Slashdot Mirror
Closing Time At Microsoft's Campus Pub
theodp writes "Just three days before the Spitfire pub was to open on Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division campus, TechFlash reports that Microsoft got cold feet and pulled the plug on the project, leaving the bar's owner and his 22 employees in the lurch. 'I am completely stunned and disappointed by the decision,' said now lease-less owner Jonathan Sposato, who's stuck with space built out as a pub, complete with a giant bar, a fireplace, and eight beer taps. (He says it wouldn't be economically viable to refit it as a restaurant.) Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos confirmed the company's sudden change of heart: 'The goal was always to create a cool gathering place for employees, but to do so in a manner that's consistent with a business environment. We decided we should do something more appropriate, and that meant not having a pub.' The new pub had been in development for more than a year."
Uh. Well, that might be true, but I don't think so. I have lived in Redmond all my life - all 20 years, and I have only met one Mormon - and he wasn't that religious either.
Thanks, Mormons.
No, not really.
Not flamebait either - local Mormon leaders have been quite vigorously, though quietly, campaigning against the pub, and, apparantly, successfully. Assholes.
The unspoken reality at Microsoft is that there is a large minority of Mormons working in and around Microsoft. While something like caffeinated drinks can be overlooked, something as potent and mind-altering as alcohol is a spit in the face of the Mormon employees.
Wait, what are you smoking? There aren't that many Mormons in the Seattle or east side area on the whole, and nobody cares what they think about drinking. When I worked at MS, the Muslims had a more visible presence (they had a prayer room), and nobody cared about offending them when the Friday beer parties rolled around.
but in a silently ultra-religious state like WA
Again, Huh? For the most part, Washington pretty liberal in religious terms, but the few religious conservatives we have are not silent. Just ask MS about their good friend Rev Hutcherson and his famous anti-gay MS boycots.
I find it rather hard to believe that MS would cave to any religious group after the local PR fiasco that resulted in the whole Hutcherson affair.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Saying the UK is not part of Europe is like saying Hawaii is not part of the US.
Not true, politically speaking. The USA is a federal republic. The European Union is a free trade agreement between supposedly sovereign nations in the process of surreptitiously morphing into a federal republic in the hope that nobody will notice. In the EU, you don't use the 'f' word unless you want a political scandal.
For added spice, several of the member countries are ex-colonial superpowers who, historically (at least since the end of the Roman Empire), have had closer ties with Asia, Africa and the New World than their European neighbors.
Not that the states of the USA are particularly homogenous, but if and when the United States of Europe emerges it will be a very different animal.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Um, it actually is true. I grew up LDS, although not active now. Someone who grew up LDS can see the little signs of Mormonism - CTR rings, Families are Forever stickers, the outline of the special garments that Mormons wear underneith steet cloths, etc. The fantastic health benefits for the entire family are a huge incentive for folks with large families. I work at MS, and know a large number of people who are LDS.