My wife and I have this inside joke about fighting. It was inspired by the film Zoolander, when Zoolander and Hans were competing against each other on the runway and Mugatu says…
Anyway, ever since we saw that we began applying the same mentality to pretty much any sort of competition, the more meaningless the funnier they are.
Some examples would be:
Setting 1: While flipping through the channels Shannon stops on the cheerleading competition on ESPN. My adhd brain immediately goes into emergency mode and tries to find a way to get her to change the channel. It’s clear that humor is the only possible method of getting her to realize cheerleading isn’t a sport and isn’t something I care to watch. Then I say it.
Me: Look, they’re cheer fighting!
Setting 2: Shannon and I are sitting at the table in the kitchen on opposite ends with our laptops directly opposite one another. I peer over the top of my laptop monitor to see what she’s doing and she looks at me. I as her what she’s doing and she says she’s posting on her blog. I find that funny since I’m doing the same thing, then that undeniable urge to say something stupid hits me.
Me: Look, they’re blog fighting!
Setting 3: President is giving the State of The Union address on tv and there is an interpreter for the deaf on each side of him. It’s virtually impossible to find a channel that’s not airing the speech, and although I’m all for finding out the State of The Union, I need to escape. After flipping through 30 channels and finding nothing but crap I realize what’s going on and blurt it out.
Me: Look, they’re sign language fighting!
To Make A Long Story Just A Bit Longer
I had lunch with Jason Shellen last week at the Google campus. It’s not the first time I’ve been there or eaten their food but it is the first time I’ve been there for lunch. As Jason was giving me the rundown on what types of food were being served in the different lines I began having de-ja-vu.
Flashback 6 months ago and Datar was doing the same thing at Yahoo’s campus. He was pointing out the different lines and what was being served at each line.
Back to Google’s cafeteria w/Shellen. So then the Zoolander thing hits me and I realized the two biggest search engines are cafeteria fighting! Here’s a blow by blow in case you don’t get to grace the cafeteria of Google or Yahoo anytime soon.
Yahoo Cafeteria vs Google Cafeteria
Cost: Google’s food is free to employees and guests of employees. Yahoo requires you pay to play[eat]. Lucky for me, Datar had my back.
Time: Google lines were short and lunch was fetched in under 3 minutes. Yahoo lines were very long and it not as easy to find the food you’re looking for.
Seating: Google had plenty of available seats, inside and out. It was difficult hard to find a seat at Yahoo, inside or out.
Quality: Both cafeterias are good, even though I only sampled a single meal at each and that was merely a deli meat sandwich. Beverages are a plenty at each but I felt Google could’ve had larger cups for their fountain drinks. I think they were the 16oz size and I didn’t see any lids. I’m a 64oz kind of guy… oh yeah, I didn’t see Mountain Dew at Google, what’s up with that?
All in all, both companies have good cafeterias and food. I always think free is better and being able to suffer as little embarassment a possible while finding a seat is a big deal to me. That beig said, I’m going to say Google wins the search engine cafeteria fight.
Jason Dowdell is a technology entrepreneur and operates the Marketing Shift blog.
