Google replants its garage roots in tech workshops

I've actually worked at Google and been certified to use all of the shops including welding and metalworking. And the industrial grade heavy duty plasma cutter. The shops are really cool and they serve a slightly different purpose than for example TechShop. At TechShop a lot of the tinkering is more social, the Google shops are definitely less crowded. We run a similar much smaller shop at Tinkercad and I hope to expand that one in the future as well. The only gripe I have is that the campus is large enough that the Pi shops are a short distance away so you might not drop down there as often as you would like. That said the EE shop was pretty close to core campus.

As for the certification and elitism. The cert process was very straightforward and relevant. People easily forget that metalworking and some woodworking machines don't let you learn by experimenting. These machines kill in seconds, sometimes for mistakes that are very unintuitive. Like wearing gloves has killed several people. Which is unintuitive when you are handling razor sharp pieces of metal. Or the recent fatal accident at MIT where student was pulled in by her hair.

As for the particulars of Ihab. He is a very smart and diligent guy but he had very little practical machine shop experience. He recognized it himself and took classes to compensate. These standards aren't high just due to Rod, but because most Googlers are smart enough to be critical of their own skills when faced with lethal equipment.

>The screening standards are so strict that a college degree in mechanical engineering wasn't enough for Google software engineer Ihab Awad.

>He attended a local high school's wood shop class for a semester before earning Broome's clearance. Awad also won Broome's approval to use the welding equipment.

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I'm sorry - but the certificated elitism at Google is just out of hand, having to take a freaking HS woodshop class before using the shop, as opposed to simply having someone show one how to use equipment -- these stories, and the hiring process, they all just become tiresome.

It's as if they take the meritocracy on acid... they get a warped sense of reality that only their academic affiliations serve as the measure of a person.

Google is a great company, I know plenty of great people who work there -- I also know a good number of people that turned down working there or quit after some time.

Not all can live the college social measurement lifestyle forever...

(Yes I am jaded about my personal experience with them - but statements like the above are annoying coming from any company)