So just the other day I found out that my friends at Google Malaysia has shifted office into their permanent residence. A year ago I had the pleasure of visiting their temporary one, and having just watched “The Internship” thanks to 20th Fox Century Malaysia and @TGVCinemas, I really wanted to find out for myself the differences and of course, having the bragging rights as one of the first external visitors of their signature office that oozes with Googliness!

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And since it doesn’t make sense for just my social media company Socialgrooves.com to go by ourselves (having just 3 people in it), we went ahead and invited our Malaysian Youtubers as a way to say THANKS for all they’ve done for us, those videos that has become part and parcel of our joy, sadness, laughter and miracles. We’ve also extended it to @bboyrice who is somewhat always hanging around our Youtube heroes, who opened the doors for us!

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Check out our group picture thanks to @BBoyrice! I have known this blogger for such a long time, and his skills with his camera isn’t to play around with. Check out his page! Very happy to have him with us 🙂 PS – can you identify your favourite Youtuber? Who’s missing?

 

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Immediately we were given our printed pass to make sure no bouncers will boot us out haha. Our host was @Zeffri, head honcho in the communications department, who was kind enough to take an afternoon off to host us for lunch.

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Of course we couldn’t go around taking photos of the main office itself, but we were able to explore fully their lounge and makan area, and yes, they have ice creams, snacks, drinks (even coconuts) and even a spread of dishes that goes by their daily theme (ours was Indian!) as per what was shown of the Google office in “the Internship“!! And they called it, get this, Gerai Gugel LOL!

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Here are some of the wonderful selection of desserts they have… cooked by a proper chef no less. They really do take care of their employees well huh? So jealous… One day we hope to have an office that looks like  this too 😀

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Even Country Head of Google Malaysia Sajith Sivanandan made time to come over abd talk to us… well more specifically, to the Youtubers haha. A lot of discussion went on, including how Google Malaysia can help to make a thriving economy for our Youtubers so that they can continue to do what they do and make a living out of them. I think that would be fantastic wouldn’t you? We need more creative content creators here in Malaysia, and I’m glad Google Malaysia is looking to play a huge role in making it happen.

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We then started a tour around the office at KL Sentral area. It was gorgeous, looking out to KL from above here. And I love how they let in a lot of sun to light up the place, our natural resources…

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They even have a games room, where you can find classic arcade systems and chess board that sits on the ceiling, LOL! Funny thing is we didn’t see anyone hanging about this area… Guess they are all working too hard? Haha.

In any case from here on, we are not supposed to take pictures to show you, but we went inside the office space and oogled at the beautiful layout, which is VERY open to allow engagement of any kind… This flat structure reminded me of how AirAsia’s offices are like too, and it’s great because you can meet whoever you want, even the Country Head himself, should you want to. This will encourage honest feedback, cultivate the idea of everyone going on the same journey as friends rather than bosses and followers, and I guess the “flat” structure is the very reason why Google is where they are today, so why not have it here too, huh? 🙂

Oh by the way, they have a car that’s split halfway and made into a sofa lol. I’ll leave it up to your imagination to picture it!

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As we went out and checked out more of their unique rooms (you should have seen their BOARD ROOM, it’s super futuristic and contains sound-proofing element, which I think is so that they can watch movies there with an awesome sound system haha) we realised that no matter how global Google is, they do take care to localise the elements here to remind us of where we are, which is Malaysia. I really like that. The way they name their rooms, and even played a joke on one of their staff, who missed the polling day during the 13th General Elections so they modified one of them to become a Polling Station. LOL, really funny guys 😀

Unfortunately I cannot show you a photo of those rooms too, so you’ll have to watch instead how Ming Yue, one quarter of The Ming Thing showcase his Yo-Yo skills to the Googlers in the office haha. Sajith brough everyone out to watch his amazing talent!

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Just to give you a look at how the reception area looks, while Ming Yue continues to do stuff that made them Googlers go “ooh” and “aah”. If you could have seen Sajith’s face, his mouth was literally hanging open LOL!

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And that’s the Country Head himself giving it a go! Will we see a Youtube video of him trying to play the Yo-Yo? Maybe, maybe not! haha.

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So yeah, we were all given a goodie bag containing a Google merchandise to remind us that we were here, and that was about it! After that there were a lot of camwhoring moments as we took pictures with the iconic Google Search board, and this one contains none other than the infamous DISAPPEARING ACT MAGICIAN Dan Khoo and BBoyRice! Haha

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Then there’s always someone trying to get lucky XD

Our two @JinnyBoyTV personalities couldn’t make it that day, so they went a day later and probably chowed down all tho
se free meals at the counter haha, ala Bill of The Internship style haha.

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In any case, it was really great hanging out at their office and I suspect there’ll be more to come. On behalf of @Socialgrooves.com, we would like to thank Google Malaysia for giving us this opportunity to visit their amazing office.

 And this is us again with the Youtubers… the GRIM FILM folks ie Sinclair and Hasssan (Jared was out of town), The Ming Thing (Ming Han, Ming Yue, Bryan Lim and Raffi), Dan Khoo, Guany Guan and Jeremy Choy, and of course Googlers Zeffri and Sajith. My utmost respect  to them all for being awesome at what they do 🙂

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Me and my favourite search engine, Google. The end!

 ps- I know that wasn’t much of a tour, but there’s a reason why you have to visit the office for yourself hehe. Who wants to go the next round?