I'm Feeling Lucky_ The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 - Douglas Edwards [69]
"Your mothers must be so proud," a user told us. "I want my son to work at Google."
We received more letters of praise when we did the same thing the following year, but we also received pointed questions about why there weren't any African-American moms depicted. We answered that not all staff members were represented—but it was the last time our mothers put in an appearance.
Sometimes the artwork itself misfired. "Why do you have a turkey, a turtle, and a thermometer on your logo?" users asked when Dennis celebrated the Japanese holiday Shichi-Go-San with a crane, a turtle, and a traditional candy bag.
"Why does King Neptune have a boner?" Several users noted an unfortunate tenting in Poseidon's toga during a logo series Dennis did for the Olympics that featured figures from Greek mythology.
"Your anti-Christian political correctness is showing." "Your hemisphericentric world view is apparent." We heard both these complaints about the snowy "winter holiday" scenes we ran instead of Christmas-specific artwork. Australians in particular wanted to make it very plain to us that December is the middle of their summer and hence winter scenes on our homepage made us look uninformed, uncaring, or both.
"Where's your patriotism?" other users demanded. "You celebrate Chinese New Year, but not [pick one]: Memorial Day, Veterans Day, D-Day, V-J Day, Presidents' Day." We wanted the logos to be unpredictable and special, but eventually they took on a life of their own with a complicated set of rules governing what we would commemorate and whom we would honor. That came later. For the first couple of years, Dennis and Karen and I had free rein to pick and choose, which is why Korean Liberation Day made the list twice before Australia Day. Yo, Dennis—represent, Seoul brother.
Good Enough Is Good Enough
"Do you know what our greatest corporate expense is?" Sergey asked at TGIF. The assembled Googlers looked up from their laptops. Everyone wanted the chance to be right in front of others.
"Health insurance!" shouted an engineer. "Salaries!" "Servers!" "Taxes!" "Electricity!" "Charlie's grocery bills!" rejoined others.
"No," said Sergey, shaking his head solemnly. "Opportunity cost."
Products we weren't launching and deals we weren't doing threatened our economic stability far more than any single line item in the budget. We were falling behind even as we leapt ahead. Success was spilling through our fingers. This was Sergey's rallying cry to redouble our efforts. I heard it, but sometimes I had a hard time answering.
After six months on the job, I had plenty on my plate, and I swept away my daily tasks like an umpire brushing away the dust of a home-bound slide. Big amorphous projects, though, like reorganizing all the corporate information pages or developing a banner-ad strategy for our trade partners, I just couldn't find time to complete.
If I wasn't responding to coworker requests, sitting in meetings, or flicking my mouse at emails infesting my inbox, I was being seduced by the rustle of M&Ms each time someone dipped a scoop into the bin across the hall. Kitchen aromas suffused my senses until I was compelled to pore over the lunch menu and plan my noon repast. There was always someone up for after-dinner Soul Calibur in the Blue Room, and the sauna beckoned when the pressure got intense—I could think about all the tasks piling up on my desk as freshly made Italian coffee dripped out of my pores.
At the Merc, I had never felt a pang when making personal calls on my office phone, because, I mean, just look at the dearth of perks they offered. A discounted subscription to our own newspaper? Gee. Thanks. At Google, I was in