Google steel buddies
MAD FACTORY OFFSITE
We regularly organize offsites for individual teams of Google’s tech engineers. One of the Google directors approached us with a particularly hot idea: In Mountain View, Google’s headquarters in the USA, a few creative colleagues had welded together a steel bar and placed it in their office.
“CAN YOU GUYS ORGANIZE SOMETHING LIKE THIS FOR US?
“Sure thing!”
Well…that was easier said than done! The first difficulty was to find a locksmith’s shop that was willing to close for a whole day and let 20 laymen into their workshop – who then also wanted to work on the machines.
Rejection followed rejection. “Too dangerous, too expensive, no time, no space,…”
After several weeks of intensive searching, we found a locksmith’s shop whose owner was crazy enough to embark on such an adventure.
MAN VS. STEEL
The locksmith’s employees were visibly irritated and inwardly cursed their boss when we stood in their workshop with our colorful troupe. Most Googlers saw lathes, metal punches, presses and milling machines for the first time, let alone had ever operated them.
To everyone’s surprise, the Googlers were much better at their craft than expected. The master locksmiths quickly enjoyed instructing and guiding their guest workers. They tirelessly sawed, filed, drilled, screwed, forged and even welded.
DROP IT LIKE IT’S HOT
And so it happened that just in time for the end of the working day the bar was ready to hang on the crane and could be loaded onto our trailer for transport to the Google Office.
The amazement of the colleagues in the Google Office was correspondingly great when we rolled this steel work of art past reception full of pride.
The same evening the bar was successfully inaugurated. It still stands today on the third floor of the Google Office Munich.
