Editing 192: Working for Google

{{comic
| number    = 192
| date      = December 4, 2006
| title     = Working for Google
| image     = working for google.png
| titletext = I hear once you've worked there for 256 days they teach you the secret of levitation.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete}}
Since the start of Google till now (2013), Google has offered its employees many benefits other jobs don't. [https://www.google.com/about/jobs/lifeatgoogle/benefits/] Such as massages, toys, video games, free food, etc. This is to make their employees happy and not worrying about staying at work. So for many people a job at Google is the ultimate dream, but they hire only the top 1% of people in every field so there are many, many unsuccessful applicants.

In this comic Cueball's friend is exhibiting the attitude known as "sour grapes", which is immediately picked up by the other speaker, even though it's disguised as mistrust of major corporations. (Google, for its level of control over the flow of the world's information, is mistrusted by some people).

In the last frame it turns out that the friend has been trying very hard to get the job, even resorting to bribing the interview panel by baking them a cake. But he went too far - he tried to distinguish himself from the pack by making the cake relevant to Google's business, but it backfired spectacularly because in doing so he betrayed his complete lack of knowledge about the internet, thus destroying any slim chance he may have had of getting the job. (The internet, of course, is not a physical object and has no shape - although in response to this comic many people have tried to make something up which might fit.)

This comic is a highly accurate indication of why it's important to have a proper idea of your own ability when working in the IT industry. Resume padding will invariably be detected fairly quickly, and a reputation for lack of truthfulness can stick around all your life. (The exception of course is in companies where the IT managers aren't IT experts and can't tell good people from plausible liars - or bureaucratic companies where hiring is done further up the line by non-IT people. Both are like torture to a professed free thinker like Cueball's friend, which makes it a perfect form of poetic justice that those are the only positions a resume padder can expect to land.)

The title text is just a joke, saying that if you work for Google for 256 (2<sup>8</sup>) days you get to learn how to levitate. This displays some of the mystique with which Google is commonly viewed.

==Transcript==
:Cueball: Have you read about Google HQ? It sounds like an incredible place to work.

:Friend: Man, I ain't going to be chained down in no corporate idea factory! They think just 'cause they've got a nice building and laid back culture, I'm gonna want to come in all day long and work on fascinating problems with the smartest people in the world.

:[Cueball stares at friend.]

:Cueball: So, what, they turned you down?

:Friend: I don't understand it! I even baked them a cake shaped like the internet!

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 ==Explanation==
-Many look up to {{w|Google}} as the ultimate workplace in the IT industry. Therefore, they have lots of applicants but can afford to be very selective, and only the best and brightest succeed.
+{{incomplete}}
+Since the start of Google till now (2013), Google has offered its employees many benefits other jobs don't. [https://www.google.com/about/jobs/lifeatgoogle/benefits/] Such as massages, toys, video games, free food, etc. This is to make their employees happy and not worrying about staying at work. So for many people a job at Google is the ultimate dream, but they hire only the top 1% of people in every field so there are many, many unsuccessful applicants.
-In the first panel, the guy at the computer asks his friend (both look like [[Cueball]]) what he thinks about working at Google HQ ({{w|Head Quarters}}). His friend starts out by dismissing Google as a "corporate idea factory," but from the rest of his speech, we can infer that these are not his true feelings. He is exhibiting the attitude known as "{{w|sour grapes}}," where you criticize something that is out of your reach, or that has been denied from you.
+In this comic Cueball's friend is exhibiting the attitude known as "sour grapes", which is immediately picked up by the other speaker, even though it's disguised as mistrust of major corporations. (Google, for its level of control over the flow of the world's information, is mistrusted by some people).
-In the last panel, it is revealed that the friend has been trying very hard to get a job at Google, even resorting to bribing the interview panel by baking them a cake "shaped like the Internet."  This misguided action is a sign of how much he wanted a position.
+In the last frame it turns out that the friend has been trying very hard to get the job, even resorting to bribing the interview panel by baking them a cake. But he went too far - he tried to distinguish himself from the pack by making the cake relevant to Google's business, but it backfired spectacularly because in doing so he betrayed his complete lack of knowledge about the internet, thus destroying any slim chance he may have had of getting the job. (The internet, of course, is not a physical object and has no shape - although in response to this comic many people have tried to make something up which might fit.)
-Since the Internet does not have a defined shape, it is difficult to visualize exactly what he baked. The comment was maybe foreshadowing [[195: Map of the Internet]] that came out a week later. It would, though, be a more interesting cake if it looked like the map in [[256: Online Communities]], but that came out 20 weeks later. Another possibility is that the comment is a reference to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbyYGrswtg this video], in which the black box shown is supposedly the Internet. If this is the case, then the cake would have been shaped like the box in the video.
+This comic is a highly accurate indication of why it's important to have a proper idea of your own ability when working in the IT industry. Resume padding will invariably be detected fairly quickly, and a reputation for lack of truthfulness can stick around all your life. (The exception of course is in companies where the IT managers aren't IT experts and can't tell good people from plausible liars - or bureaucratic companies where hiring is done further up the line by non-IT people. Both are like torture to a professed free thinker like Cueball's friend, which makes it a perfect form of poetic justice that those are the only positions a resume padder can expect to land.)
-The title text says that if you work for Google for 256 (2<sup>8</sup>) days, you get to learn how to levitate. This displays some of the mystique with which Google is commonly viewed. The joke here is that 256 is bigger by one than the largest value a single byte can hold, as has been demonstrated with the [http://errors.wikia.com/wiki/Pac_Man_-_Infamous_Kill_Screen_Bug 256 Bug]. However, Astro Teller, the director of {{w|Google X}} labs, a Google division that researches "moonshot" projects, has mentioned in an [http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-22/inside-googles-secret-lab#p4 interview] that they contemplated starting a levitation project.
+The title text is just a joke, saying that if you work for Google for 256 (2<sup>8</sup>) days you get to learn how to levitate. This displays some of the mystique with which Google is commonly viewed.
 ==Transcript==
-:[A guy sits at a computer and addresses his friend standing behind.]
+:Cueball: Have you read about Google HQ? It sounds like an incredible place to work.
-:Guy: Have you read about Google HQ? It sounds like an incredible place to work.
-:[The friend throws his hands in the air as he delivers this speech:]
 :Friend: Man, I ain't going to be chained down in no corporate idea factory! They think just 'cause they've got a nice building and laid back culture, I'm gonna want to come in all day long and work on fascinating problems with the smartest people in the world.
-:[Close up of the guy staring at his friend.]
+:[Cueball stares at friend.]
-:[Back to the original setting.]
+:Cueball: So, what, they turned you down?
-:Guy: So, what, they turned you down?
-:Friend: I don't understand it! I even baked them a cake shaped like the Internet!
-==Trivia==
+:Friend: I don't understand it! I even baked them a cake shaped like the internet!
-* Interestingly, it took Cueball about a year to [[353: Python|learn the secret of levitation]] anyway. That comic was published on December 5, 2007, 366 days after this one, so not working at Google only slowed him down by a bit over three months.
 {{comic discussion}}
 [[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
-[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
-[[Category:Google]]