[ Warning: This post was compiled over the past week or two and has no flow to it whatsoever. ]
It’s pretty interesting being the one to leave (as opposed to watching someone leave) a team. I have had many people come up to me over the past several weeks and say different things (I can count the number of people on my team that read this blog on a single hand, so I guess I can post …) "I knew this wasn’t the place to be!" or "So they finally kicked you out, eh?". The most popular question is, "so what’s this new team?" I hate answering this question mostly because I didn’t have a satisfactory answer to it–even I was a little hazy on the exact objective of the team. It’s also MS Confidential (sorry Overdo), and won’t ship for a while (v1). One of the ex-Messenger folk (whose old boss was apparently trying to recruit him to join) said, "this IS the future of Microsoft; don’t mess it up!" (where I substituted "mess" for a more colourful word).
I managed to avoid the "Speech!" requests at the "Going Away Lunch" (we went to Claim Jumper). I’m not a big fan of being the center of attention (introvert/extrovert). I had a chicken pot pie. Mmmm.
Move Day: The move (I only had one machine and two boxes) was scheduled for 3 PM. At promptly 3 PM some guy came and unplugged my machine (that I was actually working on since the new office didn’t have a machine for me). And then he left. I wasn’t in the office and when I came back I was like wtf?! At the very least they could’ve moved it at the same time. After an hour of roaming the hallways I just left work (it was a beautiful day outside). There was also some argument about whether I could take one of my LCDs (I had one 19" and one 20") between the admins. In the end I didn’t, and instead got a 21" LCD in the new group (holy crud it’s big).
My new office is in a newly renovated space (the "Concept Development Center", where Ray Ozzie and his Concept Development Team also are). My office is a large room that’s supposed to be shared by 3 people (well there are 3 desks), and my first thought was "cubicle!" It’s a window office, which is kinda cool because normally you need many many years seniority before they’ll even consider giving you a window office (especially lately as the office space on campus is getting tighter and tighter). One of the desks is empty and the other is occupied by a dev that will be working remotely, so I essentially have this space all to myself. Picture an unfinished ceiling and Aeron chairs–it’s sorta like the SD-6 office from Alias (except no helical wires hanging down from the ceilings–I could never figure out what those were). It’s also pretty cold; with a thermostat whose buttons don’t seem to control anything. [Edit: I somehow got this working after breaking it open and raised the temperature by 5 degrees.]
Groove is a nifty little application (–they were acquired my MS last year). I’m still exploring it, but it’s got presence, and allows you to share docs and have discussions and a shared calendar and other work-related stuff. (I now have four presence/IM clients on my machine–guess which?)
I’ve been doing a ton of reading… e-mails, powerpoints, word docs..
Redwest buildings are lefty/righty buildings–ie. the floorplans are mirror versions of each other. So C (as like A and E) have the stairs on the other side of the lobby (from D), as are the washrooms and the kitchen and the copier room. I was in the male washroom in D once (washing my hands) when some lady walked in, looked up, and exclaimed, "Oh my god!" and ran out. Having been in D for 4 years, I can relate to the confusion. I can’t say that I’ve walked into the ladies’ washroom yet (I don’t plan to), but it’s definitely disorienting. [Random: the first link in this paragraph mentions something about three interns–I used to know these guys while interning!! We actually went on some road trips together.. JVD was a PM on the Messenger client team.]
Anyway to finish.. let’s just say I’m pumped. It was sorta sad to leave MSN, but working in Ray’s org looks like it’s going to be really interesting. And if what we’re working on plays out, there’s some really cool scenarios that will come out of this.
(^)
red hot place 