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The Internship That Students Drool Over
selan writes "The Baltimore Sun has a feature on Microsoft's internship program and why it is so popular with college students. Not only are interns paid, but they also receive the same perks as other Microsoft employees. At the end of the summer they are treated to a catered barbecue at Bill Gates's house and have a good shot at a full time job after graduation. You do not know the power of the Dark Side."
Let me break it to you: These are hard times we are living in. A job is just a job. You earn your shit from 9-5 and get out of there, it's what you do to pay the bills so that you don't sit at home twiddling your knob all day bored out of your skull, so that you can afford a roof, to eat, and buy funky cool things.
Let me break it to you: Morale is not something you can just throw away when the going gets tough. (And no, I'm not saying that there exists such a thing as an absolute morale, I'm talking about your personal morale.) A job is not "just a job", it is something you choose to do. What you do during work hours matters, just as much as what you do during your spare time. Having a hard time is the only true test of your own morale.
"I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy"
If you can get past the stigma of working for the Dark Side
:-)
This "Stigma" you speak of is only within the "geek" community. You tell everyone at your high school reunion "I'm a vice president at Microsoft" you'll be the envy of everyone. The 5 kids from the computer club might shun you, but no one else will.
This prbably also explains the quality of MS code.
I dunno. MS stuff may have some seriously bad design flaws dotted around, but can you think of any proprietry commercial software that's any better? Except for safety critical stuff, there's a hell of a lot of bad code out there. MS is only noticed as much because they produce so much of it.
Unfortunately, the real world is not such a utopia. The real world is what you get when the market economy actually works, as opposed to the computer industry, where it's been warped and twisted into a smoking pile of slag.
Open source and free software are about sharing the (intellectual) wealth around, making it available to anybody, not concentrating it in one place. It's a people thing.
This article is the modern day equivalent of stories of how rich and opulent the Kings palaces are, how his staff and manservants live in stunning surroundings and how much they love the King for it. Interesting reading, and it certainly sounds like a cool place to work, but not sadly reflective of anything that can be really recreated while we use our current economic system.
Oh BTW, I might as well remind you that some say it's all built on a house of cards. Is it true? I don't know. Make up your own mind.
You tell everyone at your high school reunion "I'm a vice president at Microsoft" you'll be the envy of everyone.
Hell, you tell everyone "I'm a computer programmer" and the hot chicks will still not speak to you. You tell them "I'm a computer programmer at Microsoft", they probably won't be able to keep their hands off you. The difference in popular opinion is roughly that between garbage collecter and movie star. (I get people asking me why I didn't go to work for Microsoft all the time, usually because they know nothing about my job except I work with computers.)
So if it's such a great place to work, and they're woo'ing all of the best intern material, WHY do they continue to produce such crap code?!?
Do they really or is it just a urban myth?
People used to complain about how buggy IE was, but when finally Netscape's code was released for Mozilla turned out it was no better. So much so that Mozilla had to discard Netscape's code.
Another example, in 1994 I was routinely using a Mac, and it would crash ever one or two hours (cooperative multitasking anyone?). Back then you could read anywhere how bad an unstable Win 3.1 was, but you'd never hear a peep from the Apple camp.
In case you read replies, I should warn you not to take them personally.
The vast majority of the people here read a great comment, nod or shake their heads, and carry on without replying. I was about to do the same, until I read some of the other replies you got... Don't take the anonymous replies from a few cruel jerks with too much time on their hands as opinions representative of the rest of the people on the site. Your comment was a great one, and at least the moderators showed their appreciation.
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
Microsoft has always been one of the Fortune top rated copmanies to work for. Up there with Adobe, WalMart, Wegmans, and Pfizer.
(granted they did have an issue with being sued by the part time people because those people apparently felt that the contract that they agreed to and signed... was unfair - not sure what ever came of that - perhaps with the downturn in the economy those people realized that they were lucky for their jobs and shut the hell up)
I have 10 friends that I went to college with that interviewed with Microsoft, and now 5 of them work there (they all got offers, 3 of them didn't want to move, one of them opted for grad school, and the last thought he had a chance at Apple or something... he didn't last I heard). (I can remember one of the guys wore Tevas, a shirt he had painted in that had holes in it, and ragged cut offs to his Microsoft interview, while some others debated on suits or not - he wanted to make sure that they were only going by his brain... he got the offer... and turned it down to go to grad school)
The guys that work there love it. And in the tech world (I guess only outside of slashdot), seeing that you worked at Microsft actually has some tech cred to it - I know of 3 guys that I went to school with that went on to start their own companies and the MS name on their cv helped get their funding.
I know a guy that works in their computer game department, and I know a guy that works in their XBox game department (I think it is slightly funny that they are even different departments). They each think it is the coolest job on the planet, and I'm not sure I blame them.
I find it really amusing that "everyone" here thinks MS is so evil, when in reality, they are one of the best companies to work for - and perhaps are even doing some things right - as much as it hurts the people here to think.
It is human nature to strive to be at the top, and to some extent, to resent those that sit at the top. Were Apple or Linux to rise up and dethrone the current MS position, the same people here would start griping about the exact same issues that MS is going through because they are side effects of beinga successful company.
and in true slashdot mentality, I'm sure this will get modded troll
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.