It’s been a week since I arrived in Seattle from New York City. It feels more like a month. I’ve been filling out paperwork, looking into housing, buying necessities, exploring, and oh yeah, training on the Microsoft campus.
I arrived at the airport on Friday, March 16. It had been my first time on an airplane since 2005, and I was very nervous about TSA, but it wound up being a non-issue. The flight was 6 hours long. I was glued to the window for most of it, until the sun set and it became too dark to see anything outside. The in-flight movies included Coco, which I had watched on a date earlier in the year.
I spent the weekend walking around and trying to figure out how to use the buses (you can get a bus pass mailed to you? They can take dollar bills?). I was immediately struck by how clean everything is. The air feels different, there’s very little trash in the streets, and the trees are much bigger and older and more intimidating than the buildings.
The area I’m in is relatively walkable, but the crosswalks don’t allow pedestrians to pass unless you tap a button. In New York, some corners have buttons like these, but they generally don’t work, and the ‘Walk’ signs change automatically anyway, so you don’t really need them. The ‘Walk’ signs here also have very short timers. I would jaywalk all the time in New York, but here I’m very cautious because I feel like drivers aren’t expecting to see people in the street.
The Microsoft campus is like a small city of its own. Even though it’s full of trees and flowers and grassy fields, it’s still kind of overwhelming in its breadth and importance. I’ve been in and out of tech buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn, but when you’re visiting Kickstarter, you can walk down to the first floor, go through the exit, and once you’re out, you’re out. You’re not surrounded by buildings owned by Kickstarter, people who work at Kickstarter, and little commuter buses operated by Kickstarter.
I’m encouraged by Microsoft’s efforts at maintaining a work-life balance for its employees, and their statements on diversity, community, and growth mindset. Of course, I take anything a corporate empire says with a hefty grain of salt, but if I had the choice, I’d rather be at a company that makes mouth-noises about these things rather than one that emphasizes rockstar devs and selling my soul to them for equity or exposure.
Learning the tools I need for work has taken some getting used to. I haven’t had a Microsoft machine for several years, and even when I did, I never used Visual Studio, or Outlook, or even the command line (beyond changing some keyboard settings). I grew up on Windows XP, but Chromebooks were more affordable for me for a time, and then I needed to get a Mac to work. The company’s provided some equipment, and I enjoy my new Surface. Windows 10 Enterprise has been pretty rad – I think I like it more than High Sierra. It feels more intuitive and it doesn’t get in my way as much when I want to customize features. And having a trackpad that can actually right-click is a godsend.
The workload hasn’t been heavy so far, but there’s been so much to do outside of class, I’ve still been extremely busy. Today was my first chance to really catch my breath, and it was mostly because I had to call in sick. I hope to be posting more regularly as the weeks go by, if I have the chance.