Revealed: Googlers are actually machines

Today the Google News Blog posted what it promised was going to be a series of posts by different Googlers assigned to Google News, giving us...

    "a unique window into the world of Google News"

Over the next few months we'll be treated to special 'Day in the Life of' posts by different Googlers so we can find out what a typical day is like for them. The first is by Lucy Zhang, a software engineer. Here's the highlights...

12:00pm: Usually my office-mates Dan and Chris start to initiate lunch. They like to browse the menus of different cafes on campus and usually pick the one with the best dessert. Once a location is decided, we gather the rest of the team to join us.

Dan and Chris sound like my kind of people. At this point I should say I missed out the fact that Lucy only arrives at 9.30am. Lucky for her.

12:10pm: We've arrived at Off the Grid cafe. After getting our food, we sit, eat, and chat about the future of online journalism and how we can make Google News better.

This confirms what we all knew was true. Google are always looking out for our best internet interests. 24-7. No breaks.

3:13pm: I'm pager-holder for the week and the pager goes off. The pager goes off when something requires immediate attention since News is 24/7 and every minute counts. The team has built numerous useful monitoring tools and status pages which I use to debug the issue.

WHOA! Google News emergency.

9:30pm - 12am: I normally stay online during this time since this is when some international engineers are getting into work. I try to be available to answer questions using gChat. It is also a good time to get some work done before the new day starts.

Wow. That is commitment. When do they fit in anything other than work?

I'd like to take this opportunity to say a GREAT BIG THANK YOU to all those Googlers, even though you do get free food, drinks and sit in banana cars. Seriously though, Google News is great. Try it out.