As someone who works in IT (or on the fringes of it, at least), a job at Google is seen as the Holy Grail of positions: if it’s not going to be a job for life, it’ll at least set you up for it—after all, who wouldn’t want to hire Google alumni, right? And the benefits? Let’s not even start.
But is the reality a bit more, well, real?
According to this Google Group thread set up by the company’s HR department to discover why ex-employees left, the answer is a resounding Yes: their gripes are the same as those of any other employee in a sizeable organisation.
Those of us who failed to thrive at Google are faced with some pretty serious questions about ourselves. […] Google is supposed to be some kind of Nirvana, so if you can’t be happy there how will you ever be happy? It’s supposed to be the ultimate font of technical resources, so if you can’t be productive there how will you ever be productive?