Kat Kuan

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Story of My Free Shirts from Google

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When I was a college student, I heard about all these unbelievable perks at the Disneyland of all tech companies: Google. I heard about how they had these big storage cabinets, where someone would stock them up, fling the doors wide open, announce “FREE T-SHIRTS!” and there would be a free-for-all where you could grab as many brightly colored whimsically designed Google logo T-shirts as you wanted.

Fast-forward to my time as an actual employee at Google, and well, it didn’t quite work like that. But at certain points, it did feel like it was raining schwag. The free stuff would just keep coming, which IS as delightful as it sounds! Now I have enough T-shirts and hoodies for a whole “Silicon Valley engineer” wardrobe.

I also have other random things like this Android cookie cutter, which I immediately put to use that holiday season, but have since misplaced. Oops.

Anyways, back to the free T-shirts. It all began with the Noogler shirt when I first started at Google. Noogler stands for New Googler smashed into 1 word because we’re too lazy to say the 2 words. We also received a propeller cap, which this big guy at home wears now. Maybe I should see if the shirt fits him too.

At the end of my first day of orientation at Google, my mentor picked me up to go to my desk and that was when I found out I was joining the Android Apps team! Woohoo, it was my first choice, so I was on cloud 9. I was going to be working on the Android Market app as a software engineer. (The Android Market is the old school name for the Google Play Store app.) We had an incredibly ambitious plan, and the launch for the Honeycomb release of Android was brutal. So many late hours working, but at least we got these cool sweatshirts with our names hand-stitched on them at the end of it. Although, brown was never really my color.

Next up for the Ice Cream Sandwich release, I worked on the Contacts app – making it all prettyful. I learned the real meaning of pixel PERFECT. I was pushing things on the screen left 2 pixels, then right 4 pixels, up 16 pixels, etc… There was a method to the madness, I think. Our app did get mentioned during the keynote launch of Ice Cream Sandwich. 5 seconds of fame, hurrah!

Ice cream sandwich on a shirt

Ice cream sandwich on a truck

Ice cream sandwich in my hand

Then it was time to get back to work. Spring turned into Summer. Code was written. Summer turned into Fall. More code was written. We also got these jackets to keep us warm… but you know how I feel about the color brown. The jacket nearly envelops me, so I passed it onto my cousin. See! Enough schwag to clothe me and my family!

In the final weeks before JellyBean launch, I got shipped to London to help the Google Search team with their app. When I wasn’t stuffing my face with the amazing snacks in their microkitchen and drinking their freshly squeezed orange juice, I managed to fix a few bugs for the team. 😛 The launch celebration included a big Jellybean statue to display on our front lawn, to go with the other dessert statues. There were also many jellybeans eaten, or rather in my case, many popcorn jellybeans were eaten (my favorite flavor).

My next big project was creating the Google Keep Android app. There were ups and downs, pauses and restarts, redesigns and many rounds of iteration. But persistence paid off and we launched to the public on March 20, 2013. I remember that day like it was my birthday! We celebrated our launch in many ways, which included these extremely warm (and oversized) Google Keep hoodies. Our team also made a trip out to visit our counterparts in Sydney, where I got this Down Under shirt and learned how to do a proper Tim Tam slam. BAM!

From the Honeycomb release, to Ice Cream Sandwich, to JellyBean, and KitKat, it was a privilege to be able to witness the Android platform evolve and mature. I lived and breathed Android, and I loved it. Android stickers, squishables, collectibles, devices, I had it all. I also had friends with iOS devices, but those friendships were hanging by a thread. 😉 Kidding!

Buying ALL the Android KitKat bars at Walgreens

About 3 years into my time at Google, something inside me started to feel restless. I loved the people that I worked with, but I felt like my interests were calling me to a different type of work. I heard about a program to travel to Ghana for 3 weeks with a group of Googlers. It was a much-needed break to step back from the hectic schedule of my day job and figure out what I wanted next.

