After years of swimming in money, even Google has had to tighten some purse-strings this year. There’s fewer free meals in the Googleplex’s fabled cafeterias, for instance.
The latest sign of total economic collapse: Instead of cash bonuses for the holidays, Google is giving out phones running Google’s Android platform. The unlocked phones work with any GSM carrier, anywhere in the world. Google is calling them “dream phones.”
Sure, that sounds pretty good to you and me, but there’s a catch or three. Google employees can’t resell the phones, even if they already have a G1. Only 85 percent of employees get them, but that’s limited by living in countries without GSM service–those folks get a cash-equivalent bonus. No one else gets a choice, even if they’d prefer the money (to buy an iPhone, for example). There’s no moving a SIM card from an existing phone to a Dream phone.
Once upon a time, Google employees were getting sick bonuses; the right person with the right job could expect tens of thousands of extra dollars this time of year, and I don’t doubt tha even the custodians were taking home good coin. To them, a fancy smartphone with the Android logo etched on the back might seem a monumental letdown. To which we say, suck it up, Googlers. You’ve still got jobs, and now you can call your unemployed friends to say Merry Festivus.
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