I've been trying to work out why Google's workplace pet policy — so liberal that one geek (pictured here) brought a footloose python into the New York office — is so irritating. True, the curmudgeons who write Valleywag are easily annoyed. But there's something particularly false about the search engine's apparent indulgence, and its employees' charming quirks.
The anecdotal coverage of Google — did you know the Googleplex chef worked for the Grateful Dead? — has tended to obscure any serious investigation of the company's culture. The company's publicists play up these human-interest stories — and animal-interest stories, for that matter — because they distract attention from the corporate monolith that Google is becoming.
At most companies, mission statements are healthily ignored by cynical employees, or mocked. But, as Fortune's Adam Lashinsky observed, Googlers quote from theirs — organize the world's information (and make shareholders incredibly rich in the process) — with "cloying frequency."
Google tolerates the symbols of individuality, while assuming that employees sign over their waking lives, and their souls, to the corporation. An employee with a python isn't necessarily a free-thinker; he's merely a licensed eccentric.
