谷歌員工吐槽：那些年我待過的谷歌

A job at Google. It's career heaven, right? How could a gig at the biggest, most ambitious tech company on the planet possibly be bad?
擁有一份谷歌工作，夫復何求？世界上最有抱負的科技公司，全球信息網絡的大鱷怎麼可能會不盡人意呢？

Well, take a look at this Quora thread, which is being used by current and former Google employees to dish the dirt on work.ng for Big G.
來瞧瞧Quora 網站跟帖，不論從前還是現在，谷歌員工都在這裏發牢騷。

We've edited some of the standout comments into this excerpt.
下面我們摘錄了一些具有代表性的評論：

Everyone is awesome, so they can hire the very best people to do even the most mundane jobs
谷歌人才俯拾皆是，所以，他們可以僱用頂尖人才去做最普通的工作

"The worst part of working at Google, for many people, is that they're overqualified for their job. Google has a very high hiring bar due to the strength of the brand name, the pay & perks, and the very positive work culture. As a result, they have their pick of bright candidates, even for the most low-level roles."
“對很多人來說，在谷歌工作最糟糕的是大材小用。谷歌名氣大、報酬豐厚、福利好、企業文化積極向上，所以門檻高。結果是，即使最低層次的職位都由高層次的候選人填充。”

"There are students from top 10 colleges who are providing tech support for Google's ads products, or manually taking down flagged content from YouTube, or writing basic code to A|B test the color of a button on a site."
“有來自10大頂級高校的學生們爲谷歌廣告產品提供技術支持，或手工從視頻網站YouTube上刪除違規內容，或編寫網站按鈕顏色對比測試基本代碼。”

Google staff are so outstanding that there's an internal joke about it
有個內傳的笑話告訴你谷歌員工有多麼優秀

"… I used to joke with my colleagues that Larry & Sergey go out on their yachts - tie them together, sit back on the same recliners you'll find on their jumbo jet, each on his own yacht/set of yachts, smoke cigars, and put up pictures of Googlers with little snippets like "was a GM at muti-national telecomm company, got a Harvard MBA and is now answering Orkut tickets." and then they would erupt in laughter and clink their cigars & Scotch together in celebration. This, of course, is highly unlikely given neither of them would ever smoke a cigar or drink Scotch. Remainder is plausible."
“我過去常常和同事開玩笑說，拉里和謝爾蓋乘各自的遊艇出行——他們把兩隻遊艇系在一起，坐回到與他們噴氣飛機上一樣舒適的休閒椅上，抽着雪茄，欣賞他們手下員工帶簡短說明的照片，例如：某某曾是跨國通信公司總經理，哈佛大學工商管理碩士，目前回復社交網站Orkut 的申請。”隨後，他們發出爆笑，碰一下雪茄或蘇格蘭威示忌以示慶祝。不過，兩人既不抽雪茄也不喝威示忌，所以此情節純屬虛構，其他的貌似可信。

Google is not a startup any more. It's a big, big corporation
谷歌發展成大公司，創業已成爲過去

"Google was not a start-up environment by the time I left. The same office politics. It was easy to get promoted if you worked on the right projects and projected your work in the right way."
“我離開時，谷歌就已不再有創業氛圍。辦公室政治與其他公司無異。如果項目、工作方法對路，升職也不是很難。”

Many of the engineers are arrogant
許多工程師態度傲慢

"Unfortunately, in spite of the common belief, I think the average level of Google engineers is mediocre. With a lot of arrogance, too. Everybody believes he (males dominate) is better than his neighbor. So it is really hard to discuss any issue unless it is your friend you are talking to. Objective discussions are pretty rare, since everybody's territorial, and not interested in opinions of other people unless those people are Important Gods."
“人們普遍認爲，谷歌工程師是精英，但不幸地是，我覺得谷歌工程師的平均水平居中，而且態度傲慢。每個人都覺得自己比別人強。所以，討論任何問題都很難，除非對方是你的朋友。客觀的討論難得一見，因爲大家都有着領地意識，對他人的意見沒有興趣，除非那些人是重量級人物。”

