Microsoft - to help people and businesses
throughout the world to realize their full potential
In the last three months, I have graduated from college, moved across the country, started a new job, and certainly not least, taken thousands of photographs of the Mountain West. I have watched friends get married, celebrate wedding anniversaries, and plan their weddings, and I have celebrated more than a few birthdays, including my own. I have bought a new car, put 4,500 miles on said car, and argued with the California DMV over registering that car. I have spent time with old, respected friends, said goodbye to a few, and have spent time making new ones. A lot has changed over these last three months.
I have been an employee of Microsoft at the Silicon Valley Campus for three weeks. In that time, my team has deployed two hotfixes and a service pack. I have filed three bugs, including reporting an error in the Safari browser to Apple. I have submitted twelve automated test cases for code review, completed an analysis of the code coverage of a feature, and attended three full-staff meetings, three team meetings, and three one-on-ones with my manager. I have helped debug an issue in our automated testing framework and an issue on the production site. I have logged in to more Hotmail accounts than I have personal email accounts. I have completed mandatory web security training, anti-discrimination training, legal training, performance training, standards of business conduct training, and software developer training. I have read two books on C# and .NET programming. I have had three appointments with Comcast. I have been to three different churches. I have opened bank accounts, insurance policies, a 401K, a HSA, and brokerage accounts. And I pre-ordered Halo: Reach for 50% off.
Those are the numbers; those are the facts. But what you probably care about is how I feel.
While I'm not certain, if you've ever had the unfortunate experience of drowning before, you might know what the first week at Microsoft is like. And the second, and probably part of the third. Especially when you roll onto a department in the middle of a reorganization and a massive bug-quashing effort, and a team with a pretty important function. But I get ahead of myself. I am a member of the Windows Live Web Communications Proactive Team. I think. (The org chart is pretty confusing). I know I work for Hotmail, at least. My team of five is responsible for identifying and debugging issues as they arise on the production servers, or the Hotmail you use, and within the deployment infrastructure. While we are not actively in charge of monitoring and maintaining the health of the server hardware, we're the ones that get called when customers, ISPs, and business partners experience non-ideality. We are in charge of managing, packaging, and deploying hotfixes, service packs, and updated configurations throughout the system. We're kinda important. Not that I know enough to help. Thus the drowning.
Going from school to any kind of job is obviously a big adjustment. I'm lucky that Microsoft doesn't really have a 9-5 workday. I'm wasn't lucky enough to have escaped all the corporate HR, Legal, and Compliance training, however. Setting up my 401K, going to meetings, having my own office, not getting nap time - these were all signs that I am into something not college. The free soda and the meeting with pizza, on the other hand, have kept my hopes up. Overall, the transition has been easy enough, though. They trained me well at Hopkins for working hard, learning quickly, being (generally) enthusiastic about my work, always finding something to stay busy with, and a working knowledge of personal finance.
And as for the personalities, my team consists of Robin, Vlad, Michael, and our manager Sushmitha. Each of them has an area of specialty, and together, they cover most of the Hotmail architecture. They're all hard workers, fun to be around, and have done a great job of getting me onboard and getting me things to do that aren't out of my skill level. But everyone here is equally inclusive, it seems like. Microsoft has a great open-door attitude. Managers have sat on the floor while I sat at the meeting table. Random people have answered questions about their parts of Hotmail for close to half an hour. My input has been taken on design flaws and bugs. Everyone here is smart, but unlike Hopkins, we all have our niches and our proficiencies. Everyone is collaborative and respectful, not competitive. Dealing with organizational momentum is made significantly better when you like the people in the organization.
Tomorrow I move out of my temporary housing and into my new apartment. Having my own stuff again and having a place that is actually mine will help me out greatly in this transition period. I see a nice metaphor in moving to a place that I have to redecorate. Independence and responsibility have always come naturally to me, but now it's real. I get to decide what my apartment, my career, and my life look like. I'm cleaning out some of the old stuff, upgrading some of the useless stuff, and filling it with things that are bigger and better. But I treasure much of the existing stuff, and it's not going anywhere. Just like all my friends. But I am growing up, defining who I am and where I'm going. My journey has not just been from one coast to the other. I have not just examined nature through the lens. This transition has been about redecorating long before I began to think about the physical process. That's what God and I have been up to, and I'm excited to see what He has defined as my full potential. I think that aligns with the goals of Microsoft well enough.