Archive
Huh. After a few months of working at home, I’ve just finished two days working in the client’s office and rediscovered several annoying things I’d forgotten: People with loud and/or annoying ringtones who let the phones ring and ring (and RING) while they decide whether to answer the call. You know, you CAN silence the [...]
The same J-hole who prompted me to post about hallway etiquette sits across the hall and a couple doors down from me. He sits right next to the open door of a shared office. Why are these details significant? Because he has this disgusting habit of belching loudly and with annoying regularity. Not polite, easily-covered burps, [...]
The kitchens here at Microsoft have these nifty little Starbucks brew-on-demand coffee machines. One of the two in my floor’s kitchen has suffered some sort of failure and is showing a “brewer failure” message on its small, text-based display screen. Someone stuck a Post-It next to it saying “Brew Screen of Death.” Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…
A few weeks ago, early in November, I upgraded my desktop machine at home to Windows 7 Professional from Windows XP Professional. Why Professional? For a number of reasons, but one of the big ones is the ability to use Remote Desktop. While I use RD to manage our “headless” server and other PCs in [...]
Okay, people, this one’s pretty simple: If we’re passing each other in a hallway and, in order to avoid a collision with you, I have to move so far to the side that my right shoulder is brushing the wall… yeah, you might want to consider hogging a little less of our common space. Schmucks.
Barry, one of the two people I share an office with, returned from a trip to the kitchen and expressed this quietly brilliant nugget of wisdom: I just realized this place is like a casino: There are no clocks, it’s hard to find the exits, the drinks are free, and if you stay here long [...]
I’m washing my hands when a big guy (like, at least 6’6″) heads into a stall with a couple cans of Coke. ‘Cause… he was going to be working up enough of a sweat that he wanted to be sure to hydrate? The carbonation was going to help break something loose? Man, I don’t wanna know, [...]
Today is the first day I and many others are apparently worth 10% less than we were just a few days ago. It’s the first day that Microsoft, in all its short-sighted glory, has starting paying 90% of the bill rates it paid to contractor agencies just a week ago. Sure, you say, but that’s [...]
I was washing up in the sink at work and a guy who had just used a urinal was literally pacing around the room, clearly waiting for me to finish using the sink. There’s two sinks, both with water, soap, paper towels, etc., and I couldn’t figure out what the deal was. Unlike the other [...]
The urinals in the bathroom here at work have this annoying habit of squirting a bit of water out of the handle when you flush. Even knowing this and, in fact, expecting it to happen, there’s still something about getting a few drops of water on your hand during that particular activity that trips one’s “ewww” [...]
After years of taking 2 or 3 weeks of vacation at the end of the year, rather than losing them, I find myself in the odd situation of working the day after Christmas. A friend of mine called early in the day and we chatted and goofed for probably 15–20 minutes. Near the end of [...]
I’ve never been thrilled with urinals, but today, and for the 2nd time in two days, I walked into the bathroom to find all three urinals unflushed. Love the smell of fermented urine in the morning. Over at the sinks, some developer is cleaning his teeth at such an amazing rate of brush speed that [...]
I miss being part of a team. Actually, I am technically part of a team, but the work is fairly individual in nature so it doesn’t feel like much of a team. Hell, I’m not even in the same building as the rest of the team. I miss the collaborative, “let’s get this figured out” [...]
Having been retired from Microsoft for a bit more than a month at this point, I’m amazed at how busy I’ve been. Between a suddenly expanded “honey-do” list and assorted freelance contracts that appeared out of the mist, I’ve been as busy as I’ve ever been while formally employed. Man, I need a vacation.
Today marks the first working day in almost 13 years that I won’t be heading off to a job. Last Friday was my last day after 11.5 years (almost to the day) as a full-time employee of Microsoft and another year and a half before that as a contractor. It’s only a temporary retirement (MSFT [...]