My experience as a red badge person was very good. While it is true that I was unable to bring my wife to lunch and I didn’t get free massages, everything else was great.
I was hired by someone with some clout who enjoyed reading two books I had written. He would occasionally call me to talk, and then one time he invited me to work on his pet project at Google.
Some of the perks were amazing. I took an 8 hour class ‘end to end’ that I would have paid a lot of money to take and in one day I got to learn how to use all of the internal systems I would need for my project, plus lots of other interesting stuff. Pure joy, that one!
I totally enjoyed the food (this was in 2013) and I went to invited speaker talks (I made sure that I wasn’t counting this against my 8 hours a day). Getting to meet Molly Katzen (author or Moose Wood Cookbook, etc.) and having a long conversation with her was great. Ditto for Alexis Ohanian.
I also have a work eccentricity, that apparently was not a problem: I always like to start work around 6am, and then leave early. As far as I know, this was not a problem. I need at least two hours a day with no interruptions.
Anyway, if you get a chance to work at Google for a while as a contractor, go for it!
I was hired by someone with some clout who enjoyed reading two books I had written. He would occasionally call me to talk, and then one time he invited me to work on his pet project at Google.
Some of the perks were amazing. I took an 8 hour class ‘end to end’ that I would have paid a lot of money to take and in one day I got to learn how to use all of the internal systems I would need for my project, plus lots of other interesting stuff. Pure joy, that one!
I totally enjoyed the food (this was in 2013) and I went to invited speaker talks (I made sure that I wasn’t counting this against my 8 hours a day). Getting to meet Molly Katzen (author or Moose Wood Cookbook, etc.) and having a long conversation with her was great. Ditto for Alexis Ohanian.
I also have a work eccentricity, that apparently was not a problem: I always like to start work around 6am, and then leave early. As far as I know, this was not a problem. I need at least two hours a day with no interruptions.
Anyway, if you get a chance to work at Google for a while as a contractor, go for it!