A team and I got to work with a nonprofit that was sharing lifesaving tips on pregnancy with expectant mothers in rural areas using SMS / voicemail messages. The experience cemented in me the amazing power of mobile phones and how much it could improve people’s lives. I realized that there was so much potential in training developers to build apps for their communities. I knew I wanted to be a part of that.

Upon returning home, I slowly made the transition over to the Developer Relations team to become a Developer Advocate (and collect more free T-shirts of course). Our aim was to train developers around the world on how to build Android apps. We tried to do it in scalable ways by creating videos. I still couldn’t get use to seeing myself on video. *Looks away and closes ears* It’s so weird!! Nevertheless, it felt like a surreal job, like I was getting paid to do something I would volunteer for. It felt like I had hit the career jackpot. We got to meet so many developers, startups, and got access to the coveted Google I/O conference, which was a big ol’ party of all the fun Google things in one place. Sleep was not a priority during those days.

During that time, our training team began to partner with Udacity to create free online courses. Even if you don’t have ANY programming experience, you can take the Android for Beginners course. Later we built out more courses, leading students through building a series of apps with a social impact angle. Along the way, we learned words from the Native American Miwok language (“yoowutis” means “Let’s go!” but I have more to learn..), filmed an earthquake scene with our terrible acting skills, and tried to steal a dog from the Silicon Valley Humane Society (we were building a pet shelter app and needed another subject matter expert). 

On another random note, at Google there’s the usual Take Your Kids to Work Day, but ALSO a Take Your Parents to Work Day! Our team showed parents how to start building their own apps, and more importantly, how to do the happy dance after your code works. *Raise the roof*

Alas, another 3 years on the Developer Relations team zoomed by. As we wrapped up the final course, the same feeling of restlessness started to bubble up within me. As bittersweet and hard as it is to leave such a wonderful place, I felt like it was time for me to move on from Google. To find the next thing my mind wanted to learn. To find the next thing that my heart wanted to experience. I have yet to figure this out, but will be documenting the journey on this blog, so feel free to join me for one heck of a ride.

As I step back and look at this giant pile of T-shirts on the floor, I am filled with gratitude mixed with nostalgia. I grew up at Google. It sent me around the world and taught me more than I ever thought I could learn. (It also gave me an incredibly high standard for corporate cafeteria food.) While these T-shirts may get old and tattered, the people and experiences are things that I’ll always hold in my heart.

I’ll close here with a photo of my favorite Google T-shirt. I wear it the most.

And ironically, it’s the only one that I paid for.

My Last Free Lunch at Google

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I stepped out of the massage room out into the larger room which was the Wellness Center on Google’s main campus. It took a moment to adjust my eyes to the bright fluorescent lights. I had just finished getting a half hour massage (I know, poor me), in a scrambled effort to use up the hundreds of massage credits I had banked up in the last 6½ years at Google. Throughout that time, I had been so busy with work and deadlines, I had never bothered to use the credits. Oh, the irony.

I walked out of the Wellness Center into the hallway and curiously peered out through the second floor window onto the patio, where Googlers were having lunch. The view was perfect even on this slightly gloomy day. I snapped a picture on my Nexus 5X so I could remember this view, this moment.

February 1, 2017 was my last day at Google. This place was my home away from home. It was my first job out of college, and the experience would be hard to beat. My life had become so intertwined with Google, it was hard to imagine life without it. Sometimes, subtle hints of fear and uncertainty would bubble up inside me, but something beyond the sprawling Google campus was calling me to explore it.

I broke from my daydream and hurried downstairs to meet my friend for lunch. On glancing at the calendar event on my laptop, which was intermittently freezing and taunting me with a loading indicator (battery was at 0%), I realized that I was supposed to meet my friend across campus, in negative 2 minutes.

I bolted down the stairs, ran across the main campus courtyard, to hop into my car. It was blocked by another car, so I asked the valet attendant to move the other car. Yes, there is free valet parking at Google. Mostly because the # of Googlers > # of parking spots, but yes it is a nice privilege. I leaped into my car, zoomed down Charleston Road and headed to the other side of campus, anxious at the stoplights that were taking so long to turn green. Once I parked (no valet this time!), I ran inside the coffee lab to meet my friend with barely enough breath to express a warm welcome and apologize for my lateness.

