These are photos from my fieldwork expedition to the Google office space in lower Manhattan (near 8th avenue and 15th street). I was invited by an old NYU student (a syntactician naturally), who now works as a hotshot programmer for Google. I accepted with the goal of finding out as much as I could about the Google office space and culture. I was not disappointed.
I left the department at 11:20 to walk there, but it only took me 15 minutes, even at my slow hobbling pace. It is very close by. So I waited outside talking to my student for 20 minutes before our host arrived.
I also took this opportunity to find out about how to pitch my idea for a 'Noam Chomsky Award' to Google. My idea is that the award will be administered by LSA, but there should be a cash prize (10,000-100,000 dollars). One idea is that Google could sponsor the award. I thought it would be a nice community/academic tie in for them, because of the importance of natural language to their products (e.g., Chrome, Gemini).
Below is the huge neon sign you see when you first enters the building. The only way to enter the building is by invitation, and even then you need a government sponsored ID. Without it, they will turn you away. I know this because one of our group members was turned away.
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We headed right to the cafeteria. They had a wide range of standard NYC food, including Indian food, middle eastern, a souther barbecue (with collard greens, naturally), a huge salad bar. I am living with a low carb diet now, but I had no problem finding tasty dishes. I ate a salad, some falafel, and two pieces of delicious curry chicken. The cuisine was a all of a very high quality. The best part -- it is totally free. You just take your food, and eat (and then clear your own plates). Employees can eat breakfast, lunch and dinner there for free every day of the week, saving thousands of dollars throughout the year (and making them much more efficient and happy workers, I suppose).
Afterwards, we headed to a terrace on the same floor to look out over the city. Beautiful views! If I worked there, I would eat lunch on the terrance every single day.
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A few more things I learned: Google workers only need to work at the office two days per week. The rest of the time, they can work at home. So the workers do not have a fixed desk space, but rather a fixed working area that they go to (an area behind glass walls). They all have lockers, so they can store things in the locker when they work at home.
