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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

#211

Post by lame88 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #209
lame88 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote a longer response to this, but forget it. Suffice to say, you're conflating your experience with hers, you're generalizing away the problem, and you're making conjectures with little basis. This is typical material for top ranked HN comments, which irresponsibly go beyond skepticism to just blanket dismiss concerns when Big Co's reputation is on the line. This argument boils down to "that's how it is".

I am not blanket dismissing her concerns, nor am I making the argument that "that's how it is." I'm quite surprised this has gotten so many upvotes. I generally do not feel I am responsible for how other people react to my comments. I certainly don't run around trying to figure out how to be the top comment. I'm a demographic outlier here. I try to give my point of view as best I can, knowing that it will often be ne…

Yes nuance in discerning between these things is important but your response's focus didn't acknowledge any merit of what she had to say about her direct experiences with Microsoft in particular. And your account has huge karma count of 18000 over only a year and a half. Are you really that surprised that this ended up at the top? Is your POV that often not respected?

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

#212

Post by DoreenMichele »

aerovistae wrote: post #210
DoreenMichele wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not blanket dismissing her concerns, nor am I making the argument that "that's how it is." I'm quite surprised this has gotten so many upvotes. I generally do not feel I am responsible for how other people react to my comments. I certainly don't run around trying to figure out how to be the top comment. I'm a demographic outlier here. I try to give my point of view as best I can, knowing that it will often be ne…

Do keep in mind that probably hundreds or thousands of people have read your comment here without reacting; these few negative replies are an extreme minority of the total population your words have reached.

Thank you for your concern. But I'm fine.

Choosing to engage with a specific comment is not necessarily evidence that I'm all up in arms about it. It is an unfortunate truism that there is generally more to say when people have a difference of opinion than when they see things the same way. It is unfortunate because it tends to promote an appearance of fightiness rather than conversation in online forums, even when the explicit goal is conversation, as it generally is for me personally.

I've participated here nearly ten years. Rest assured, I have some familiarity with how the forum operates.

(Between my old handle -- Mz -- and this one, I have more than 40k karma. If it were under one handle, I would be respectably high on the leader board.)

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

#213

Post by sctb »

carmate383 wrote: post #156
bsder wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Either that, or I'm the most boring 28 year old that works there. You are, presumably, male and doing technical tasks. It's much easier to get into drama when you are a 1) young female, whom lots of people want to interact with, hired to do 2) marketing, where your job is to be extremely social with semi-strangers. This is simply the way of the world.

Want more attention at a tech company? Simply slice off your penis and call yourself a lady.

Since you're mostly just breaking the guidelines, we've banned this account.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#214

Post by ptr »

jordanbeiber wrote: post #184
unreal37 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talented and ambitious people would hate being in a labor union. It's a place where doing more than what is expected is actively shunned, and knowing how little work you can do is the optimization.

Here in (socialist/democratic) Sweden unions are prevalent for all categories of labour and have been for ages. Even if you’re not actually an active member of one of the about 60 organizations, the work they do benefit you through collective agreements. Look at the companies and innovations sprung from this setting through the years. It’s IMHO actually quite impressive considering the population size. At least I bel…

You aren’t typically a member of a union if you work in tech in Sweden. Some unions are also very passive, basically just an insurance.

Crediting unions with the inventions and companies seems quite optimistic. Imho, they were at best a method for avoiding a working class/socialist revolution in the early 1900s and for supporting blue collar workers in general.

Also, Sweden isn’t socialist, and socialism isn’t equal to democracy.

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

#215

Post by DoreenMichele »

lame88 wrote: post #211
DoreenMichele wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not blanket dismissing her concerns, nor am I making the argument that "that's how it is." I'm quite surprised this has gotten so many upvotes. I generally do not feel I am responsible for how other people react to my comments. I certainly don't run around trying to figure out how to be the top comment. I'm a demographic outlier here. I try to give my point of view as best I can, knowing that it will often be ne…

Yes nuance in discerning between these things is important but your response's focus didn't acknowledge any merit of what she had to say about her direct experiences with Microsoft in particular. And your account has huge karma count of 18000 over only a year and a half. Are you really that surprised that this ended up at the top? Is your POV that often not respected?

Yes, I am really surprised. I think most of my karma comes from posting articles, not from my comments.

My opinion is somewhat respected on specific topics, such as homelessness. This article is not on a subject where I expected anyone to care one whit what I thought.

Plenty of my comments are initially met with downvotes or strong criticism. I participate here a lot because I'm medically handicapped and don't get out much, not because I have any fantasies that the world is particularly interested in my opinions.

