work place

1.a) How many people work at Google in Santa Monica?
Light Rail Now! deposits a story in our laps that makes us weep. Google, overlords of the Internets, have chosen to locate a 600 person office to Phoenix, Arizona. Google execs sited a variety of factors including Phoenix's labor costs, lack of natural disasters (borrr-ing), and public transportation system as the reason for their location to the water thirsty, sprawling, sunbelt city.


In regard to the location decision, "Which factors played a bigger role is hard to say" comments the Arizona Republic (30 Oct. 2005), citing a variety of factors like lower labor costs; lower state income-tax bills; excellent local educational resources (such as Arizona State Unversity (bah! -ed.)); and a "relatively disaster-free environment, a far cry from the earthquake-prone areas of northern and Southern California."
But, as the Republic reports on November 3rd, Google does indeed have an office in the southland. In fact, it's in Santa Monica, which has been touting the recent arrival of Google competitor Yahoo! to the city. Embarassingly enough, Google has escaped the notice of Santa Monica officials.

Google has been so low-profile in the Southern California beach community of Santa Monica that its economic development manager said she didn't even know the company was in town. Instead, city officials and the Chamber of Commerce have raved about Google's rival, Yahoo, expanding there.

Santa Monica's planning director also needed assistance from a reporter (who used a Google search) to tell him where Google's engineering office was located, even though the city has just 8.3 square miles.

"I know nothing about how Google came in," said Miriam Mack, Santa Monica's economic development manager.

You can't see us but we're cringing.
· Cities' courtship a new thing for Google [Arizona Republic]
· Phoenix:Light rail cited as reason for city's site selection by Google [Light Rail Now!]
b) What do people do for fun while they are at work at Google?
Found: geeks on the beach.

Google Inc. has spread out like a beach towel in Santa Monica. What started in 2003 with a few dozen employees has grown into the company's fourth-largest office and fourth-largest engineering center in the U.S., with 300-plus employees in three buildings.

"We have the best weather of any office in Google," said Thomas Williams, the engineering director who heads the office. "It's pretty easy to hire engineers from Toronto, New York, Cambridge, the best schools, all over the world."

Read rest of article here
c) What’s a perk?
large area of land preserved in its natural state as public property; "there are laws that protect the wildlife in this park"
a piece of open land for recreational use in an urban area; "they went for a walk in the park"
ballpark