dawn to dusk
On the wonderful jobsblog, there are testimonials on what it's really like to work at MS. I've noticed that if your life falls into standard parameters, this can be truthful, as to a large extent you can allow what is happening in and around MS to shape your activities and your schedule. Other people have more nonstandard stuff going on, and tend to be a little less malleable by the corporate culture. I fall into the latter category.
For example, as part of my family's great time and money saving experiment, we have heralded back in the return of sucky tuesdays. These are tuesdays where both of us only work a half day. I wake up at 5 and pack a sack breakfast and lunch. I call a cab at 5:30 to get me to the bus stop by 5:55 which is the earliest possible bus. I get off at the main MS bus station, and walk 15 minutes in the dawn light to my building. I'm always very excited to be there. I look around and remember building 19, and how nervous I was at the interviews I've had, and know I will be there again. I remember driving past all these buildings before my first interview when I was 21, and they were all just being built. It was a Sunday night, so all the cranes stood idle against the black sky which was about to storm. Nothing so ominous yesteray. Sometimes I see a bunny.
At work I archived my code and started deleting. I took out all the infrastructure to do stuff that I no longer thought was important. After 2 hours, it worked again, and was faster too. Same feature set. This is why I code: even revision days are exhilerating.
At about 11am my legs began to atrophy, so I walked around the woods in the water conservation trail. I heroically passed up coffee at the cafeteria. Back at my desk, switch chairs, switch pillow, maybe I can make it to 1. Find out I need to spend 4 hours downloading something via ftp. Ick. I will be gone by then. Turn all hibernation settings off, turn off screen savers, start up ftp.exe and wish they had a progress bar. Send email for the rest of the day until it's time to leave. Eat cambell's tomato soup made with milk, and whole milk yogurt with added cinnamon and sugar.
After watching 24 at my cousin's house, it's time to get the family snuggled in bed and then it's back to MS to retrieve my file. Miracle: it's done. Miracle: it's not corrupted. I spend 1 hour sending mails about these miracles and then drive home. No, I didn't save any time today via commuting that's for sure. But I got to appreciate MS during those hours that only the truly thrilled to come to work can appreciate.
Best funny story of yesterday: one of my good friends is now "Rally Guy." This is due to his performance at the Mariners yesterday. Somebody send me a link!