Google's San Francisco Office Secrets Revealed by Farcical Lipdub
Lipdubs are the scourge of internet video, churned out by desperate would-be fameballers. But staff from Google's San Francisco office apparently can't resist making music videos, either. What workplace horrors made them turn to a sideline in Miley Cyrus impersonation?
A tipster forwarded us the above video, produced by and starring people who are supposed to be superhuman smarties: Google employees. And yet here they are pulling a Julia Allison. Maybe it's a simple case of geographic envy. Though they're singing about Los Angeles and filming the palm trees outside their office windows, these Googlers are in San Francisco, where the weather is getting damper, foggier and colder as the fall wears on. And the BART's been all full of morotists displaced by the broken Bay Bridge.
Or maybe this bunch just wanted a chance to show off their hip-twirling (especially the guy with the square design on his shirt, who clearly has been practicing in his moves in his bedroom mirror for like days). In any case, we couldn't help but notice a few things about their playground-y office environment:
UPDATE: The Googlers got shy and yanked the video; we've captured it and appended it to the end of the gallery, so you can enjoy the full experience of how workers play behind the Google curtain.
Notice the office fan. Who at the hugely profitable online company has been depriving these poor souls of proper air conditioning? At least they'll have those nifty Google zippered hoodies when the climate control fails them again this winter.
The free drinks fridge is fully stocked; apparently CEO Eric Schmidt was telling the truth about the company's return to growth mode after all!
We can't decide if that huge picture in the background is a cast promo for a late 1990s sitcom, or a picture of everyone in this office impersonating a Friends poster. (It's like we're always stuck in second hear...)
A massage chair, fun! We're not going to ask what the masseuse does behind that privacy screen back there. (Shameful, shameful lipdubs, probably.)
Work it! And when you're done could you mix us a very dry martini from the "lava lamps" sitting on the bar back there? Thanks!
"We're going to keep dancing until we've raised enough money to fix our office's crippling flat-panel-TV shortage! Our storage closets and several feet of our hallway are completely without gigantic flat panel monitors over every square inch and it's very sad. Operators are standing by for your donations."
"And I will keep rapping until there is a third flat panel monitor on this structural support beam, yo."
More evidence of the Googlers' sincere love for singer Miley Cryus and their selfless willingness to be the next internet company to host her ramblings now that she's gone and left Twitter.
It would seem Google lacks those fancy and super-comfortable Aeron chairs that became an icon for the c. 2000 dot-com boom. And it's already undermining the quality of its lipdubs; this account manager couldn't slide smoothly onto the screen, thanks to Google's cheap Office Depot chair.
When you learn to lip-sync more accurately you can be sent to the real LA. Until then, here's the Embarcadero's remarkable simulation!
We're not sure why Googlers got shy and yanked this video off of YouTube; one would think they'd be proud that the company retains a playful spirit despite the three rounds of layoffs early this year. And we've seen far worse lip-syncing! (Well, slightly worse, at least.)