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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

#181
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Melbourne is a mecca of coffee snobbery, and most locals wouldn't be caught dead in a Starbucks. (Although you need to try pretty hard even to find one.)

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

#182
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

A joke in poor taste. Melbournians are notorious coffee snobs. As jpatokal said, locals wouldn’t be caught dead in a Starbucks. Basically if the cup is taller than 4 fingers 8-10cm or the ingredients include anything other than coffee, water and milk, or it was made by percolating - then it’s not coffee as far as we’re concerned. It’s either dishwater or a confection of some sort. It may be a fact that Melbourne has more coffee shops per capita than any other place on earth.

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

#183
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having work life balance is somewhat of a luxury, and it's a luxury to be able to say "money doesn't make me happy". It's a luxury to come to that conclusion. Exactly. Any time anyone says "money doesn't make me happy" what they really mean is "I already have enough money that it's no longer the limiting factor in my happiness." The vast majority of peoples' lives and happiness could be markedly improved by giving…

This isn’t at all what people by money not buying happiness. Even if your life objectively improves, it’s just a matter of time until your brain adjusts to the new normal and you’re back to the same levels of happiness you were at before the money. It’s pretty much the crowning “feature” of our biological wiring - because if an animal like us in ancient times was blissfully content the moment their lot in life improv…

If you're hungry, or cold, or have no safe place to sleep, money will fix that. If you're just managing to make ends meet and in constant fear of losing your job, money will fix that. If you're overworked and stressed from your high pressure job, money will fix that. In fact, until you're rich enough to be way off the pointy end of Maslowe's hierarchy, money will fix pretty much anything that ails you.

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

#184
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having work life balance is somewhat of a luxury, Tell that to the history of labor unions

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 believe it’s safe to say it doesn’t stifle innovation or hard working individuals in general — high performers gonna’ perform.

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

#186
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Australia is one of the only markets where Starbucks' global domination strategy failed horribly due to several factors (I'm not an Aussie so I can't explain the cultural differences). IIRC, in 6-7 years, they opened ~100 locations only to close over 60 of them. Aussies tend to deride the chain and Starbucks themselves have pivoted and tend to mostly cater to tourists so as not to go under completely.

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

#187
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having work life balance is somewhat of a luxury, and it's a luxury to be able to say "money doesn't make me happy". It's a luxury to come to that conclusion. Exactly. Any time anyone says "money doesn't make me happy" what they really mean is "I already have enough money that it's no longer the limiting factor in my happiness." The vast majority of peoples' lives and happiness could be markedly improved by giving…

I think this is unnecessarily cynical. I’ve been through multiple periods of both success and extreme hardship in my life. I can confidently say that money doesn’t make me happy, because I’ve managed to be happy at my lowest points of financial stability. If losing financial stability robs somebody of all their happiness, then I’d say they should question whether they were really happy to begin with, or just comforta…

I've gone long stretches unemployed because of chronic health issues.

Money helps reduce anxiety. Health insurance even more so.

Once you have responsibilities, mouths to feed, it's no longer just about you. Now that I'm an empty nester, I care about money a lot less. I'm practically happy-go-lucky.

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

#188
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain?

A joke in poor taste. Melbournians are notorious coffee snobs. As jpatokal said, locals wouldn’t be caught dead in a Starbucks. Basically if the cup is taller than 4 fingers 8-10cm or the ingredients include anything other than coffee, water and milk, or it was made by percolating - then it’s not coffee as far as we’re concerned. It’s either dishwater or a confection of some sort. It may be a fact that Melbourne has…

Those rules seem to eliminate both Turkish and Cuban coffee. That would be a shame.

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

#189

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.

> 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…

It's a tough thing being pro labor, anti union.

Good governance, fairness, accountability, responsibility, transparency remain challenges for all organizations, not just unions. Happily, we've been getting better at finding and learning from other experiments.

Reform is thankless exhausting work. It takes a special kind of crazy for a person to do that kind of policy work.

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

#190

I've worked for both startups and corporations. Corporate jobs are soul-crushing because everything about the environment seems to hinder you from producing real value and from learning new useful things. Corporate jobs hurt your inner creator and they destroy your sense of pragmatism. Most of the stuff you learn in corporations are anti-patterns that you have to unlearn after you leave. The reason why corporate jobs…

I think about the case study of Borland's Quattro Pro a lot.

TLDR: There's a core group that "get's it". Per Pareto and organizational psychology, most people have no idea what's going on.

The initial Quattro Pro team was just 4 people. They all had prior experience. Were colleagues who worked well together. They had management meat shields who fought off the rest of the org, so the core team had enough time and space to finish a thought uninterrupted. As the product progressed, the "surface area" increased, they brought in people to help.

None of my corporate jobs have been like that. They've mostly felt like a "choose your own adventure" games, where you wander around asking NPCs for help to accomplish the latest quest, hopefully finishing before someone gives the ant farm another good shake.

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