March 14, 2009

Google has rules


^ ^ ^ Please let me know if you know what this is all about.



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

Oh, getting kicked out of places I'm not supposed to be is nothing new to me -- so when the rather mellow security guards at Google Headquarters in Mountain View escorted me out on Wednesday it was just another rather mellow adventure...

Like I mentioned to Photowannabe Sue the other day, they didn't taze or pepper-spray me, or anything.   They didn't want to know who I was, and the guy wouldn't even take my card -- they aren't allowed to accept anything from strangers...



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

Anyway I had fun mingling with the lunch-bunch soaking up some sun and mulling over the problems of work and/or cutting loose with wild stories about this and that...



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

On the good side -- Google cares about expectant mothers...

On the bad side -- rumors abound that Google spies on us, amassing lengthy records of our innermost thoughts and motivations.   My file is probably pretty boring...



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

So, next time you're in Mountain View visiting the Computer History Museum, drive farther down that road and stop by Google.   Be a bit more discrete than me with my obvious camera, and you probably will be able to get away with a bit of discretionary trespassing.


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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

>>> ^ ^ ^ Please let me know if you know what this is all about.

Looks like fun to me!

Erik said...

Piggybacking is when someone without a key follows you through a locked door. You aren't supposed to let someone you don't know do that because they could be planning to rob the joint.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I was just about to say something smart-alecky about Google and piggybackers, but then I read commentor Erik's excellent explanation, and it sort of spoiled the joke. Just as well...

Lew said...

I have worked in a lot of places where that is policy, though not seen a poster like Google's by the door. Did you ask how many of those memories you show in your header it would take to hold one JPEG image? Or how long it would take your camera to store said image?

AphotoAday said...

THANKS ERIK --
It all makes sense now... I've had a few monkeys on my back, but never a fellow employee...

AND LEW --
I'm just going to have to say it would take a heck of a lot of them, and take a heck of a long time...
((( In junior college I "majored" in electronics and especially enjoyed the special math electronic engineers use -- we were still using slide rules, pretty much, in those days (mid and late '60's)...

Tomate Farcie said...

First of all, thanks for that great post! Seeing the "expectant mother" parking place really made my day for some reason.

I had no idea what that piggybacking thing was and thought that meant that Google employees were big kids having way too much fun! ;) Of course, they don't... I imagine that despite the perks, the nice campus and the hip name, they work very, very hard indeed.

PS. I remember the sliding ruler. Don't think I would know how to use it anymore, though ;)

Louise said...

Funny post! (I have no idea what that first sign means.) I've never got kicked out for a camera. I'm usually too chicken to press my luck. I've got kicked off of the king's grass in Norway, however. It was the only nice grass in the country. It was begging me to sit on it, but the guards didn't think so.

 
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