolo in Brazil, Argentina and Amsterdam, before heading home to visit his Mama in Sorrento. But he'll be happy to get home. "This is the best place to work. You get respect from the company and the people are great. And it's an international, so you can travel wherever you like. You get everything you want. You don't have to get more out of them because they're already giving you everything. Why would I want to get more?"
You don't have to work for Google to be a global computer worker who appreciates the Irish weather. Charles Epaillard, who works for a French software company, was a guest at the party and has chosen Dublin as his ideal place to live. "I love the rain. I come from Brittany, so Dublin in August is perfect for me." But as the workforce ages, family-friendly working is becoming an attraction for people like Ian Loughran (37), father of three children aged five, three and one, who started working for Google four weeks ago and is commuting daily from his home in Armagh - which is 1 hour and 20 minutes in the car each way.
LOUGHRAN WORKED FOR Quinn Insurance and ran his own internet business before, while his wife Fionnuala works as manager of the Armagh local council environmental health department, and has a five-minute commute. They decided that remaining in Armagh while Ian commutes made sense because their priority was to live near their own families, who provide lots of support for the children, collecting them from morning creche and minding them in the afternoons.
Says Ian: "We've lived in London and in Seattle. We realised that if we moved to Dublin we'd lose all our family support. You can either commute to see your family at weekends, or commute during the week and be with your family at weekends. We chose the second option. And Google is one of the best employers in Ireland, and it's flexible, so it's worth the extra effort."
Jennifer Kelly started working as facilities manager for Google in Dublin five years ago when there was a staff of 30 people. Today she manages 12 offices across Europe in a role she describes as "construction, services, food and toilets". She was at Googlefest with her daughter, Grace (15 months).
"A lot of us go home in August. I went to Portugal in July and it rained for two weeks," says Kelly. In other countries where Google has offices, work slows down so much in August that she has staff ringing her from places such as Scandinavia to ask her whether there's anything that needs doing.
So the Google philosophy of working without complaint in August seems to stem from several factors - a young workforce who love working and prefer to take holidays in spring and autumn when they are cheaper, a global team who travel so much for work and pleasure on weekends that they don't need long holidays, along with an almost perverse pleasure in rainy cool weather, which those from hot countries seem to appreciate.