Day 1 at Google

Wow! Just wow! I love everything about Google. Although all day long today we just had to go through lots of presentations, and doing some paper work, it was very informative and useful. In the morning all the nooglers were ushered into the front lobby to set passwords for our Google accounts, got photographed for our badges and were led to some snack areas to give ourselves some treats and drinks. Then we sat for a day long marathon of HR related presentations and paper work. We stayed from 9 to 5 in the room except for some short breaks and lunch. What I loved about the day is how very well everything is organized. Each step is completed in exactly the intended time slot alloted for it. Well actually within +/- 3 minutes. There is a lot of information and I will definitely have to go over the slides to remember everything. Later in the day we got our badges.

Coming to lunch. It is simply superb. Well I had lunch at Google before during my on-site interviews. But every time the food was a delight to my palate. There are several cafeterias and the one we visited served Indian food. I had white rice, sambar, matar paneer and pickle. Excellent huh? The food was very tasty.

Towards the end of the day we were given a quick tour of the infamous free laundry room, gym, game room, lap pool and snack bar. Then at 5:00 pm, my mentor showed me my cubicle, introduced me to my co-workers and managers. My cubicle has lots of balloons and candy and rumor has it that once the balloons lose air we are officially Googlers and not Nooglers any more. I was given a desktop with a LARGE 30" monitor! I almost fell off my chair just looking at the size of the thing. It is really really very big monitor. I don't need 2 monitors now. The desktop was a good 2.4 Ghz Intel Dual core processor with 4 GB RAM! We then went to pick up my first ever mac - the macbook pro. It is a serious laptop. Gets really hot when running at full load but it is very thin and stylish. I got a bag with other accessories.

My mentor took care of everything for me and left. I made myself at home, went to the cafeteria again to grab my dinner. Hey the food is worth staying the extra few hours. Beats my cooking any day of the year and saves me time to cook and clean ;-) Did some more work after dinner and left for home.

The team is really good with lots of excitement, energy and very friendly. I felt at home...