I was driving to Atlanta this week and say my first Google Street View car in the field. (email subscribers enable pictures or click through to see photo)

Since I'm twisted, I automatically started thinking about employment issues related to recruiting for "associates" to drive the GSVC (that's my cool handle for the Google Street View Car).  Here's what immediately came to mind:

1.  It's got to be cool saying you just got hired by Google as a GSVC engineer.  Go to Google, look up an address, go to Street View and say, "Yep, Uncle Lewis, I shot the #@@# footage. Conditions were awful, but I powered through it.  See the kid? I swerved at him..."

2. About a month in, the newness has worn off.  You realize Google has the advanced GPS telling you where to turn and even though you have an engineer title, the monkey that went up in Sputnik had more autonomy and responsibility.

3. Your GSVC war stories creep to a halt.  You wish you would have been the guy that photoed the GSVC hitting that donkey way out in the sticks.  That could be your legacy.

4. You realize that being a pest control company technician looks interesting.  Leverage your GSVC skills and fight infestations of all kinds. You probably get a toolbelt with that. Toolbelts are cool and impress <insert gender of interest>.

5. You start actively looking at other map services from your job on your smartphone.  You're officially disgruntled.  It's month 2. You suck.  More importantly and germane, your job sucks.

Which brings me to the parenting side of the house.  I gotta start telling my kids that they don't want to drive the cars, they want to own the cars. Or at least manage the fleet.

I think Rage Against the Machine said it best:

"A thousand years they had tha tools
We should be takin' 'em
F**k tha G-ride I want the machines that are makin' em.."

--Rage Against The Machine, "Down Rodeo"

Autonomy and freedom of choice, the abilty to create.  Keys to job satisfaction, I think.

That Donkey?  He had it coming.  Burros jump up to get beat down.