A couple of weeks ago, the Sunday business section of the New York Times ran an article about a popular class taught at Google, for Google employees, to help them deal with the stress of working at what is, if the article is to be believed, an incredibly stressful and demanding (albeit also incredibly creative) company.
Now, I’ve been to Google. I used to live 15 minutes down the road from its campus, and my brother worked for the company for a time. So on the one hand, I can attest to the fact that the campus is an energized place. Some of the people I’ve met who work there are compellingly bright, thinking individuals, with big ideas about changing the world. Who wouldn’t want to work in a place filled with optimism, a belief in possibility, and with people actively engaged in transforming the world? Not to mention the fact that the food options at Google really are impressive.
But the Times article–perhaps unwittingly–painted a different image of the place. It described a place where even people coming from “fast-paced fields, already accustomed to demanding bosses and long hours, say Google pushes them to produce at a pace even faster than they could have imagined.” It described 80-hour work weeks and pressure that led employees to go home and explode at their families.
Even if the article is–as journalistic pieces certainly can be–a skewed angle that suited the writer more than it reflected the “typical” reality of Google, my brother used to say that the reason Google provided such great food, recreation, and even “nap pods” (my term for them) was to encourage employees to never leave the place. And it does occur to me that if employees really are that stressed and exhausted, someone there might question whether the company’s “do no evil” philosophy should, perhaps, start at home, with the health, well-being and quality of life of its own employees.
Of course, from the company’s perspective, perhaps that’s where this particular class comes in. It’s called “Search Inside Yourself,” or S.I.Y., and its goals are to help individuals with “attention training, self-knowledge, and self-mastery, and the creation of useful mental habits.” Employees apparently rave about the class, and there’s a long waiting list. And, to be sure, some of the things it apparently teaches would be good for any of us to learn, such as stopping to breathe and really reflect on what someone is saying to you before responding, or being more “mindful” of how emails you send can be interpreted by those who receive them. [click to continue…]
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