I support Google’s relaxed dress code. But given all the hiring the company’s doing, I’d recommend one tweak: name tags. Google added over 2,100 employees this last quarter, making it seemingly impossible for anybody to keep track of anything.
“That’s an average of about 35 people showing up for their first day of work each business day during the past three months,” computed CNET’s Elinor Mills. And that’s despite earlier assurances that Google would stop bringing so many people onboard.
So should investors be uneasy? Probably not. The story of Google’s hiring binge is less important than that of its fantastic third-quarter earnings; such successes give the company license to do more or less whatever it sees fit. Still, Eric Schmidt tried to assure onlookers that excessive hiring won’t be a problem in the future.
“The number you’re seeing is essentially an overhang from hiring that had been agreed to many months earlier,” Schmidt said, according to MarketWatch. “I don’t know that that will be repeated. Going forward we’re paying a lot of attention to the head count.”
In the meantime, have pity on Google’s many employees. Sure, they get to have free food, dogs at work, and all other sorts of incredible benefits. But as they interact with each other, I’ll bet a lot of embarrassing what’s-your-name-again situations come up.
