My (second) First Day at Microsoft
I’ve spent the past few weeks to say goodbye to all my new and old-time friends, say goodbye to Vienna, a city that I fell in love with just now, this year, after 5 short years of studying, say goodbye to a life that would have waited for me at home, an uncertain future so to say.
I’ve travelled over 5.000 miles now and report back to you directly from the United States, the State of Washington, close to Seattle, a small city called Redmond. I am currently living in a temporary housing facility, with a moderately large one-bedroom apartment, right next to Microsoft’s main campus. I’ve been here before, I even lived just down the road at a similar apartment complex. Last summer, in 2008, I did an internship with Microsoft, working as a Product Planer for Office and they decided to offer me a job right away, which I, after an insanely intense period of thinking about it back and forth, finally accepted. Back then, I did not really understand to what extent this would affect my life the day I had to board the plane and really leave my friends, family and country behind. If you ever get to make such a decision, spend your time on it. No matter how much money you are being offered, and it’s quite a bit with Microsoft, all the money in the world can not make you happy on the long run. I had a very hard time understanding that, but I guess that’s just part of the experience. I’ll write another article about the way life changes with offers like these.
Today, I’ve had to attend the first-day introductory program, which basically introduces you to the company, the policies and culture, and all that. I’ve had a billion moments where I thought, wait, if I had you guys around, this would be a funny moment, and this, and this. So I wrote down a couple of thoughts that I had while the presenter said a few funny things along the program:
- “You guys are all super-excited?? Feels like honeymoon!?” - … uhm, no?
- “So you all brought your family or spouse?” - … uhm, I wish, ….
- “Who recalls our mission statement? I have a free XBox game!” - … uhm, why would I?
- “Are you excited to hear more about benefits?” - … well, if that includes a Porsche?
- “Microsoft allows you to work anytime, anywhere. If you want, you can work 24 hours a day!” - …. yeah right, I’ll pass…
- “If you pass away in a car crash, we call this an ‘accidental death’…” - uhm, ok, whatever, but why are you telling me this?
- “If you sign up for the legal option, you pay only $9 per pay period at get access to a group of attorneys. This also includes divorces.” - This is what I call investment. For $9, I’ll get access to the MS attorneys and I can sue whoever I want. “You can’t sue Microsoft with these attorneys though, that’s not in the package, not kidding.” —- what? I’m paying $9, where’s my return on that??
I do have to say though, that Microsoft has some kick-ass benefits. The list would be endless if I’d start writing that down now, but when it comes to benefits, they pretty much rule every other company out, it’s pretty good. I get 24/7 access to nurses, able to ask them any medical question, urgent or not, I can email my doctor and receive answers back! They’ll home-deliver pharmaceuticals, not that I would need that, but found it interesting. They match every dollar you donate to a charity, so I donate $100 to a random charity, and Microsoft pays them another $100 out of its pocket. And a lot more.
