A Lava-Lamp Story

Check out this early post from our friend and Training with Industry blogger with Google. Read his full blog athttp://thearmyjournalist.blogspot.com.

On what was only my sixth or seventh day in the office, I somehow managed to almost destroy a Google lava lamp. The episode started quite innocently. I noticed everyone at Google had a lava lamp on their desk except me. I wanted one. I thought it would make me look more Googley. So I looked around and eventually came across an unoccupied desk with an unclaimed lava lamp. Victory would soon be mine, I too would embody the carefree attitude of my fellow Googlers. So I quickly scooped it up and scurried to my desk. During my lava lamp search I noticed that everyone else kept their lamps turned off. I figured it was simply because the novelty had worn off so I thought little of it. I had to identify the source of about eight other cords before I determined where I could plug in my new lamp. After making space on my desk, identifying an outlet, plugging it in and settling back into my chair I was ready to go.Click…Click…Click…Nothing. My lava lamp wouldn’t turn on. Strange. Maybe it wasn’t plugged in right. Maybe the cord wasn’t properly attached to the lamp. Nope, all looked good. Then it occurred to me, maybe there was a second on/off switch underneath the base of the lamp.

So I lifted the lamp quickly, not realizing the lava portion of the lamp was not secured to the base of the lamp, nor was the metal top of the lamp fastened to the lava portion. So when I lifted the lamp and turned it sideways I managed to launch the other two unfastened elements toward my computer monitor. Panic. They say things like that always happen in slow motion, I don’t believe that all. I don’t think there is anything in the world that has moved, or ever will move, as fast as that lava lamp (now in three pieces) did while hurling toward my computer. I just closed my eyes.

The noise was pretty substantial. There was a large thud when the lava glass hit the desk followed by an obnoxious clanging sound as the metal top rolled across the desk. Amazingly, there was no permanent damage. I looked up sheepishly waiting for about 20 heads to pop up staring in my direction. Nothing. Apparently the sound of crashing lava lamps was common in the Google office. After dissecting my lamp further I concluded that the bulb was out. Which in all likelihood accounted for all of the other out of service lava lamps. I can’t imagine it’s too easy to find a lava lamp-specific light bulb. So no lava lamp. I guess I’ll have to find another way to look Googley.

Thank you all for reading. Take care,
Dale