What it’s Really Like to Work for a Tech Giant
Morning
You’re in San Francisco or wherever. Is Silicon Valley in San Francisco? Either way, you probably live there… with the other tech people.
And having rolled out of your single bed, you’re probably on a bus. A corporate bus. You register your place on the bus using your phone. You sit next to a colleague and communicate to him or her through your phone. It’s a phone not yet available to the public because it’s a version that’s a bit thinner than the phones currently available to the public. It can also recognize your iris.
Your journey to the office takes less time than you want it to take. The office building, designed to resemble a 1970s leisure centre, sits in a puddle of grass and the Californian sun winks through its glass. Although the building appears from the exterior to have loads of glass, there are actually very few windows inside.
You are obliged to have a coffee because your line manager spent $10,000 on a coffee machine that can be controlled by an app on your phone. The coffee machine is also one of the company’s designated “social zones” where you’re obliged to talk to anyone who is also at the coffee machine. You moan to a woman you’ve never seen before about this rule. She smiles but looks over your shoulder as you speak.
You take your coffee to your desk, which, it’s not your desk, it’s actually a hot desk. Since you had spent time talking to the woman at the coffee machine, you’re now left with this hot desk in the corner. This is the one that smells like tuna… and continues to smell of tuna, regardless of the many tongue-in-cheek Slack messages you’ve sent about the smell of tuna.
You worry that you’re late. Your line manager isn’t around, however, so you open whichever application it is you use “to program.”
You pull your laptop from your backpack as if it were a skateboard. Despite being severely unathletic, you have a vague wish that it were a skateboard. Or a shotgun. You slot the laptop into the docking station where clicks with a sound like a tut of disapproval. You spend 10 minutes trying to get the docking station’s monitor to mirror the laptop’s screen. You fail. You open whatever application you use “to program” and for three hours, you press the cursor key through lines upon lines of numbers, the meaning of which you only half understand. You are interrupted by your line manager, who claims to be bored of the daily grind but who, in actual fact, is here to check that you’ve had your morning coffee.
“The Daily Grind would make a good name for a coffee shop,” you say, but your line manager doesn’t seem to hear. She asks if you’ll be making an appearance at the department’s softball game. You tell her that your wrists ache.
Lunch
Although all members of the company eat in the canteen, the important people always seem to be at the head of the line or sitting at the nicest table, the one with a view of the parking lot.
You wait at the hot food counter for 15 minutes, scrolling through Tinder, hoping that people see what you’re doing, and are therefore put off from talking to you. The woman from the coffee machine is standing at the salad bar. She smiles deeply into the eyes of a tanned man who works in sales. He has stubble and an arugula salad. You stroke your chin. You’d love to be able to grow a beard. Then maybe you would update your Slack avatar.
All that’s left in hot food is mushroom risotto. You hate mushroom risotto, but eating provides an excuse to be away from your laptop. You take a seat next to a group of four people you don’t recognize, and who don’t acknowledge you. They continue to discuss this app that one of them has recently downloaded. The user inputs how often they piss, for how long, and the color of the urine. At the end of every week, it states what medical conditions the user is likely suffering and predicts their death date. You notice a mouth ulcer as you spoon up the microwave-hot risotto. The ulcer is at the very tip of your tongue.
Afternoon
You return to your hot desk. You take the stairs because it counts as exercise. The rest of the office has already returned, and you worry that you’re late. Your line manager isn’t around, however, so you open whichever application it is you use “to program.” You push the cursor key to scroll down through the lines of numbers.
An email arrives. It’s from HR. The email reminds you that there’s an optional training session after work tomorrow from which your absence would look strange. It’s about mental health in the tech industry. Your email application, whatever it is, automatically adds a reminder to your calendar. Your phone vibrates to confirm that it has received this reminder.
You scroll through numbers. The air conditioning murmurs. Someone’s phone goes off and they shout an apology through the still space.
A video call comes in. Its your line manager. She’s smiling. She appears to be in a room in a part of the world much sunnier than San Francisco, Silicon Valley, or wherever it is you may be. In reality, her office is a little down the corridor. She only wants to check in to see if you’ve had a coffee this afternoon, so you lie and say that you have. Her head ducks out of the frame as she consults an unseen electronic device. She says that the coffee machine’s Wi-Fi must have dropped out, as it says you’ve only had one coffee today and that was this morning. You agree to get another coffee. Your line manager asks whether you’ve made a decision about the softball team. You murmur something about your wrists.
Evening
The bus waits in the parking lot. Inside, earphones bleed tinny sound. As you sit down, your seat squeaks. It sounds like a fart. You look around to see if anyone had heard. All heads are bowed as if in prayer.
You open Twitter. Your fingers hesitate. You close Twitter. The sun has begun to set. The bus makes its way from the parking lot. You catch the driver’s eye in the rear-view mirror. He looks away.
