I’m not sure that working at Google means much outside the Bay Area, but from the way San Franciscans brag about their friends and significant others that work there they seem pretty sure it means a whole lot, everywhere.
While saying you have a friend who works at Google isn’t exactly like saying you have a friend who is a war correspondent, it is exactly like saying that you have a friend who is incredibly logical, makes bustaurants full of money using that logic, and rides a bus that even though you can’t get on, you can point to and say, “My Google Friend could get on that bus!”
Which brings us of course to the Google Bus.
I once made the mistake of walking to a different bus stop so I could get a better spot in the filth on the 71L For Dum-Dums, only to realize as soon as a Google Bus pulled up and I didn’t get on it, that this was also a Google Bus Stop.
I was then forced to studiously act like I didn’t care about not working at Google. This involved looking at my wrist where a watch would have been if I worked at Google, and shuffling around in my bag which would not have been pleather if I worked at Google, and trying to count to ten, which would have been way easier if I worked at Google.
In other words, I tried to pretend I was my own Google Friend, which totally worked until the bus pulled off without me.
At this point, instead of dropping the whole charade I glared at those tinted windows and muttered, “I missed the Google bus,” and then asked the imbecile next to me (it’s safe to assume that they were, since they did not work for Google) if the 71L stopped at Google, at which he or she (I couldn’t tell which because I never even applied to Google) only stared blankly, and I realized they must be illiterate, which I should have already known since there had to be some reason they were still standing at this bus stop not working at Google.
Photo: Jyri Engestrom
Want more news, sent to your inbox every day? Then how about subscribing to our email newsletter? Here’s why we think you should. Come on, give it a try.
