Yes, there are cafes and they serve dinner. There is a gym and a game room and other perks. And you know what? At dinner time, there's only a handful of people eating and the rest of the office is a ghost town.

I'm sure that some people do end up with their life revolving around Google. That's probably particularly true for people who got hired right out of college and moved for work. But most people I know seem to have very balanced work and personal lives.

I think people love the idea of a narrative that everything that appears nice about working at Google is actually secretly sinister and is making Googlers miserable but, like, maybe it's just a good job, you know? Maybe they offer all the perks because competition for software engineers is high and it helps attract talent.

Obviously, there's many valid criticisms of Google, as there are with most companies their size. But it's not a supervillain fortress full of trapped minions or something. It's just a huge corporation that found ways to make a lot of money per employee thanks to the magic of software and data. In industries where the marginal cost is zero and competition is still high, this is what you should expect to see.

I left to give a smaller startup a shot. I've been there 6 years, and the project continues to keep me engaged and fulfilled. They wrote meals into my employment contract, which I thought was pretty funny. They've followed through with it, although it's not as nice as having dozens of themed cafeterias. I've struggled to consistently hit the gym the last few years because of the relative inconvenience. It's my own lack of self-discipline, though, rather than any pressure from work.

Basically: reduce activation energy, increase desire.

I think I am justified it blaming myself for lack of self-discipline. I lost about 8lb since November by calorie counting, due to having elevated liver enzymes. I've gained about half of it back since my enzymes went back to normal though, because it lost its relative importance. My best guess it was due to a medication rather than my weight, and I changed medication. I have a serious and rare medical condition, and the medication I'm taking is probably going to give me cancer in a few decades, so if I'm going to motivate myself to do something it's playing with my daughter or a hobby. If I obsessively worked out, maybe I wouldn't even have the medical condition, but that doesn't seem to be something I'm capable of right now.

10 years ago I got really depressed at work and started working out 3x a week with Herbalife "health coaches". I ached and was hungry all the time and it was great. I was 40lb lighter than I am now, and could do 100 pull-ups. I know I'm still physically capable of doing that, yet it also seems impossible. Laying on the couch reading hacker news seems more important most of the time.

You have free weights at home.

> I think I am justified it blaming myself for lack of self-discipline.

The harsh side of me agrees with this. You have all of the material resources to set up a really cool training setup.

The empathetic/caring side of me disagrees. "Self-discipline" is certainly a thing, but you are also dealing with a medical condition and maybe your body shouldn't be working out in the way that your rational mind thinks it should, plus you want to be a good father to your daughter. Plus, your regular workouts seemed to always have a social component.

Your sub/unconscious needs will dominate whatever "self-discipline" you try to consciously apply.

That's the diagnosis. If correct, the prescription I offer is:

Find a way to do "workouts" which involve your daughter. I started taking my son to the gym when he was 8, he was doing freeweights. He'd help me count reps. When it was his turn to lift, I stressed 1) low weight high reps (like sets of 30), 2) technique, 3) stop before exhaustion. Kid is eight, skeleton is not built for weight-bearing, so cannot stress it with heavy things.

"workouts" could also be walks, preferably in the park/in nature with your daugher. If you want to make it really physical for you while still keeping your daughter's pace, buy a goruck backpack and put 20lbs in it, then 30, then 40. You don't have to walk fast to exercise when carrying a heavy ruck. Your daughter stops to smell a flower? So do you, bend over to sniff the flower--- while wearing a 40lb ruck. You'll get your workout, all while exploring the world at a child's pace.

I also expect 90% of people to find that whole idea strange or unreasonable.

Fitness comes down to finding some physical activity that you enjoy, or can comfortably perform multiple times per week. I like big, 'chunky' barbell work, such as deadlifts and overhead presses, but used to solely do cardio. Some people like rock climbing, or hiking, or biking. So long as it's a physical activity, it's likely able to be counted as some kind of fitness or exercise.

If you only have the energy for fitness/exercise 1x or 2x a week, then that's all you need to start with. It won't do very much, but is a great starting point for building a stronger habit without overloading yourself.

You don't need to answer these to me, but if you end up going forward with fitness, you'll probably have to answer them for yourself:

What kind of physical activities do you enjoy? Do you have any fitness goals? Are there any weird aches or pains you have that might be lessened with regular exercise? How many sessions are you willing to commit to in a week? Are you willing to follow a healthier diet?

How does offering perks that people don't actually use attract people? Surely people clever enough to work at Google would see that those things aren't really perks.

That said, while I think "offices with every perk you can think of" is definitely a part of Google culture, the "living at the office" stereotype really only applies to younger folks. Once you have a family, living in a van in the Google parking lot and showering at the gym doesn't really work.

Are there actually folks who live in a van in the parking lot or is that a healthy bit of humor?

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-employee-lives-in-tru...

It's the kind of socially awkward but technically allowed "lifehack" kind of thing you can imagine a stereotypical Googler coming up with.

He was living in a crappy studio apartment in the bay area. He decided to try and save money by buying an RV and live in one of the known Google shanty towns in an unused office parking lot. We all teased him that he would never find a girlfriend without real plumbing. He lived there for about 6 months, until security politely asked him to leave because the company wanted to start using the parking lot.

This whole passage had me in stitches. I'm glad I asked. I may never heard the phrase "known Google shanty towns" again but I will probably never forget it. Cheers.

Maybe they did it long enough to save up money for a house.

The Google of 2022 has over 150k employees, the culture is way different than say, 2007. The average age of the employees these days is older.

Restaurants and bars is getting a bit iffy, because that's an inherently social activity and I think you need wider horizons than a hundred fellow Metamates.