Google Sydney, Pyrmont

Well, this isn’t regular scheduled programming.

I know, I can already visualise the angry emails I’m going to get: “You’re supposed to be a food blogger! This is the biggest disappointment since Tobey Maguire took a metaphorical dump on everyone’s chest and called it Spiderman 3.”

Readers know that iFat is more of a blog about me featuring photos of food so this is right in line with my usual writing shenanigans

If you’re not sure, how about you just Google it?

google-sydney-022
Photo courtesy of the Future of Space because I stupidly forgot to take a photo of reception

You’re probably wondering why I was at the Google Sydney office. I don’t know if you guys have noticed but I’m kind of like a big deal. I average almost 20 readers a day now and Google wanted to bring me in and have a chat about whether or not I was willing to use my food blogging money to invest in Google Glass.

…ok, I was there for a lunch meeting but still. Not a tonne of people get to say they’ve visited the Google Offices and engaged in a furious ping pong battle for a nap pod (more on that later).

Located on Pyrmont wharf right alongside the Star, very few offices have better Google earth profiles:

google sydney offices
Not a bad view. A certain googler may have told me that several employees volunteered to work on NYE and snuck their families in to watch the fireworks only to realise that the smoke from the fireworks completely nullifed their awesome vantage point.

Ok, back in the office. Straight away, you get the vibe that Google is very, very fond of their colour scheme:

google sydney offices
Subtle

We were greeted by our account manager and given some swag straight away. However I didn’t get a googolplex of goodies due to the sheer amount of swag already emanating from my body:

google sydney offices
Tangent: I almost never write anymore as I type everything. My hand starts screaming in pain everytime I do decide to go old school.

Before discussing business, we were led to the Google cafeteria where I assume it’s where they keep their robots and algorithms fed.

I’m too scared to give anything a negative review in case the Googlers do to me whatever they did to the guys over at Ask Jeeves and Dogpile.

Fortunately, most things on offer were pretty delicious and boy was there a lot on offer:

google sydney offices

google sydney offices cafeteria
From left to right: Smashed potato with haloumi, corn with butter and herbs, chicken burgers with mayonaise, squid with chorizo and some sort of vegetarian fritatta that I did not touch at all.

You’re probably thinking: “it’s cafeteria food, there has to be a ceiling when it comes to how good it could possibly be.”

Jump on Yahoo and have a look at  the resources Google has to utilise. They may be most well known for their data and algorithms but their employees are just as important to the entire operation so they like to keep their cogs well oiled (or in this case well fed). There were enough cooks and chefs in the kitchen to take over Tasmania.

google sydney offices cafeteria
Make your own sandwich bar. One of my colleagues (who claims a lot of people don’t like sandwiches) swears that he made a lifechanging one using what Google gave him.
google sydney office salad bar
I believe people call this a salad bar. Not much experience with these I afraid

The beverage station was absolutely ridiculous by the way. There was a full-blown coffee machine, a juicer (my colleagues came up with a watermelon/orange concoction that was pretty awesome) and a tonne of flavours to pimp your soda water.

google sydney office cafeteria

google sydney office cafeteria juices
Oh and there was a massive mason jar loaded with refreshing lychee/mint water
google sydney offices
Once again, I’d like to remind all of you that I don’t actually eat that much. Just often. Like really often.

After lunch we had a huge discussion about some things we should be doing with a couple of our clients. It went on for quite a while and I was already sleepy due to my extremely bad decision of rewatching the Hangover before bed the previous night (for clarity, the bad decision was staying up late. The Hangover is one of the most rewatchable comedies of all time along with Borat, the first Harold and Kumar and the eventual movie made about my love life).

The Googlers noticed my weariness and directed us towards one of their many cafes:

Google cafe
Google Expresso (I just made that name up).
Google cafe
Colour scheme is consistent!

Real talk? The coffee was awesome. I’m not sure what blend they were using but I’d like to believe that there is a department dedicated to optimising blends as well as prank calling executives at Facebook. They do daily specials and the one on this day was a white chocolate mocha that turned one of my colleagues into an Energizer bunny.

Whilst we were here, we were talking to a couple of Googlers who kept saying TGIF.

You know what TGIF means at Google?

Thank Google it’s Friday.

….yep.

Let’s move on to my high stakes ping pong match against the Googlers.

Google offices ping pong
Hard at work

Back story: I love naps. I try to plan all of my weekends around taking a nap in the afternoon. This is mostly because my default setting is tired and I have one of the most comfortable beds in the world. I heard that Google had nap pods (I didn’t see any in the Sydney offices but still) so I decided to challenge a couple of Googlers to a high stakes ping pong match with the stakes being a nap pod from them if we won. Due to my tactical genius and Jedi mind tricks, they forgot to ask me for what they’d get if they won.

Which is extremely fortunate cause I got my ass whooped. Unbeknownst to me, these Googlers played table tennis every single day where as I hadn’t played since before I started iFat.

Ah well, here are some more photos:

Google offices pinball
Pinball! Apparently Gandalf yells at you.
google offices pyrmont
Google Maps is awesome when I’m driving but I have a bad tendency to walk in the opposite direction when I’m using it on foot.

Here are a couple of other Google related tidbits:

– I forgot to take a photo but there is scooter parking on every level. Indoors scooter parking; that’s a thing.

– Everyone is super cool and welcoming. You feel like they want to ask you for your Google Plus details straightaway.

– My lunch with Facebook is yet to be confirmed. Call me, Mark.

– Have I already told you that they say Thank Google it’s Friday? I mentioned that right. Thank Google for iFat.

Google Sydney Offices
RIP AltaVista, Lycos and Netscape

Google Sydney Offices

Pirrama Road, Pyrmont NSW 2009 (near the Star)

Opening Hours: Google it. Heh.

10 thoughts on “Google Sydney, Pyrmont

  1. Love it! Will happily come with you if you are ever invited back. And I am someone who you probably can beat in a ping pong match…

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