My Time At Microsoft

I'm going to try and kill 3 birds with one stone today. K wanted me to write about Microsoft Vs. The World, I need to write something non-technical at Take The Defaults – Dude, and I wanted to write about the Microsoft Alumni Network. Three birds - one stone. And do it all without it become a Chris Farley sketch where he says, "Remember that time you and I … " with the awkward long pause at the end and the obligatory, "Ya, I remember that." Death to closed questions!

I was an employee of Bill Gates from 1992 to 1996. I was a tech support grunt, but what a great time to be right there in the middle of it all. In those 4 short years I saw …

The release of Windows 3.1
The release of Windows 3.11
The release of Windows 95
The release of a unified Office with similar versions
MS's advent into the Internet with IE 2.0

It was definitely the hay-day of computers. It was a big frickin' wave and MS rode it for all it was worth. Met Bill Gates, Steve Balmer and Paul Allen. Some people are oddly fixated on what it was like to work there. It was a lot of fun. It was casual dress all the time. Casual means shorts and t-shirts. One guy even came to work in his pajamas once. Nothing was ever said. Drinks were free ( Coke, coffee, tea, milk whatever you wanted. )

It's also one of the most technical environments you will ever see. You used the products at will. I saw guys doing stuff way ahead of it's time. One particular discussion I was involved in was the merging of Windows and NT. The goal was always to have one operating system. And with the release of Windows 2000 that happened. I also remember a guy saying in about 1993 that, "TCP/IP is what it will be all about." And it was/is.

I worked with brilliant people and there were days I went home thinking I was a moron. Some had masters, some had GED's. Their problem solving skills were phenomenal. I remember the interviews were amazing. Best interviews I have ever been involved with. These aren't some, "So why should we hire you," interviews. You can't b.s. your way through these and it becomes obvious where your knowledge boundaries exist.

For example, typical interview questions went like this:

I: Tell me what you now about DOS.
C: DOS stands for Disk Operating System and every computer has to have one to run.
I: What's Microsoft's current DOS version?
C: I think 6.0
I: Can you tell me what the kernel's function is in DOS?
C: The kernel acts as a translator between hardware and software
I: What does it use to communicate that translation?

And on and on. By the end of the interview you felt stupid, but the further you got the better you did. The goal was to make the interview go a long time, thus showing your knowledge.

My first interview was a whole lot of DOS questions. They asked me back for a second interview and said I needed to study a DOS manual and whether or not I got the job depended on how well I studied. I geeked by the pool for a month with a DOS manual.

Other interview questions were a whole lot more fun. You had to solve a problem and practically display your problem solving skills. The following are actual questions we asked in interviews. The answers were not as important as how they got the answers.

- If you were going to cover all the major league baseball parks with Astroturf, how much would you need?
- If you have 6 glasses, 3 full, 3 empty and you want the order to alternate empty, full, empty, full, etc. and you can only move one glass how do you do it. ( If interested, I'll post the answer later)
- A chicken, fox and some grain are on a riverbank. You have to get all three across the river. You can only take one animal/item at a time. If you leave the grain and chicken, the chicken will eat the grain. The fox will eat the chicken if you take the grain. What's the least number of trips you need to make to get them all across?

There were office hi-jinks as well. One couple got caught having sex in a conference room, another in a parked car. All the stuff that could potentially go on in other companies.

All in all it was a great foundation technically to start a career. Benefits were excellent. I had no co-pay for insurance and got stocks through good performance and a great ESP program. But the pay was aweful! I made about $20,000 less than many of my peers, but got twice the training, knowledge and experience.

I still run into people who worked with me there and now and then get in touch with them. I left because of opportunity. There wasn't any unless I went to Seattle and I didn't want to do that.

And so we have reached the awkward end of the post where you say, "Ya, I remember that." It's easier if you just post a comment …

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