4 min read
I survived my first day working at a tech giant. Although arguably it wasn't actual work. We have almost a whole week of orientation to introduce us to Google and how it's run before getting into the actual projects.
The office
Today started bright and early with my expected arrival time to the office to be 8:15 AM. Exiting the apartment, there was a massive crime scene or something because roughly half the firetrucks and ambulances in Manhattan were blocking my way down 9th Avenue. Annoyed I would be late, I just ducked under the yellow tape like a rebel a walked right down the sidewalk. No one said a thing.
Finding the "16th Street entrance" was a bit challenging since there was no 16th Street entrance as I found out the hard way -- we were actually expected to enter on 9th Avenue. After finding my way into the building, I was confronted by a swarm of Nooglers checking in and getting temporary badges.
Later we all went up the elevator in small packs to a room in which we did our I-9 verification, password/account setup, took our official photos, and got shiny new Chromebooks. It was confusing as lines were so long they overlapped with each other and no one really knew where the line ended. There were multiple lines for multiple stations to add to the chaos.
After that mayhem, it was off to orientation in a large talk room. It was stated that about 108 interns were there that day for orientation. Unfortunately it was also stated that everything they went over the whole day was confidential (no, I'm not making this up because I'm lazy), so moving on...
By the time the back-to-back talks and presentations and activities ended it was just after 4:30. This was when we got our super-cool propeller caps and got to meet our hosts.
Me at my new work station
I actually ran into one of the Googlers from UConn who visited campus back in February. He introduced me to his coworker and my project host. After that my host took me on the grand tour.
Sorry, I didn't bring my phone with me this time, but here's a photo of something I saw in the office (they actually added a gray "+" at the end since this was taken)
After the tour and meeting the team, I was free to mess around with the Chromebook as I waited for dinner with the team at 6:30 in Hemispheres (the only cafe that serves dinner and has a sweet view of the Empire State Building). Earlier at lunch I ate at the Water Tower Cafe which had some pretty good food too and a sushi bar.
After getting food at lunchtime, I sat down with a bunch of other interns and we all introduced ourselves. Devouring everything, I decided to go back and get in the sushi line. I ordered 3 pieces of sunset sushi and 3 pieces of lobster chili sushi (which surprisingly had strawberries in it too). I thought it was going to be a good time trying out the sushi but I was kind of wrong.
Although the sushi was good, the seaweed from a piece got stuck in the back of my throat resulting in me almost tossing my lunch -- a pretty bad way to make a first impression to the other Nooglers. As for dinner it went much smoother as I sat with the site reliability Googlers that I'm going to be working with this summer.
Being able to sit with people I've never met before in both cases and actually talk and laugh really made me like dining at Google. My host even invited me to a team meeting right after dinner in which we did a Google Hangout and they went over the current project they're working on. Although I'm only an intern and am not yet up to speed with the team, I feel like I'm treated as a real employee here. Throughout the day the Googlers I encountered were friendly, happy, and helpful. It made me really excited to be working here for this summer.
My day finally ended at 8 after the video conference ended. With my goofy-looking happy face balloon (as shown in one of the photos) tied to a backpack my host lent me to carry home my loot, I was back off to my apartment. I must have looked ridiculous with a stern look on my face speed-walking through the streets with a clown-like balloon trailing me (it even has rainbow hair). Although I was a bit disoriented after coming out of a different entrance and walked the wrong direction for a full block, I eventually found my way back.
What's on tomorrow's agenda? Classes. Lots and lots of classes. As for tonight? Even more homework.