I used to work at Google*

Sliding doors moments as Google’s not-quite-employee

When people hear "I worked at Google," they imagine free lunches, nap pods, and stock options raining from the sky. What they don't picture is the color of my badge.

Mine was red. Not white as the driven snow.

And that distinction made all the difference.

For the uninitiated, Google (like most FAANGs) operates a two-tier workforce system. White badges for full-time employees with benefits, equity, and prolific, expensive group ski vacations to Switzerland (probably not formally in the contract, but just my observation).

Red badges for TVCs – Temps, Vendors, and Contractors – with... considerably less.

I was a marketer with a contractor title, sitting in the same meetings as my white-badged counterparts, working on the same products, contributing the same caliber of ideas (if I may say so, as humbly as possible). But living in a parallel universe of perks and possibilities.

The real divide wasn't in the day-to-day. It was in the trajectory. White badges had clear career paths, performance reviews, promotion cycles. Red badges had contracts with end dates. Red badges were in a forever job interview trying not to misstep until we could clear the bar to white badge permanence.

Well, ego; if it isn’t the consequences of your own actions

Before Google, I was working in London as the “Head of London Marketing” at General Assembly. It was my first real job in startups, after spending much of my 20s flailing around in extremely random roles - consultant at IBM, SEO writer for an insurance company, private corporate due diligence, waitress at a French restaurant, intern at a gluten-free dining guide. It’s been a wild ride, for real.

Finding GA felt holy. I belonged. I had “a career path.” And I was decent at my job too. It was empowering. I appreciated it after trying to find my rightful place inside the gears of capitalism and, for the most part, coming up woefully short.

At the time, GA felt like the epicenter of London tech. Because I was running events, I got to know a lot of people. Potential partners constantly reached out, and I was the arbiter of whether they’d be granted access to GA’s giant marketing list and free events space.

I had a ton of agency in what we ran, who spoke at it, who we partnered with, and how it all went down (shout out to one of the best bosses ever, Julien Deslangles-Blanch).

We threw rooftop parties at our campus, and design events in museums, and lightning talks in pubs. Shoreditch was still a little cool. The ZIRP bubble hadn’t popped. Things felt full of possibility. I was constantly buzzing. I loved it, and for the first time in a while I felt like I wasn’t on the outside of something, looking in. Sometimes I even got the sense that people were looking at me. People I thought were cool in college slid into my DMs. I was in motion. Like sure, did I I run out of money about halfway through the month every month? Yea. but I was having SO. MUCH. FUN. And learning. And meeting people.

A job at Google popped up, and feeling like I had something to prove, I threw my hat in the ring. I already knew the team because of my near-constant networking, I ended up landing the job pretty handily.

Things I didn’t know at the time:

• It would be a return to the stuffy corporate life I’d successfully escaped

• I would not be allowed to do anything outside of my lane or have any agency

• A lot of the connections and partnerships I’d built would just dissolve into thin air

• Being in a FAANG would (pun intended, I’m a copywriter, ok?) de-fang and deflate me like a sorry little balloon

• I would carelessly throw away all of my visibility and momentum at GA because “Google”

What we don’t talk about as FAANG’s second tier

Here's what I wish someone had told me before I took the TVC role:

1. The prestige is real but qualified. Yes, having Google on your resume opens doors. But when push comes to shove, you’re just a disposable contractor, until you either leave or transcend.

2. It's a psychological minefield. You're simultaneously "at Google" and "not really at Google." This creates a strange impostor syndrome where you actually are the impostor, by design.

3. The conversion fantasy. Many TVCs hold onto the dream of "converting" to full-time. Some do. Most don't. The system isn't designed for mass conversion.

4. The income disparity is stunning. For identical work, a TVC might make 30-50% less than an FTE, with no stock options and zero job security.

Oh and then there’s the fifth point on this list. Which is that - if you’re a woman of child-bearing age and you happen to - bear a child? Things might get a little weird.

For example, your position might not be guaranteed to exist upon your return from maternity leave (which in the UK, bless them, is a year). And because the UK is marginally more humane than the US when it comes to this stuff, technically Google would have to take you back. But not necessarily on your same team, and not necessarily with any sense of permanence.

For these reasons, as two Americans, my ex and I made the tough decision to move back to America, ultimately dismantling the beautiful life we’d built over the prior few years in London. And, well…the rest is history. I’ve barely stepped foot in the amazing place I once called home. And that’s kind of…Google’s fault? If we’re pointing fingers.

I’m not bitter, but I am reflective. And anyway, I made that bed.

So now I’ve worked “at Google.” I’ve also developed an unadulterated, clear-eyed view of how corporate systems work, the politics of inclusion/exclusion, and how to navigate highly structured environments while attempting to maintain a sense of worth. For better and for worse.

What have I taken away?

Learning to:

• Package my ideas to get buy-in from full-timers who could champion them

• Build informal networks

• Create value that was visible beyond my immediate team

• Document my wins meticulously for future leverage

At the same time, that status anxiety has never quite left me.

The queasy liberation of leaving

There's a special freedom that comes from walking away from a system where you're structurally undervalued. When I finally left to focus on my own copywriting clients, it felt seamless.

No more badge hierarchy. No more exclusions from offsites and expensive swag. No more explaining why I couldn't access certain documents or attend certain meetings.

Just the work itself, directly valued by those who needed it.

Yet…almost a decade later, I still wonder. What if? What if I hadn’t gotten pregnant? Would I have been made permanent? Would I still be in London now? Would I still be with my ex? Would I be on a group ski trip to Chamonix, or rolling around in a pile of cash from my sweet, sweet ever-inflating net worth? Would I be buying investment properties in Lake Cuomo? Would I be friends with Bella Hadid?

I guess I’ll never have the chance to find out. So, I’ll just end this with the favored email signature of many a Googler, circa 2015 or so.

Onward.