I generally figure if the world were strongly interested in my opinions, my various websites would have more traffic and make more money. In point of fact, I am routinely mocked on HN for complaining about how my participation here has failed to garner me anything resembling a middle class income and told to STFU and go get a real job.

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

#216

Post by [deleted] »

lame88 wrote: post #204
DoreenMichele wrote: post #101

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 l…

I wrote a longer response to this, but forget it. Suffice to say, you're conflating your experience with hers, you're generalizing away the problem, and you're making conjectures with little basis. This is typical material for top ranked HN comments, which irresponsibly go beyond skepticism to just blanket dismiss concerns when Big Co's reputation is on the line. This argument boils down to "that's how it is".

[deleted]

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

#217

Post by brogrammernot »

maccard wrote: post #167
brogrammernot wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not even close to fair to put the “family and friends” mentality onto young employees. Tech companies are notorious for baking this into the culture to churn more hours out of employees. The usage of company values, tons of on-site perks to keep people there longer and of course if you’re going to spend the vast majority of your waking hours at/around the “campus” you’re going to consider co-workers friends.

> you’re going to consider co-workers friends. Why is that a bad thing? In a normal 9-5, you spend 1/3 of your waking time with those people. I'm a few years out of University, and I've now spent more time with co workers than I did with most of the people I went to university or school with. I don't know what's going on in their lives for the most part, we catch up a few times a year and that's that. You're probably…

I don’t think it is at all, as long as you realize some co-workers are only work friends and when you or they leave that you won’t really do much of anything together anymore.

I was responding to the parent post that seemed to insinuate that it’s young employees at fault for believing their work friends are friends and that’s more of the culture of technology companies.

I’ve made a handful of good friends over the years from people I met at work, but I also have seen the nasty side of that when it comes to promotions, people leaving, drama/gossiping and so forth.

So it’s best to just go in eyes open and realize that some people may be your friend on the surface but they’ll fuck you over first chance they get (same can be said for real life as well)

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

#218

Post by jordanbeiber »

ptr wrote: post #214
jordanbeiber wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in (socialist/democratic) Sweden unions are prevalent for all categories of labour and have been for ages. Even if you’re not actually an active member of one of the about 60 organizations, the work they do benefit you through collective agreements. Look at the companies and innovations sprung from this setting through the years. It’s IMHO actually quite impressive considering the population size. At least I bel…

You aren’t typically a member of a union if you work in tech in Sweden. Some unions are also very passive, basically just an insurance. Crediting unions with the inventions and companies seems quite optimistic. Imho, they were at best a method for avoiding a working class/socialist revolution in the early 1900s and for supporting blue collar workers in general. Also, Sweden isn’t socialist, and socialism isn’t equal…

First off, I'm not "crediting" anything, I'm refuting the idea that unions would hurt ambition.

Second, you have quite a narrow and arguably wrong idea about what socialism is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_socialism

Sweden is for example governed like a social democracy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_socialism#Social_demo...

Being scared of the S word is kind of silly and assuming socialism equals totalitarian Stalinism or Communism is just plain wrong.

Third -- if you work in tech you might very well be a member of for example "Unionen" (660.000 members, myself included) or "Sveriges Ingenjorer" if you're an actual engineer.

Take a look at SACO with it's 22 unions: https://www.saco.se/en/

Just some other thoughts:

The opposite of socialism is not capitalism, as is usually portrayed.

For me, the opposite is what happens when accountability towards the people and greater good is nowhere to be found. Be it through unregulated free market corporations, organisation and politics or a totalitarian dictatorship.

Both corrupt and destroy and one thing is common: lack of accountability.

Also, I like talking about ”socialist Sweden” whenever an American talks about the horrors of unions, regulations and government.

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

#219

Post by Waterluvian »

chapium wrote: post #197
Waterluvian wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned this a few years into my career and made major changes to adjust it. I've never felt happier and more fulfilled than this last year where my job is a sideshow and my focus and best hours of the day are spent with my family.

How do you cope with spending the majority of your time being a "sideshow"?

Majority of my time?

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

#220

Post by wildmusings »

I worked for two years at Microsoft, and I saw nothing like this. Maybe the most telling part of this post is where she says many people had (she says fake) pleasant lives, presumably the same people she criticizes for being “closed-minded”, apparently for being focused on delivering for their manager.

It was a no-drama workplace full of great people who come in to work every day to do their job well and then go home and do what people are supposed to do, build a fulfilling family life. And if anyone had a disastrous personal life, it certainly wasn’t something they brought into the office.

I left Microsoft because I wanted to go a totally different direction with my career (I’m in law school now), but it really was a delightful place to work full of great people.

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