192: Working for Google

2013-06-19T04:19:57Z

122.168.11.219:

{{comic
| number = 192
| date = December 04, 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 widely by people who consider themselves to be smarter than normal.)

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 256 (2^8) days you get to learn how to levitate.

==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]]

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192: Working for Google