Question for Googlers about using corporate laptop

I've recently joined Google and so far have been hearing you can't do this or that on the company's laptop. You cant install an email client, cant install any softare (free or open source) that's not in campany's software catalog.

Can someone help me with one q: Can i connect usb flash drive to the laptop? Not to copy any data, but to read some files I have on them (PDFs) and watch some videos offline. I don't plan to use laptop to check illegal websites, but would it create an alert if I plug in an USB drive? In some companies, an alert is created and a warning pops up that users actions will be recorded.