Banging head on keyboard

The man looked at the photo in front of him. A federal agency had sent someone to check him out, and the stranger was now holding up a picture to get his initial reaction. While one person would see a heartwarming image of a father with his child, others might see something different…something dark, sinister. Something that could only be dreamed up by the tainted imagination of a tortured, damaged psyche. This man fell into the latter group.

It happened in an instant. He looked at the photo of the father and child, and three words fell out of his mouth: "That's f****d up!" That was the moment when everything changed. The man suddenly knew how deeply he had been scarred by his work.

The job? A contract stint at Google evaluating some of the vilest material on the webs.

Buzzfeed posted the story of an unnamed Google contractor who, while enamored of the lavish amenities at the company, was also haunted by the horrifying online world he was immersed in. When he was hired to review content across a range of the company's products and services, he was warned that he'd be dealing with "sensitive" material. Never in his wildest imagination could he have foreseen how huge of an understatement that would be. The content spanned bestiality, necrophilia, anatomical mutilations (including gore, beheadings and suicides), strange fetishes, child porn and more.

"I dealt with all the products that Google owned. If anyone were to use them for child porn, I'd have to look at it. So maybe like 15,000 images a day. Google Images, Picasa, Orkut, Google search, etc."

Why would anyone go through this? Likely, he was holding out for a staff position (and probably a transfer). At Google, contractors are only permitted for a year, at which point they are either hired, or they have to leave. And so the contractor held on. Day after day, month after month, this guy endured a seemingly never-ending stream of images depicting sickening perversions.

At some point, the company must have grown concerned about him, since it contacted a federal agency to come and talk to the guy. And it was at this meeting that the contractor himself realized he needed therapy. But unfortunately for him, since he wasn't on staff, employee benefits didn't apply. Google paid for one therapy session, but after that, he was on his own.

After nine months of this hellish experience, he was finally informed about his future at the company: There would be none. He was given two months notice that his gig would be over.

To read this contractor's full story, check out the source link.

[Via Buzzfeed]