It has been a couple of weeks since the first lesson for CDE and it is now time for me to share my thoughts on CDE throughout the weeks.

After hearing the opening address from Ms Yeo and Mr Corr on the elective. I have found out that this elective was not about just listening in class, taking down notes. We have to participate actively in discussions so as to further our understanding towards the tutorials and a passive approach would just put me in a losing end. Furthermore, I realised that the world was not as small as it may seem, and that this elective would allow us to deepen our knowledge about the world, broaden our scope and gather more insights which I feel that would be crucial for us to excel in future.

Besides, after a few lessons of this elective, I found this elective extremely enriching and useful. Take for example the first tutorial, where we learnt about “The Google Way” versus “The Apple Way”. Though these two companies specialise in the electronics industry, but we can obviously spot a stark contrast of each company’s management style. Thus, I feel that this topic is definitely a debatable one as each company has it’s forte and I expected myself to speak up more. However, facing the new classmates and an unfamiliar environment, I felt a little shy to express my views.

In spite of my shyness, I am glad that CDE has provided reflective journals as a platform for us to reflect on our class attitude and be able to correct ourselves. Hence, I would like to now talk about the life in the Google office.

With reference to the readings provided in the tutorial, the Google office may seem as a haven to some people. However, in my opinion, I feel that I would rather the working conditions provided at Apple instead of working at the Google office. Though the Google office may offer great incentives and privileges to its employees, I feel that I would choose Apple which offers a more structured job scope.

The 20 percent rule introduced by Google refers to the fact that employees are allowed to devote 20 percent of their working hours to concentrate and work on their own creative projects that are relevant to the company and Google would pick a few feasible projects and work on them.

Personally, I think that this rule would tend to attract people of the younger generation who prefer more liberty to work on themselves, with less structure. Also, by introducing this rule, though Google would have to sacrifice 20 percent of the working hours of its employees, Google still benefits from the ideas from the employees such as Google Suggest.

However, you may say that I'm a devil's advocate but from my perspective, I feel that the 20 percent rule might just be a slacking time for some employees and affect their productivity. This is inevitable as the Google office houses excellent facilities and services such as massage rooms, gyms and free lunches, and these privileges might encourage the lazy employees to put their work aside and slack off. Furthermore, the 20 percent rule, though it may sound interesting, some employees might feel that too much freedom is given to them and the problem of insecurity would then rise up. Insecurity would surface when some employees feel unsafe that they now have a less structured working condition and are worried that if they make a wrong step, there might not be anyone who will be there and that wrong step would probably end his/her career.

On the other hand, the peer review system introduced by Google, in my opinion, may act as a platform for employees to reflect on their work attitudes and standards of their projects and would be beneficial to them. By gathering comments from colleagues, employees can further refine their projects and fine tune them to a standard that is of excellent quality, thus proving this system to be of benefit for the company.

Having said about the peer review system and how the 20 percent rule might backfire, I still feel that Google might be able to attract young talents in areas such as programming as the younger generation would prefer a working environment with less structure and more freedom as they feel that this would lift some stress off them and would benefit them psychologically.

Also, from my understanding, I think that life in the Google office can be quite carefree as there are incentives all around such as luxury buses to ferry employees to their offices right from their doorstep and by providing more free time for their employees, Google’s employees can also spend more time with their family and foster better family bonds.

In a nutshell, I feel that I may not choose to working in the Google office as I would not want to just sit down and think of innovative ideas the whole day, to me that is exhausting. Instead, I would rather a working environment where there is my superior to stress me and spur me to perform well in my job and awarding myself with the satisfaction I need.

- Tuea Jia Wen 3L2(11)

¶ 6:29 AM