He was a former coworker from the Google Keep team. It was his orientation week at Google. He had left Google the previous year to pursue new opportunities, and when things didn’t work out as expected, he decided to rejoin Google again. So there we were – crossing paths – him on his way back into Google, and me on my way out. It was a funny thing to realize, and I wondered if I would return again like him.

We sat down to enjoy my last lunch at Google. I had peanut butter beef on the left (I had never heard of that dish either), which was surprisingly tasty. And I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to nab a couple of slices of pizza. I had spent much of my meal times at Google, looking longingly at the pizza and fries offered every day, and would only succumb to the temptation every once in a while (when the smell of cheese and pepperoni was too irresistible). As we ate our lunch, we reminisced and caught up on life.

Like my breakfast earlier in the day, I thoroughly enjoyed each bite – savoring the multitude of flavors. I learned about the practice of mindful eating from the Search Inside Yourself class at Google, which covers various meditation practices for increased well-being. In mindful eating, you chew slowly and intentionally and notice all the tastes and sensations. (No gulping the food down, my usual habit.) It also involves expressing gratitude for the hands that prepared the food – from the farm to the kitchen to the plate in front of you.

After a nice long relaxing lunch, I decided I should probably head to my desk to finish up any “last day” tasks. I combed through emails and figured out the status of my benefits. I responded to some more goodbye emails and shared my personal email address so we could all stay in touch.

Soon enough, I glanced at the clock and it was already 4pm! I was supposed to turn in my devices and badge by 5pm on main campus. My hands started to type a little faster. There were still random things on my to-do list to take care of. Then the minutes ticked by and it was already 4:30pm. I gave up and accepted that there were certain things I wouldn’t be able to finish (a metaphor for life I suppose). I gently closed the lid of my laptop. It was weird to think about never opening the laptop again. And it was weird to know that I would never be able to read the responses to the emails I had just sent.

I shoved everything in my bag and bolted out of the building. I still remember the cold hard click of the door as I pushed it open. It would be the last time I would leave my building. The cold winter air of the Bay Area rushed into my face.

I jumped into my car and zoomed back to main campus again. I turned in my laptop and then went across the street to turn in my badge. The folks were not there anymore, so I gave it to a security guard. He took it, and it was a lot more anticlimactic than I expected. My badge (which was practically an extension of my body for all those years) was now no longer hanging by my side.

Since there was nothing else left to do, I exited the building. I could feel the hard concrete below my feet with each step toward the parking lot. I took in the sights and sounds around me.

I glanced at the random shark fin that was sticking out of the ground. I never understood why that thing was there. I peered over my right shoulder in the direction of the gym, where I had spent the prior months working out. I had formed new friendships (a.k.a. people to guilt you into going to the gym) and was finally able to do one pullup (VICTORY AT LAST!).

On my left, I peered into the Google cafe that made ready-to-go sandwiches and had hot soups and popcorn. A long line of people waited for their sandwiches with their paper orders in their hands. I used to duck in there for a bowl of soup as a post-workout snack, but now that would be a habit of the past. I smiled. Those were good times. There were many good times at Google.

I turned my head back on the path, and my feet pitter pattered down the stairs. I walked past the brightly colored Google bikes parked along the base of the stairs. They were always too big for my legs to comfortably reach the pedals (ah, the downsides of being 4’11”). With a few more steps, I reached my car and got inside. Then I headed home.

For the first time in my adult life, I didn’t have a job anymore. There was no work to go to the next day (Thursday). I didn’t know what I would do, but was ready to take on whatever life would bring.

UPDATE: From the date of this post, you can tell that it’s been a couple months since I left Google, so I’ll be writing more about what I’ve been up to. In the meantime, I gotta go, meeting a friend for lunch at Google. 😉