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What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft
171–180 of 258 posts
Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft
#172Went through a similar experience like hers many years ago working for a consulting company. In big corporations, it sometimes feels like there are many little smaller companies within. Often they have very distinctive and rigid cultures which could make one feel like you're just a cog in the system, and because they are so big it's difficult to make any significant individual contributions that could generate real impacts. You either fit in or you don't. Besides, the corporate culture is usually being dictated and passed down from higher level management executives who are not really involved in your office day-to-day so it could feel a little foreign at times.
I used to work at a big oil company where its culture was obsessed with safety and they took it very seriously. It's actually a good thing and I get it if you're one of the workers at an oil extraction site because those jobs could be very dangerous. However, we were just the business operation team working in an office located deep inside the city. We still had to follow the same corporate culture and rituals about safety, so without fail every week we had to conduct meeting where team members would discuss various topics related to safety. Since none of us has actually ever worked down at the oil fields, we slowly ran out of topics over time and people started telling random stories like tripping on electrical wires, spilling hot coffee while they were driving, etc... I think it's such a perfect example of how some passed down cultures could feel a bit foreign at times, depending on which unit or team you belong to. Great company though!
Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft
#173I 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…
Shortchanging non-work life for several years is not specific to "tech". The ~30yo dating pool in Boston was a wealth of people who'd been focused on grad school, med school/residency, and making partner in a law firm. Many people consider career focus a good investment, in those fields. (Though many manage to do both, and some others try but fail to do both.)
The difference is that in tech you have a choice and in medicine you don't.
Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Found a job where I can work from home. Developed a healthy but firm relationship with my employer that I shall not be available outside office hours. Hacked away at slack to permanently disable notifications and never show the blue distraction dot. Developed an expectation among the team about my responsiveness via slack or email. Unlearned from my previous job: installing any work related software on my phone. Adop…
Glad to hear I'm not the only one who hacks out the blue distraction dot. Every time slack upgrades itself it comes back and I remove it posthaste.
Please feel free to publish it as a Firefox extension. I’ll pledge to donate $10 (via SEPA or cryptocurrency) if it’s not out yet, in honour of putting your money where your mouth is
Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft
#175In 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 l…
She definitely seems European. And I can see that some of it is a becoming an adult story but a part of it isn't. A part of it really is about the corporate culture in Microsoft. I've worked at startups and universities and I never had to deal with: > The people I had on my team, were extremely closed minded. Most of them with many years of experience working in a corporation, so even more closed minded, only caring…
She definitely seems European
Seems? She worked out of the Warsaw office. Not many Americans there, I expect.
Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft
#176In 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 l…
I didn't particularly read this as blaming Microsoft, but rather big corps in general. I never worked for a company with more than a couple thousand employees, so I can't really relate to anything she wrote.
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Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft
#177I am dumb or everyone is missing the point in their comments.
It's not about disillusion or work-life balance. It's about how smart people go into submission of the corporate b.s. so quickly and for so long. You can count on your fingers, if you actually know, a place where you can work and derive from it your own fulfillment and generate a real impact to real human beings.
People get lost along the way, put money first and use politics as a mean to get that. That's the cause of all shitty jobs you may have and all shitty services you have as a consumer. This capitalism overfitting. There is no real mission behind people, except for the cold hard hash or power over other humans.
I invite you to think, even for a minute, about this statement written on Simon Sinek's website: "Imagine a world in which the vast majority of us wake up inspired, feel safe at work and return home fulfilled at the end of the day."
How come this statement is simply reversed nowadays AND people don't make an effort to change it. Holy Moly ...
Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft
#178Welcome to capitalism, little bird.
Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems to me it's a story about someone who's too impressed with a lot of superficial stuff. The appearance of a "perfect life", business travel, expensive hotels, uber rides (?), overpriced seattle apartments with a great view that you can't actually afford, etc. The irony is that these things are all rather unimpressive to those that actually have them within reach, so citing them as evidence of your lavish lifestyl…
It's all relative. I spent six years at university without ever taking a single taxi and I still consider Uber rides a luxury, because I can also take the bus for a quarter of the price or bike for free. Also, as the OP mentions, the trap of getting used to nice things is that while you soon stop appreciating them, you will feel their loss quite painfully.
I think to the typical Pole - this is all pretty big stuff and very indicative of living a life that is not available to most people.
Re: What I gained, lost and learned while working for Microsoft
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a huge difference between a luxury and something that indicates you have achieved a lavish and impressive lifestyle. A cup of coffee at starbucks is a luxury.
Off topic warning. > A cup of coffee are starbucks is a luxury. In Melbourne, Australia a coffee at Starbucks is considered: 1. A sign that you’re a tourist. 2. A sign that you’re a masochist. 3. A cry for help. 4. All of the above. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself :)
Care to explain?