…and breakfast. and dinner too. and all the snacks in between meals. to increase productivity and time spent at the workplace, google provides free meals for all its employees.
mind you, this isn’t just some shoddily prepared food simply because it’s free and has to cater to 10,000 workers. this is top-notch organic and hormone-free stuff prepared by professional chefs at 11 restaurants spanning across google’s mountain view campus.
with all the sushi, foie gras, tacos, salad bars and candy stations, google employees certainly have it good! after all, they do deserve it for creating some of the best products and services in the online world.
but still, wouldn’t this induce jealousy in anyone?
brett lider, a google employee, has posted dozens of pictures of the food he enjoys at google. all the pictures you see here have been taken by him.
it’s not just food! there’s whisky tasting as well! whisky at work!
of course, things have to be lots more innovative at google, food included. on the left you see a pipette, plus a little bit of cheese and a little chunk of tomato on a stick. the pipette releases a little salad cream when squeezed. how neat!
the bottle on the right looks like something that would fit right into my toiletries pouch. it is, in fact, mineral water! all the way from norway, no less. that’s quite possibly the prettiest mineral water bottle i’ve ever seen!
besides the 11 restaurants, there are also 44 food stations in between work areas. each one has its own espresso machine, mineral water, vitamin water (!!!), juices and — the best part — scoop-your-own-bins filled with candy treats ranging from gummi bears to chocolate bars!
sure, at the end of the day it’s all about increasing productivity. but pampering employees and making them feel appreciated go a long way. workers that are treated well and feel good at their work environment are happy, loyal and hard workers (possibly fat too, in this case). it probably explains why google is so successful at churning out innovative and user-friendly services all the time.
three cheers and two thumbs up for google!
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Flickr: Food Photo Blog of Brett Lider, a Google employee
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goes by the name veron (english) or wanting (chinese). a definitive leo born august 1, 1984. a solo traveler. loves cats, coffee, sensual music, yummy food and technology. when she's not at her job as an IS developer for the government, she's likely to be out dining, or visiting an interesting art gallery or event.
wahh.. im drooling!!
if only companies in sg are that generous too! View all comments by creme
Maybe only in our dreams! Or 1000 years later when things would be very very different from what they are now. View all comments by Veron
No wonder why, Google was voted the best company to work at for the year 2006. Besides, having extravaganza food, their employees still could play around like little kids within the compound!
Too bad no other companies in the world follow Google’s policy. The pockets of other employers are not as deep as Google. View all comments by Fenton
Oh yeah. They spend an estimated USD10 to provide free meals for each employee in one day. That’s USD100,000 for 10,000 employees everyday! Not too many companies can afford to do that. View all comments by Veron
wow… this actually brings a tear to my eye…
i think im going to go cry…. right after i fix myself a huge sandwich hehe View all comments by zaijian
good gracious. how cool is that. is there a google branch in Singapore? ;p View all comments by iloveyongsi
argh! so what my hacker friend said was true!
When I was working at Hewlett Packard I was buying lunch box everyday and eating in front of my computer in my cubicle lor!! View all comments by chillycraps
Hey zaijian,
LOL you are hilarious! View all comments by Veron
Hey iloveyongsi,
I think they do! Oh what would I give to work at Google! But I have a feeling the free lunch policy wouldn’t apply in its Singapore office. View all comments by Veron
Hey chillycraps,
Okay one thing at a time. You have a HACKER friend?? View all comments by Veron
jealous? naahhh.. Considering how hard these guys work, they better get a good free meal haha View all comments by mervkwok
Gee, does that mean that they are going to look like foie gras themselves within a few years of their employment? I admit that I would be the first to tip the scales: I mean, with that much food, how can anyone RESIST?! View all comments by pkchukiss
Hey merv,
Good point! View all comments by Veron
Hey pkchukiss,
Gee, that foie gras imagery sure doesn’t seem too pretty! View all comments by Veron
hi Veron,
he works in an auditing firm. Anyway you know the real meaning of hacking isn’t negative, right~? =) View all comments by chillycraps
I know there are both black and white hackers. And I’m gonna be royally pissed if somebody hacked into my site and replaced all my content with huge text in block letters. (But then again, why would anyone do that?) View all comments by Veron
google is pretty enlightened - 10 bucks per day, or about $200 more a month for each employee is nothing if it leads to high morale and better productivity and low turnover and ensures top talent coming in. oh they have free laundry and massages etc too. before long they’ll be providing free girlfriends to those google nerds. View all comments by tinkertailor
now, i know how they got their endless flow of creative juices..
