92 Language skills Extras Explore 7 Working together Work in pairs and find the answers to the following questions. 1 What is the secret of a successful job interview at Google’s according to David? 4 What does David say about Google’s social and environmental commitment? 2 What are the perks of working for Google? 5 How does he explain the low staff turnover? 3 What factors make teamwork easy? 6 Speculate how Covid may have changed work at Google’s. Look at the highlighted words in the blog about Google. Say what categories they belong to (noun, verb, participle, adjective). Choose at least one word from each category and change it into a different category (e.g. noun into verb, verb into adjective). Use each new word in a sentence of your own. Example: encourage encouragement Without my teacher’s encouragement I would never have taken part in the Students’ Olympics. b David J. My new life as a Noogler Well, I would have never believed that I’d be a Noogler one day! If you think that Google gets five (1) applications a minute, 6,849 per day, over 2.5 million per year, and job interviews are really kind of weird, with questions like “How many golf balls can fit into a school bus?,” I’d have thought my chances are pretty slim. But I must have done something right. As I was told later on, the important thing is not to find the right answer but to come up with a (2) creative one rather than simply saying “I don’t know”! So here I am, working for what has been repeatedly ranked the best employer in the world – and from what I’ve seen so far I’m not surprised: free meals and snacks, free healthcare and dental (3) insurance, on-site physicians, gyms and pools, video games, football, ping pong, and – something that will please my mother – free haircuts and dry cleaning! No wonder that Googleplex is sometimes called the ‘Mountain View Chocolate Factory’. I think that not just Googleplex itself, but Google buildings all over the world (say in Dublin or Zurich) look like big playgrounds for adults rather than workplaces: staff skateboarding or cycling across campus, windows decorated with posters and flags, swings, chess sets and basketball baskets in the foyers, and people wearing whatever they like. I hate wearing a suit and tie, so it was a big relief that there’s no dress code and that, as someone told me, you can turn up covered in body paint if you feel like it. Everybody knows about Google’s unique company culture, but you have to be in it to believe it. One thing I wasn’t so keen on was wearing the (4) obligatory rainbow-coloured propeller hat on my first TGIF*. It shows everybody you’re a Noogler and makes you feel a bit awkward. However, people immediately came up to me to say hello and talk. I was impressed no end that anybody could put questions to the management – from the CEO down – during this weekly meeting, or any other meeting, via email or in a café. I can see that the way the offices and cafés are furnished really (5) promotes teamwork and an exchange of ideas; (6) interaction is easy and (7) encouraged through lots of casual encounters, and I feel that there is an atmosphere of trust; how else could there be an option to (8) devote 20% of your working hours to projects of your own choice? What makes me (9) proud to work for Google is not just that it is a multi-billion dollar business and probably one of the coolest, too, but that Google is involved in charitable work and addresses global challenges through donations, grants and investments. It encourages the same attitude in its (10) employees by matching up to $3,000 of any employee’s contributions to non-profit organizations. As I’ve always been a bit of a tree-hugger, I’m glad that the same (11) commitment goes for environmental issues, and that Google Green supports efforts to develop renewable energy sources. In short, Google is a dream workplace, no (12) hierarchies, an atmosphere of working together, trust and support and, to crown it all, a ‘happiness officer,’ whose sole job it is to make sure that Googlers are happy. Google believes that the best employees are happy ones, and if this means that output (13) remains high and staff turnover low – who am I to complain? Reply Language focus Talking about a company 6 a b * Thank God it’s Friday Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv
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