Machu Picchu and the faraway office of Google

About how I took and traveled to South America

This post is a story about my trip abroad in the form of Google advertising for programmers. And although some time has passed since the writing of the text, and I haven’t been working for Google for a long time, I want to recall my graphomania of my journey, at the same time telling readers how pleasant it is to work with, as we all know, the best employer in the world.

This story began a long time ago, in hot Israel, where, visiting my classmate, I started talking about the fact that the rules on Google allow the employee to sometimes work in the office in which he wants, and next to which he turned out to be his personal affairs. And he, a classmate, convinced me how should I use this, since the geography is vast (here is the list) But history stalled for about another year, until two more classmates appeared: Hospitable and Energetic, and then I thought: it’s time! South America is the thing.

Since teleporters are still being developed at Google, and secret projects cannot be disclosed, I bought a plane ticket and rested for 11 hours from wi-fi, gprs, edge and sms.

On the other side of the Earth, it turned out, ordinary people also live. Nevertheless, I was very glad when I saw a person familiar from school among those who met me. My second joy was a small card that is inserted into a smartphone and connects it to the local Internet. Finally, mobile applications have acquired a special meaning. Why are airports still not having special kiosks right in the arrivals hall?

I could get lost in a big unfamiliar city, but fortunately my classmate settled next to the lighthouse. But the office was still to be found in the city. Probably, it is at such a moment that you understand how a foreigner feels, trying to find the address "st. Mayakovsky, d. 3-B, letter “A” ”, written in Cyrillic. So, when the office building was found, a new test for the engineer: how to call an elevator? No buttons are visible on the wall, and even if you break into the elevator car, they will not be there either. Perhaps the answer is already known to many: the administration of the building has installed a particularly advanced system. In the lobby on a special remote control, you need to dial the floor number where you want to get, and then the scoreboard will display which of the 6 elevators will carry you:









— Теперь вы больше не будете подходить и нажимать сразу обе кнопки, «вверх» и «вниз»!




The office itself is quite comfortable and looks like mine, where I work. So you feel at home. And what do you need for work, besides a comfortable table, wi-fi, ocean views and coffee? The office is still quite small, occupying only a few rooms on the floor. This is familiar, because the St. Petersburg branch began as well. Our administration then tried for a long time to solve the problem so that young people in shorts and barefoot did not scare business people in suits. It’s interesting how management wittily applies “soft power” here: it makes it colder - it’s prestigious for a hot country, and you don’t particularly like shorts. The people in the office turned out to be very nice and friendly. The male half certainly adores football. For example, on this screen I was able to see only












broadcast football, or “football” from the game console (and with the current quality of the graphics, you will not always understand what this time). Was it hard? Did I have to rearrange the ip-address and subnet mask, or get used to how the reverse Coriolis force swirls the water in the bathroom in an unusual way? Not. But the main problem for me was Spanish. Fortunately, Google Translate often helps out. This is still exotic, but in a few years, the world will probably change due to the automated translation, as it changed with the advent of mobile communications. Particularly advanced taxi drivers also mastered Google Translate. Not in order, of course, to better understand where you need to, but to chat along the way.





But Google Maps is so far recklessly not worth trusting. Otherwise, once instead of the highway, you may find yourself in a fog at an altitude of 4300m. (And yes, it’s pretty cool in the Andes.) In parting, I left exclusive souvenir T-shirts as a gift and went home to my hemisphere. It is very nice to combine a trip to a distant country with the opportunity to work there. Flying across the ocean for just a week is a shame, and the opportunity to continue working in another city is a great way to spend more time in a distant country without spending too many vacation days on it. Of course, there are costs, it’s still difficult to continue to work with the same intensity, but sometimes it is possible.