Yesterday I visited the HQ of Facebook. It's as exciting as it seems to be, the campus, the office, the whatever the hell you wanna call it was more than just a work space, it was Disneyland for coders. It was a community, like a college, of people ranging in age and backgrounds and pasts, but they all worked for this massive social networking site. You can't tour the HQ without being accompanied by a FB staffer and you can't wonder by yourself. All the visitors are obvious to spot because we wear these neon orange bands and our faces are wide smiled and semi-gawking at the sheer extent of which a company can afford such amenities for their employees.
When they say campus, they really mean campus, but better actually. Restaurants you don't pay for, meals you don't pay for, a clinic you don't pay for, an arcade, wood shop, bike shop, and an art studio all free for use. Oh you want to exercise and drink whiskey while coding python and ruby on rails? sure why not! Want to ride your bike or skateboard back and forth to meetings? you can do that too! That's not even the sheer extent of it, but to be honest I have no desire in divulging all of that excessive information on this blog. It's just ridiculous.
Last night my boyfriend, his friend who works for Google, and I were hanging around the apartment. We were talking about the experience I had while visiting Facebook with three young gents from Canada who just graduated and now works as Software Engineers. Now, all of this will sound judgmental and probably a bit absurd, but it's coming from a place of observation and opinion. Opinion is not fact.
There is an air about a company so large, like Google and FB, that it has an ability to call their work place a 'campus'. The air is thick with superiority. As if my 'visitor' tag was a brand that actually said 'I wish I worked here'. And the odd thing is, I did for a half a second, wish I worked there. All of the amenities, all of the 'free', all of the everything you may need or want or have no idea why it's there is at your disposal. When do people actually work? Where is all this money coming from? And my sense of jealously turned into plan ole anger which then turned into 'get me the fuck out of here'. It was all too excessive and these kids that just graduated, that had internships with Apple and Google and Twitter and Oracle, all were offered positions with Facebook, and none of them had to experience the stress and anxiety that goes into the search for work, for a job, for a steady income. None of these young people had to experience the stress of 'not being able to afford' anything. It all seemed unfair. It all seemed taken advantage of. It was a special club that we weren't invited to.
Once I had gotten home, hung out with my boyfriend and his friend, I had a sad realization that I had felt less accomplished than those kids who worked for FB. Like all the travel, all the heartache, all the experiences I've had and hold close to my heart was lessened. How wrong am I, so wrong. But I hated that I had allowed myself to feel that way. That the brand of these companies and their big extravagant campus can make someone like me feel ruined. It was distasteful.
My boyfriend asked me why I hadn't looked at jobs with Facebook, and I replied that I had, but that I wasn't qualified for most of the jobs. But when we discussed about me looking for more options with Facebook I decided to take a step back and ponder on why I was applying for those jobs in the first place. Because of the name? the brand? the ideals that come with working at a company like that? the stereotype?
I want to work for a company that has a mission I believe in, not amenities I can benefit from. I have a lot of mixed feelings about being in frisco. Not bad, just jumbled and disorganized, and some feelings surface more than others on certain days.
That was yesterday, today is today. So let's bring on the day, good or bad, whatever happens will happen and I will feel all of it.
Loading comments...