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What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

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Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#101

Post by DoreenMichele »

In many ways, the piece is basically a story about someone young and naive becoming an adult, so to speak. That process gets conflated with "working for Microsoft."

I'm a former military wife. The military does a lot of moving around. Affairs are common when spouses are separated. Etc.

So that kind of thing is hardly something peculiar to Microsoft.

It also sounds like she is European and speaks English as a second language. So going to Seattle for a while was possibly a case of culture shock. That also shouldn't be attributed to Microsoft per se.

I spent most of my early life in the city I was born in. The first new place I moved as an adult was a horrendous shock. It was trial by fire and I was so, so miserable and I hated that place. I blamed that place.

It took me years to realize that place actually treated me pretty well and the real problem was the shock of leaving everything I had ever known, so I would have been miserable anywhere. It wasn't the place per se.

She seems to make an effort to not be too blamey of Microsoft and to express her gratitude for the good parts, but the framing really fails to be evenhanded about this. Starting with the title, it attributes a very ordinary growing up experience to becoming disillusioned with this one company.

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#102

Post by wolco »

maximus1983 wrote: post #16

This sounds like I was like about 10 years ago. Wrapped up in a company. I don't do "work friends" anymore.

Work friends one on one outside of work are fine but avoid the group social. Anyone part of that will drop you because your connection is the social.

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#103

Post by loteck »

thereisnospork wrote: post #96
task_queue wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Talented and ambitious people would hate being in a labor union Doubt it. Mentorship and apprenticeship opportunities are abound. Unions provide a floor for negotiations from which you can up-negotiate. If your categorization was true, actors would never have breakout opportunities despite their union representation. Reality disagrees with your assertion and any movie star ever acts as evidence contrary to your cla…

Movie stars are in a guild, not a union. Much like doctors. Unions have personally screwed me out of hundreds of dollars of month in payment for pensions I'll never see because they've forced me into inappropriate position titles to the benefit of legacy members.

Are you talking about Sag-AFTRA? It's a labor union.

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#104

Post by ljiljana »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #47
ljiljana wrote: post #15

> A few guys working both for Microsoft and Partners were treating me like a cute puppy or telling me they wanted to have sex with me while drunk, but all of it seemed minor and acceptable — I was getting so much in return. jesus, how is this minor and acceptable? i'm a woman in engineering and I can not even imagine having to deal with something like this. Is it that Marketing is that much different? Or am I just lu…

It’s definitely much more common in sales/marketing. It goes both ways though. As she says, there is a lot of consensual hooking up. Any environment where a significant portion of the folks are willing and reciprocal is going to lead to people testing the waters, so to speak. Especially if you’re getting drunk together.

yeah, I always wondered if it's something to do with type of personalities too that typically go into sales/marketing vs. engineering, extroverts vs. introverts type of thing (I am simplifying here greatly). Because I don't even understand how it can come to these situations, when me and my team drink together we just talk about science/tech stuff or something dumb like, does a bagel qualify as a sandwich.

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#105

Post by throwaway713 »

Reading articles like this always makes me wonder where all this crazy drama is going on. I work at one of FAANG, and I go in each day, code/analyze things from 8-5, chat with some people about their cycling or cooking hobbies, then go home. If people are having affairs and flying to resorts, then I'm just totally oblivious to it. Either that, or I'm the most boring 28 year old that works there.

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#106

Post by anoncareer0212 »

throwaway713 wrote: post #105

Reading articles like this always makes me wonder where all this crazy drama is going on. I work at one of FAANG, and I go in each day, code/analyze things from 8-5, chat with some people about their cycling or cooking hobbies, then go home. If people are having affairs and flying to resorts, then I'm just totally oblivious to it. Either that, or I'm the most boring 28 year old that works there.

same, and I can't lie, it kind of makes me sad. Going from working at a restaurant to working at a FAANG made me sooooo bored, the people are all NPCs except for the one time a year they show emotion or communicate about their values

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#107

Post by demosthenes14 »

throwaway713 wrote: post #105

Reading articles like this always makes me wonder where all this crazy drama is going on. I work at one of FAANG, and I go in each day, code/analyze things from 8-5, chat with some people about their cycling or cooking hobbies, then go home. If people are having affairs and flying to resorts, then I'm just totally oblivious to it. Either that, or I'm the most boring 28 year old that works there.

I work at msft and wonder where this drama is too...

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#108

Post by [deleted] »

overgard wrote: post #68

> The people I worked with were extremely closed minded. Most of them with many years of experience working in a corporation, so even more closed minded, only caring about their manager’s approval. I was devastated. My team members were the most fake people I have met still to this day. I cannot even explain how terrible it was for me to have to help them, show interest and pretend that I support what they’re doing.…

[deleted]

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#109

Post by MuffinFlavored »

throwaway713 wrote: post #105

Reading articles like this always makes me wonder where all this crazy drama is going on. I work at one of FAANG, and I go in each day, code/analyze things from 8-5, chat with some people about their cycling or cooking hobbies, then go home. If people are having affairs and flying to resorts, then I'm just totally oblivious to it. Either that, or I'm the most boring 28 year old that works there.

how hard is it to work at FAANG and do you make $300k/yr* total comp?

Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft

#110

Post by brightball »

devinmcafee wrote: post #11

I think many young people in tech learn this lesson the hard way. They get excited with all the free food, laundry services, and events that tech jobs offer. They end up spending all of their waking hours at work and work becomes an identity. Then one day something changes and they realize they spent the last N years of their life at work, not building real lasting relationships, pursuing hobbies, dating, etc. It tru…

I really think that just spreading more awareness of this goes a long way. I worked crazy hours my first few years too but it wasn’t company pressure, it was me wanting to prove myself.

I didn’t change til I literally worked myself into a hospital. I do wonder if knowing more about how often this stuff happens would have made me more aware of the pattern I was falling into.

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