Getting Recognized

I still remember the exact moment that I knew I would leave Google. It wasn’t an “oh geez, I have to get OUT of here” moment, but it was the start.

I was sitting in a conference room, a few months into my new gig, on deck to present to a group of managers. When you’re a kid and you think about the working world, you imagine meetings like this (”Yup, nailed that presentation.”). Anyhow, as I sat there waiting patiently, the managers got into a short discussion about some feeling of inequity among certain employees. A few felt like they weren’t being recognized for their hard work. And that’s when it happened. A very bright (maybe stunningly so) manager said, in a bit of an annoyed tone (paraphrasing):

Well, it’s just common sense. They should know that in any job it’s their responsibility to make sure to publicize their work so that they’re properly recognized.

I looked around the room, expecting bewilderment or at least confusion. I expected people to act like he had just pulled a chainsaw out of his sleeve and announced he was going to quarter the conference room table. Instead nothing. Just quiet nodding and the next topic.

It was a moment so surprising that I jotted a note to myself in my notebook: “Employees are supposed to get themselves recognized?? What?!”

Later on, as I thought about it, I came to two conclusions:

1. He was right. At a company like Google, where 15,000 ultra-intense and bright individuals spend their time mostly acting like buddies while constantly trying to one-up one another, it is indeed in each employee’s best interest to pull out his own ladder, stand on it, and yell through his Google-issued bullhorn, “Look at me! I’m special, damn it! Recognize ME!”
2. I couldn’t spend my life working in environments like that.

Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of fun in my time at Google and I did fine. In the grand scheme of things, I was certainly on the end of “more recognized” than “less recognized.” But I just couldn’t stand the belief (no, more like common understanding) that it was necessary to vocally inform people how well you were doing. Every time I heard a younger employee say the words “get recognized,” I wanted to grab them by the shoulders and shake the absurd narcissistic corporate jargon out of their ears. Sadly, this happened often.

It wasn’t the reason that I left, but that single comment was the first indication to me that I needed to leave eventually. I just can’t handle working in a job where my thought process is 1) work hard so that I can, 2) tell people that I worked hard so that I will, 3) get recognized. Maybe I’m a simpleton, but that seems like one step too many for me.

How about something more like: 1) work hard on something that I believe in, so that 2) I’m happy with myself. The rest of it? I think you just hope people figure it out.