On January 20th, the last official day of our trip, I visited two companies vital to the Australian economy. First, I visited Qantas where Alan Milne gave us a tour of the Jet base, hanger and A380 aircraft. Qantas is celebrating its 90th anniversary so everyone on the tour got hats. First, we had a tour of several engines that Qantas has on its airplanes. Qantas gets their engines from Rolls Royce, and the cost 60,000 dollars each. The part of the airport that we went into was the airplane repair section. Alan told us that Qantas has a different repair crew work on each engine to prevent malpractice so if one team messes up on one engine, the other engine will still be safe. This explains why even though several A380's had engine failure, no one died on the flights and the planes made safe emergency landings. Alan also told us that each engine has enough power to flight the plane on its own but each plane has two engines just to keep passengers safe. The best part of the tour was when Alan let us tour an A380 plane. A380's are the largest planes in the world and they all have two levels. I was allowed to sit in the cockpit where I learned that pilots mostly direct the plane for takeoff and landing. For the rest of the flight, the plane is steered through computer programming. To make a profit, Qantas tries to seat as many passengers on the plane as possible. This means that they have to find the perfect number of first class, business class and economy class seats to put on each plane. Alan told us that the A380 could fit many more passengers than it does because Qantas decided that customer service comes first. That may explain why Qantas seats are a little more expensive than other airlines such as United. One of my favorite parts of the tour was when we went into first class on the lower and upper decks of the plane. Alan told us that each seat costs 20,000 dollars! In my opinion, that is an insane amount of money for a reclining chair, footrest and personal T.V. If someone can afford a $20,000 plane ticket one way, why don't they just invest in a private jet? Alan told us that when flight delays or cancellations occur first class passengers get put in 5 star hotels and are gifted with pricy items such as Rolex watches. Our tour leader shared an interesting quote with us from billionaire Warren Buffet. Buffet said, "The best way to become a millionaire is to invest a billion dollars in the Airplane industry". That quote was quite an interesting way to end our Qantas tour!
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| I had a tour of the repair deck |
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| Me sitting in one of the many Qantas planes |
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| Me coming down the stairs on one of the upper level planes. The cockpit is located on the upper level of some planes. |
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| Me and one of the famed Qantas Rolls-Royce engines! |
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| So excited |
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| Me in the cockpit of an A380 plane |
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| Another picture of me in the cockpit |
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| The first- class seats of the A380 |
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| Does this look like $20,000 worth? |
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| Going down another flight of stairs. |
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| All of the flight attendants outfits over 90 years. Its interesting to see how they evolved. |
After lunch, we went to Google Sydney. It was interesting to walk to the building because Google is not one of the companies listed on the front of the building. Despite the surprise of the humbleness of the residence, Google Sydney stayed true to its reputation of being one of the most innovative, beautiful and best places to work. Before we had a tour of the facilities, a University of Maryland 2005 graduate named Stephanie Borgman gave us a brief overview of the company. Stephanie works in people operations for Google, which is similar to recruiting at other firms. Stephanie definitely had a global mindset, despite being an American citizen; she worked for Google Singapore before coming to Google Sydney. Stephanie said that she loved Sydney so much because she studies there for a semester in college. After Stephanie shared Goggles mission of "Organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful", the award winning head of Travel Search for Google Australia Claire Hatton shared her life story with us. Claire said the message that she wanted to get across to us was to live the best life possible. Claire was born in England and her colorful career took her to many countries in Europe, Asia and currently Australia. She was recognized as one of Prime Minister Tony Blair's "heroes of the year" in the early 2000's for the organizational work she did in Jakarta during their civil uprising. After Claire's speech and some fun Google trivia, we had a tour of the facilities. Even though Google Sydney is a smaller location of some 600 employees the company amazed me! The eating area looks like a small bistro and it overlooks the Sydney Harbor. All Google employees (Googlers) get three free meals a day in their cafeteria from an expert chef. Googlers can even request certain foods be prepared. There is free ice cream in the cafeteria as well. On each level of the facility there is a snack room where Googlers can treat themselves to healthy snacks such as granola and dried fruit as well as sodas and iced tea in the refrigerator. There was also a game room with a keyboard, Wii games and a ping-pong table for the Googlers to just relax in. The decor in the office was amazing; there were giant fish tanks, and contemporary furniture such as a bathtub with a glass plate over it as a table. Each level of the office had a theme. The reception area was a jungle theme with a tire swing hanging from the ceiling. The dining area had a beach theme with beach balls and surfboards. Googlers did not have a dress code, they just wore whatever made them comfortable; flip-flops, gym shorts you name it! The Google tech room where Googlers could go to fix their compute Forbes r problems had music videos playing on MTV! I am so sad that we were not allowed to take pictures during the tour!
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| The jungle themed reception area |
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| The view from Google's cafeteria. I see KPMG! |
In conclusion, the Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted Google to be a place of innovation and freedom. I am not surprised that named Google the best place to work. Extremely talented people from all cultural backgrounds decide to work at Google because of its flat organizational structure and innovative corporate culture. Googlers get 20% of their workday to just work on projects that they are interested in. Gmail was produced from this 20% time. Instead of abusing all the freedoms that they are awarded, Googlers make the best of their time at work.
On January 20th, the last official day of our trip, I visited two companies vital to the Australian economy. First, I visited Qantas where Alan Milne gave us a tour of the Jet base, hanger and A380 aircraft. Qantas is celebrating its 90th anniversary so everyone on the tour got hats. First, we had a tour of several engines that Qantas has on its airplanes. Qantas gets their engines from Rolls Royce, and the cost 60,000 dollars each. The part of the airport that we went into was the airplane repair section. Alan told us that Qantas has a different repair crew work on each engine to prevent malpractice so if one team messes up on one engine, the other engine will still be safe. This explains why even though several A380's had engine failure, no one died on the flights and the planes made safe emergency landings. Alan also told us that each engine has enough power to flight the plane on its own but each plane has two engines just to keep passengers safe. The best part of the tour was when Alan let us tour an A380 plane. A380's are the largest planes in the world and they all have two levels. I was allowed to sit in the cockpit where I learned that pilots mostly direct the plane for takeoff and landing. For the rest of the flight, the plane is steered through computer programming. To make a profit, Qantas tries to seat as many passengers on the plane as possible. This means that they have to find the perfect number of first class, business class and economy class seats to put on each plane. Alan told us that the A380 could fit many more passengers than it does because Qantas decided that customer service comes first. That may explain why Qantas seats are a little more expensive than other airlines such as United. One of my favorite parts of the tour was when we went into first class on the lower and upper decks of the plane. Alan told us that each seat costs 20,000 dollars! In my opinion, that is an insane amount of money for a reclining chair, footrest and personal T.V. If someone can afford a $20,000 plane ticket one way, why don't they just invest in a private jet? Alan told us that when flight delays or cancellations occur first class passengers get put in 5 star hotels and are gifted with pricy items such as Rolex watches. Our tour leader shared an interesting quote with us from billionaire Warren Buffet. Buffet said, "The best way to become a millionaire is to invest a billion dollars in the Airplane industry". That quote was quite an interesting way to end our Qantas tour! 
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