If you have watched any of the footage of the post-election meeting at Google, you probably noticed quite a few in the audience are wearing propeller beanies. The silly childish hats that went out with the 50s are required headgear for all new employees at the company, referred internally as “noogles” (pronounced “new-gles”). More
14 Comments on Explaining the Beanies On The “Noogles”
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Ooooh Kay!
I understand this. I worked at a software company during the early dot com days of Seattle where new team members had to carry a mascot for a week. It was the mission of long time team members to steal the mascot so you always had to have it with you. After a week if you never had it stolen you could adorn the mascot with something personal. You were also given one line of a song to sing at team meetings. In all honesty, it was the best team and project I ever worked on and it was way ahead of its time. So, a Noogle hat doesn’t seem that crazy.
Member the early 60’s, back then, asked my parents “What’s that?” and they said “idiots”. Good enough.
I’d be interested in knowing how Google would handle this for any new muslima or sikh employees, or are they exempt?
I didn’t notice. I couldn’t watch the entire video, as I’m averse to millionaires with poor hygiene whining about their feelings.
The second half of my career was in tech, of which 90% consisted of telecommute, 10% travel, and quarterly trips to corporate for Continuing ED. I would’ve felt pretty silly sitting in my home office, surrounded by faddish toys, clad in grungy hipster tees and bennies.
The first half of my career was in a professional setting, suits and heels. We had wacky contests in support of employee moral too.
It was called Happy Hour.
Itz a wind-powered noogle, which iz a compliment from yer boss.
When the boss farts you get a little noogle, but ya really gotta be close enough for it to work…. if ya know whut I mean!
Pre-lobotomy head gear to ease the new subject’s transition into a compliant and obedient drone.
I’ll explain the beanies: “Personnel” became “Himan Resources”, and Chief Executive Officers ceded their power to Diversity Officers. Stupid, childish bullshit, dreamed up by charlatans.
When are they going to bring back Beanie and Cecil? I probably had one of those as a kid back in the late 50’s and early 60’s, they were dorky than and even more dorky now but as when you’re a kid who cares.
They’re just being silly and having dorky fun. Nothing wrong with that. There is too much wrong with google without having to nitpick on innocent behavior.
Illust8tr is right. These cave dwelling, cubical jobs always seem to attract some kind of weirdness. Developers I worked with 2 decades ago had quirky games, it actually made them work as a team.
I liked the gay rainbow colors.
ILLUSTR8R
It has been standard part of RECON training for decades. Before that it was part of Raider training. RECON was raiders til some unfit, jealous Gens killed Raiders saying disingenuously, “All Jarheads are elite!”.
To non warriors it seems silly. But it develops team thinking. Despite what GWB says there is no I in team! It is embarrassing but gets the point across effectively! When it us against the world you need to know that all of us are committed to fighting to the death!
Sounds Japanese to me.
My experience with team building as a leader was, “ this is the way it is, you do your job or you’re out.” Hence I had great reliable teams.
What I’ve observed with my kids and grandkids regarding team stuff in school and their work, is that because their work ethics are impeccable, to get the project done, they wind up doing what the slackers didn’t do. There needs to be a strong tie to individual accountability and a way to measure it and enforce it.
The team stuff is really peer pressure on steroids which transfers to stifled individual thought in all other areas. Therefore we see what we saw in the Google video.
With sports and military, the slackers are already weeded out by the time the team’s performance really counts. They’d be a team even if there were no beanies.