=) View all comments by nay min thu
I’m willing to live and work in USA if google employs me. :D View all comments by DK
Haha, wow, I’m so jealous! That food looks amazing…and makes me want to go work at Google. If only I was good with computers…T_T
Voss water! Yeah, it’s pretty popular in the States too - my friends once bought it for their whole class…which is pretty expensive, and now that they’ve drank all the water, they put cheap stuff in it like Arizona Tea and stuff…^__^;; View all comments by Min
Hmmm … i think the most common meal catered by company in sg is Chicken rice & Nasi lemak.
Compared to googles’ … i think their employees are very fortunate. Plus their food is filled with creativity n motivation. I’m sure their employees will be motivated to work twice as hard. hungry le :Xxx View all comments by Xin
Hi min,
talking about water… heard about Bling H2O. $US 99 a bottle? is that true, have you tried it yet?
Hey hey Veron,
just joined your community. enjoy your food blogs. Keep them coming View all comments by looi
i think it all boils down to culture and local corporate responsibility. Most employers in this part of Asia, fail to see the connection and dare i say, logical importance, of spending money to motivate and enrich the employees. More often than not, the mentality is firmly directed towards getting the most out of workers, for the least possible expense. its an unfortunate truth isnt it? Regardless of how deep the pockets are, the arms never seem to reach too far into them.
But again, to expect google’s level of extravagance is unreasonable, however, the reasoning behind the strategy should really not be so hard to grasp. bravo to companies like google and pixar, for redefining the workplace for the future.
As for us, here in asia… erm.. dont hold your breath :) and just order out…
by the way V, love the live preview when typing replies… very cool. first time i’ve ever seen it used like this! hmmm maybe you should give google a call :) View all comments by zaijian
tinkertailor: Free girlfriends for the nerds? Saying that alone already sounds too weird!
nay min thu: Even their chefs are creative!
DK: Haha I think most people are willing to do the same.
Min: Hmm I don’t think we have the Voss water here in Singapore. Just out of curiosity, how much does a bottle cost?
Xin: You got that right!
looi: Welcome to the community! We’re one big happy family now. For those who haven’t, you can still join my community!
zaijian: You put it in such a nice way! I wanted to say that Singaporeans tend to screw one another over just to reap the maximum possible benefit for themselves. Free lunch? Nah… You mentioned Pixar. How are they as employers? And oh, I would give Google a call if I had coded the live preview thing myself. But I didn’t :( View all comments by Veron
the food looks really good. but i don’t think i’ll have the chance nor the qualifications to work there.
so far only one place i’ve worked in which actually provides free catered meals, but it’s nice (as in not chicken rice and nasi lemak) but still quite normal food, not nice and wah wah food. lol~ View all comments by xxoos
Share with us what company that is, pretty please?
The closest I have come to having free catered meals at work is when my friends and I were practicing for our National Day Parade performance every Saturday and Sunday back in ‘99. The caterer? Singapore Food Industries. Okay pretty sad, but that is the closest. View all comments by Veron
i was at this place where they catered free breakfast lunch and dinner every day, and sometimes the food was not bad. i was there 2.5 years, but i wasn’t happy there at all. caterer was singapore food industries as well. organisation? army. View all comments by tinkertailor
looi - I’ve heard of Bling H20 - the bottles are so pretty! ^__^ I haven’t tried it, but they’re definitely not $99/bottle. A regular bottle is about $35, and then go up from there as they get more specialized with different editions and stuff.
Veron - You don’t have Voss? I had no idea… A bottle here costs about $2-3 if you buy them one at a time from a supermarket. If you buy it in bulk from the website it costs about $1.50 each. View all comments by Min
it was ritz carlton, the welfare for the employees is not bad. think most upmarket hotels will have nice food too, after all it’s their own people do the food one… View all comments by xxoos
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