Here is my third — and probably final — installment in the series of posts I’ve been writing about my transition to West Coast life. Retroactive thanks for allowing me to hijack this space to map out my thoughts on this huge life overhaul. I hope you’ve found the posts entertaining, and possibly useful in your own life changes. Please bear with me as I seek to rediscover my niche on Tropophilia in light of my new job!
I’ve been in California for almost two weeks now, and think I’ll have trouble ever letting myself leave. The weather here has been nothing short of spectacular. I’m not sure I’ve seen a cloud since I’ve been here. The mornings and evenings are much cooler than I expected, but the lack of humidity is a blessing that I cannot fully express. The people here are very nice, too. It’s not the sugary Southern brand of nice — it’s a very transparent, laid-back kindness and empathy. But sometimes I miss the sugary Southern brand.
Today, though, I want to talk about the place where I’ve been spending most of my time: Google. I wish I could tell you everything. Unfortunately, though, there are things I just am not allowed to share. :-( So forgive me in advance if I skip around some things or sound really vague.
Google is definitely the fun house that the media portrays it to be. There is a stocked mini kitchen about 30 feet from my desk. We have a ping pong table, pool table, massage chair, and massage room in our building. There’s a room where you can pick up whatever kind of computer hardware you need — all new in original packaging so you get the pleasure of unboxing :) — just by swiping your badge. There are departmental and company-wide happy hours and off-sites. One of Google’s eighteen cafés is also in our building, serving hot and fresh breakfasts, lunches, and dinners — all for free. And that’s just our building. In other buildings (short rides away on one of the scores of community bikes) there are nap pods, gyms, ball pits, slides, and other as-yet undiscovered shenanigans.
We. are. spoiled. But believe it or not, people do work here, and they work really hard.
So, how to describe my job? Well, it is a lot bigger than I expected, but that’s actually a great thing. To put it simply, my job is to assist the Product Counsel team manage the legal side of developing, approving, launching, and monitoring new and existing Google products. Each of the lawyers has a portfolio of products that they “own.” Products are developed by teams, and so the lawyers are like mini General Counsels for different product teams. I do have some day-to-day (well… more like week-to-week) recurring duties, but a lot of my time is spent with special or long-term, ongoing projects. I still don’t fully have my head wrapped around my job, but I am (oddly) already feeling very comfortable. I haven’t felt overwhelmed yet, though I’m sure it will come. My strategy has been this: take one e-mail at a time, never be afraid to ask questions, and breathe.
Lifehacker 
