Crash-landing in Google from a well structured, corporate environment, was absolutely shocking, to a degree where my brain just froze. It is an unprecedented level of chaos that honestly, no one expects from a brand like theirs. Admittedly, it must be grand to work for Google as an engineer, but for the downtrodden 2% which their corporate side represents, it is demotivational, stressful and very, very badly structured place.
- Every corporate job assumes you are an engineer - requirement (badly communicated during the interview process, btw) to understand and use programming languages and various convoluted systems which don't talk to each other for even the simplest tasks. Pulling data together requires one writing their own scripts even if working in, say, facility management.
- Work-life balance is a myth. Everyone is super stretched. Priorities pile on top of priorities. Diaries are triple-booked with pointless meetings. No head-down time during the day. Most staff work weekends and are on email until they go to bed, despite management banging on how this is not the expectation.
- Tendency to bring meetings forward - if you have 30 mins free in your diary, expect someone to fill that in with a later meeting, creating a situation where you are suddenly late and being chased on Hangouts.
- Practically zero support, despite promoting "supportive culture". Processes are badly structured and even worse documented. Your only hope are colleagues. There are many genuinely nice people, but they mostly don't have the time to deal with newbies, endlessly rescheduling trainings and meetings while you drown.
Very case specific, but my line manager turned me down flat several times when I was asking for help. Her instructions were often one line on the back of an email chain going back months. When I finally quit, her only consideration was who had I talked to and did I somehow blame her officially. I didn't out of pure fear...
