14 words you understand only if you work at Google

Google employees
Google

Google is a massive company with more than 40,000 employees, but it has crafted a culture of Googlers who speak the same language.

Advertisement

To outsiders, the language used by employees of the internet company may sound like gibberish. But within the company, the Google dialect is second nature.

Here are some Google-specific words you learn once you start working inside the Googleplex.

Advertisement

Plex: The Googleplex, as the company's sprawling Mountain View, California, campus is called, is shortened to the Plex by many employees.

google logo
he new Google logo is displayed on a sign outside of the Google headquarters on September 2, 2015 in Mountain View, California Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

GBike: The mode of transportation on Google's campus, the GBike is known for its colorful frame. If you visit campus, you can even catch a glimpse of the conference-room bike.

Google campus
Roman Boed/Flickr
Advertisement

Stan: In the Googleplex, you'll meet Stan — Google's own T. rex. The statue is there to remind the company to never become a dinosaur, or at least that's one theory behind it.

Google campus Stan
Dug Song/Flickr

Noogler: If you're new to Google, expect to be called a Noogler. Pronounced "new-gler," these people are identifiable thanks to the Google-colored propeller caps they receive.

google noogler
Google
Advertisement

Gayglers: Members of the LGBT community (and their supporters) are known as Gayglers.

gay pride, google
Flickr/Brendon Thorne

Greyglers: Another Googler nickname, Greyglers are Google employees 40 and older (though we'll guess some of those in their 40s aren't sporting gray hairs). One of Google's most prominent Greyglers is its chief internet evangelist (and one of the fathers of the web) Vint Cerf.

Vinton Cerf
Wikimedia, CC

Here's a video of a Greygler talk he gave.

Advertisement

Xoogler: A Google employee who leaves the company becomes a Xoogler. A shortened version of ex-Googler, Xoogler is actually pronounced "zoo-gler."

A Google carpet is seen at the entrance of the new headquarters of Google France before its official inauguration in Paris December 6, 2011.   REUTERS/Jacques Brinon/Pool/Files
A Google carpet is seen at the entrance of the new headquarters of Google France before its official inauguration in Pari Thomson Reuters

Some have credited Google employee No. 59, Doug Edwards, with inventing the term Xoogler. His blog was one of the first places to coin the term.

Googlegeist: This isn't a ghost that haunts the Plex. The Googlegeist is an annual survey in which all of Google's employees are asked to rate their managers and life at Google. While many employees would shy away from an HR questionnaire, more than 90% of Googlers fill it out every year.

google employees
Google
Advertisement

Perf: Short for performance review, the dreaded annual Perf is what determines whether Googlers rise or fall in the coming year. It's generally not what gets employees fired, though. Google tracks other performance reviews along the way.

google
Google employees. Flickr/haynes
Advertisement

TGIF: It does mean "Thank God It's Friday," but it also is the name of the weekly all-hands meeting — confusingly, now held on Thursdays. The hour-long meeting dates back to the early days of Google, but it is now held in a worldwide Google hangout. It's also where Nooglers receive their hats. Here's a throwback video to a TGIF meeting in 1999:

 

Advertisement

Jolly Good Fellow: He's not Santa, but Google employee Chade-Meng Tan is known as Google's Jolly Good Fellow. "Fellow" is a term normally given to Google's most valued engineers, but Tan's title is to show what he's working on: how to make people feel happy.

Chade Meng_Tan card
Chade-Meng Tan

Here's more about Chade-Meng Tan.

Tech Stop: The code name for Google's IT department, Tech Stop fixes employees' computers and is a standard in Google offices worldwide.

Google Tech Stop
A Google Tech Stop in Chicago. Google
Advertisement

20% time: Google allows its engineers to spend 20% of their time working on something other than their main job. In that time, Googlers have dreamed up some of Google's biggest products, including Gmail, Google News, and AdSense.

gmail icon
Matias Durante, Vice President, Design at Google, speaks on stage during the Google I/O Developers Conference at Moscone Center on June 25, 2014 in San Francisco. Stephen Lam/Getty Images

GUTS: This has nothing to do with Googlers' bodies. GUTS is short for Google Universal Ticketing Systems, or where Googlers file tickets about problems that the company can track. It's like an internal 311 system.

google
Adam Berry/Getty
Advertisement

FixIts: FixIts started out as a way for Google engineers to hunker down and focus on back-burner issues. They were originally 24-hour events, but FixIts have evolved into shorter bursts to clear backlogged projects.

google
A Google employee works at the corporate offices. Justin Sullivan/Getty

Read more about FixIts here.

On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.

Google
Advertisement
Close icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.