I'm guessing there are some "nail dimensions" that get hammered down, and some that are encouraged. (There are some anomalous characteristics that are accepted or incentivized, and some that are penalized.) I'm curious, could you (or someone in this thread working at google) help me understand which these are? Which weird character traits are ok, and which are not?

I’m going to make a guess here, but based on my experience of this type of culture at other organizations, weird character traits that are okay = anything unusual done by the very senior, generally-accepted-company-success-story people. So if you started a successful spin-off that Google funds and makes a ton of money from, then your penchant for rollerblading around the building is cute and HR smile when describing it to interviewees. However if you are one of the other 99.9% then get those damn things off your feet, your going to hurt someone.

Be transgendered. Works for me.

I love that proverb, but look at the flip side, the nail that sticks out gets pulled out and discarded....

Unless it's a coat hook. The lesson I think is if you're going to stick out, be useful.

The Chinese equivalent: the quacking duck gets shot.

That's brutal.

I was thinking - "Everything looks like to nail to someone who has a hammer"