Oh cry in the dark of night:
Jesus , update your
blog for crying out loud
My apologies. Work has been
incredibly jammed as we try to make progress ignoring the fact that the
holidays are stealing precious work days from us and that key people are
just gone. And there was the small matter of Halo 2. And Half-Life
2.
Well, if a clip show works for the Simpsons then I might as well
give it a small try. Let's see what's been going on over the past few
weeks...
So
has one post (as of today) but it's an interesting read. Ski4Burgers
has made a few comments here at Mini-Microsoft. One issue Ski4Burgers has
with Nat is that the
004/october/#18-October-2004 refers to my blog in a critical assessment
of Microsoft. Ski4Burgers thinks it's pretty bogus to use a single source as
a reference point:
I'm not sure who this guy at minimsft
is (although I know he is a former employee of Microsoft), but to cite one
blogger's opinion as a definitive source seems pretty dubious.
It is dubious, but you can't exclude the comments. A
good bit of the comments here are very well written and informative
(especially compared to their associated source material). As for
the, ah, former employee bit: as of today my badge still worked. Everyday is
a blessing.
But then again, on the internet, no one knows you're a
dog...
The Giving Campaign is over. While we exceeded the monetary
goal (Yay!) we were pretty lousy on the percentage of participation (boo).
The malaise is still here. Snippet of a comment:
Really,
does it have to be so painful and guilt-ridden? I thought we were supposed
to feel good about being philanthropists - not having it shoved down our
throat.
But for all the full-time employees out there who
are just turned off by the giving campaign: just remember that you can give
out-of-band anytime the spirit hits you and Microsoft makes it very easy for
a matching donation to be sent.
So as we mourn the passing of
delivered Micronews, fresh towels, and readily available office supplies and
drinking cups, take solace in The Man still kicking in some bucks for
whatever qualifying agency you damn well please to lay some money
on.
De-Redmondization of Microsoft: interesting comment regarding
how PSS is going in
">http://microsoftok.blogspot.com/2004/11/cut-backs-offshoring-and-pss.html
- it starts off with:
This will be the downfall of
Microsoft. I used to work in PSS and I don't mind sharing my experiences
with the greater public. When Microsoft started up their Bangalore
operation, they wanted to test the process from an outside
source.
And it goes downhill from there. Recently Ballmer
himself was on-hand for the expanding Microsoft India campus. So I could do
funny math and say, well, 200 new jobs there are representative of 100 new
jobs here and therefore a saving of 100 employees... but no. I work with
folks who'd be much happier, family- and geographically-wise, to work in
India. I would hope that it makes it easier for folks here to transition
back there (and then, you know, leave to start your own money making
business). I figure this also allows us to deal with H1-B visa issues by
just hiring more overseas.
But I don't see consistent quality software
coming out of India. At least not quality world-class software. I'd be a
hell of a lot more interested in them developing regional solutions for
growing markets.
The charts of
">http://microsoftok.blogspot.com/2004/10/microsofts-financial-horizon.html
are still live. Google's taken a hit over the recent days. Microsoft's dip
is because of the dividend. Apple is still taking off. And a $100 target for
Apple? Dang.
And next-to-last: the grammar checker needs to help
me out when it comes to "losing" and "loosing." Seems as
though misuse there annoys people.
And finally: the typical blog
dilemma: if you can't keep it consistently warm, should you delete it? While
all exhausted and lacing up one evening, I wondered: should I just delete
this blog? I've had my initial say. Longhorn, although delayed, isn't turned
into the managed code mess I feared. I really don't have burning
issues.
And I don't want to turn into a snarky commentary reacting to
each rah-rah "Ooooo, you just wait un see! We's a
gonna innovate us some shareholder value, uh huh!!!" Ballmer
interview.
So, given the crammed nature of work and the holidays,
things will probably be slow here for a while. I don't think I'll blow this
blog away just yet. And, hey, the midpoints are coming up, and that's always
a great time to help managers reflect on the joys of moving people out of
Microsoft and into other rewarding careers elsewhere!
No comments:
Post a Comment