Google: Professional Utopia or Golden Cage?

Google’s reputation for being one of the top 100 employers to work for comes as no surprise when you think of all of the perks and comforts afforded to their employees. A fitness center, top notch catering service, free meals and snacks, dry cleaning, and high-end daycare are among the benefits that have been coveted by employees and sources of envy for the rest of us unlucky folk. The company has a perpetually difficult task of maintaining the level of innovation that catapulted them from a garage start-up to a web arbiter, all while keeping their employees healthy and happy. During the last year, Google has actually scaled back on the perks, perhaps a result of tough economic times or the challenge of upholding innovation.

Work hard, play hard is certainly a motto attributable to Google but is creating an environment so desirable that employees don’t want to leave really a good thing? Is working there a veritable professional utopia or is it like working for UNESCO, a golden cage? Regardless, I’d love to work for them in some capacity some day if only to be around others who genuinely love their work, a rarity these days.

Thoughts?

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