Google is so big you can't have any impact on it
谷歌之大，個體就如同一條掀不起波浪的小魚

"I worked at Google for 3 years and it was very difficult to leave but there was one major factor that helped me make the decision - the impact I could ever have on the business as an individual was minimal. As noted in many answers below, Google is an incredible machine that prints money thanks to AdWords. Unless you are an amazingly talented engineer who gets to create something new, chances are you're simply a guy/girl with an oil can greasing the cogs of that machine."
“我在谷歌工作了三年，離開難以割捨，但是一個主要因素促成了這個決定——作爲個體，我對谷歌可能產生的影響不值一提。正如下面許多回答中提到的，AdWords搜索引擎，使谷歌成爲一架不可思議的印鈔機。除非你天賦超常，有所創新，否則你只可能做個平庸之輩，爲這駕機器的齒輪加點潤滑油。”

Middle management is mediocre
中層管理很中庸

"I'd say the relentless daily mediocre thinking of middle management types who are completely focused on metrics to the exclusion of all other factors. They don't want to rock the boat, they don't know how to inspire their workforce, and they rely far too much on the Google name and reputation to do that for them."
“我想說，每天圍繞着你的是中層管理的中庸思維，他們只關注指標，不考慮所有其他因素。他們安於現狀，不知道如何激勵員工，他們過於依賴谷歌的名字和聲譽。”

Google may understand engineering, but not design
工程學可能是谷歌的強項，但它不懂設計

"There is not enough focus on product and visual design. This has led to many aborted/semi-successful products, like Wave, Google Video, Buzz, Dodgeball, Orkut, Knol, and Friend Connect. There is probably too much focus on pure engineering."
“對產品和視覺設計未給予足夠的關注，致使許多產品中途流產，例如：Wave, Google Video, Buzz, Dodgeball, Orkut, Knol, 和 Friend Connect。大概在純工程學方面考慮得太多吧。”

Your office space can be too small
辦公空間狹小

"... if you have to work in one of the four main campus buildings, you will most likely be extremely cramped. It's not uncommon to see 3-4 employees in a single cube, or several managers sharing an office. With all the open areas for food, games, TV, tech talks, etc, it can be surprisingly hard to find a quiet, private place to think."
“如果你需要在四個主園區大樓中的一間辦公，那你極有可能被禁錮在狹小的空間裏。3-4個人擠在一個格子裏，幾位管理人員分享一間辦公室，這都很平常。另外，所有開放空間都可用於食品、娛樂、電視、技術討論等，所以想找到一個安靜的、能獨立思考的空間難之又難。"

Get things in writing
把承諾白紙黑字寫下來

"If you are in the process of gaining employment with Google, negotiate hard, be demanding, and make sure to get EVERYTHING in writing. Google makes lots of vague promises, and seems to not deliver."
“如果你在申請谷歌職位，把握尺度，據理力爭，一定要把約定寫在紙上。谷歌作出很多模糊承諾，而且似乎只說不做。”

Googlers can get caught up in trivia
谷歌員工迷戀瑣事

"In Zurich there is a quiet room where people go to relax, or take a nap. There are very nice looking fish tanks there and you can waste as much of your work time there, watching the fish do fishy things. There was a 100 emails thread about removing the massage chairs from that room because some people allegedly were being kept from sleeping because the massage chairs were too noisy."
“蘇黎世的辦公室處有一個安靜的房間，供人們放鬆或打盹。房間裏，擺放了一些非常漂亮的魚缸，你可以盡情地欣賞魚兒自由穿梭。有人發貼，希望搬走這個房間裏的按摩椅，跟貼者達百人之多，據說，有些人嫌這些椅子吵得他們睡不成覺。”

The culture is immature
文化不成熟

"It's like never-never land - people never grow up. They drink at all hours, socialize constantly, play games, and do little to no work."
“這裏彷彿是個遠離塵世的地方——人們永遠長不大。他們不停地喝咖啡、交談、玩遊戲，工作效率低，要麼乾脆不做。”

You can't work remotely
不能遠程工作

"But the killer to me was the inability to work remotely, which I have been doing successfully for the past 5-6 years."
不能遠程工作，還不如殺了我，在過去的5-6年裏，我一直都在遠程工作，而且卓有成效。

Googlers treat temps with disrespect
谷歌員工歧視臨時工

"As someone who has worked for a temp job working for Google, the worst part is the smug attitude of those who work for the REAL Google. They seem to think that anyone who isn't working for the actual Google like they are is somehow mentally and morally inferior."
“作爲曾爲谷歌做臨時工作的人來說，最讓人受不了的就是谷歌正式員工自以爲是的態度。他們莫名其妙地認爲，那些臨時工和他們不一樣，在智力和品德上屬次品。”