Slashdot Mirror
Why Microsoft?
theodp writes "Before a large crowd of students at the University of Washington computer science department, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was asked why students should care about Microsoft enough to want to work there. Aside from the ending, which begs for an if-you're-happy-and-you-know-it-clap-your-hands remix, Ballmer seemed to handle the question adequately for an MBA-type, although TechCrunch has a different opinion, suggesting 'maybe it's time for the great salesman to hang it up.' Oddly enough, a recent resignation letter from a Microsoft developer en route to Facebook ('Microsoft has been an awesome place to work over the past twelve years. In college, I never thought I'd work for Microsoft. Then I interned in 1997 and fell in love.') may be more what the skeptical CS student was looking for in terms of a Microsoft endorsement."
We all trash Microsoft for making shitty products, but in the end we would all work for them given the chance.
Maybe because if you have just a semi-successful career there, it looks awesome on a resume? I mean, let's face it...unless your office is run by an anti-Microsoft kind of person, the average company hiring IT folks (programming or otherwise) would likely be extremely impressed to see that on your resume, especially if you stayed there for multiple years and leave on your own rather than being fired.
One of the biggest lessons you can't learn in college: sometimes, a job is worth taking for no reason other than how it contributes to future opportunities. Ditto for taking classes post-college.
Living With a Nerd
Because Microsoft has a proven track record for Developers Developers Developers!
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
It doesn't even matter that this was Microsoft, other than the fact that if it were IBM we'd never have gotten an article about it. However, the kid in question may have been asking why IBM, or why Ford? Why not? Healthy, established companies with plenty of money that pay dividends. Everyone has heard of them and if you're "good enough" to work for them, then you should be "good enough" for anyone else later. Just because you and your buddy start a website in your dorm room and print up business cards declaring fancy titles doesn't mean that's going to be a good reference when you find out that becoming an accidental internet billionaire is harder than you thought and have to go find a real job.
But, oh yeah, Apple is "changing the world" with their "magical" products (disclaimer, this is being typed on a Mac), so clearly everyone who is anyone should want to go work there. Or the new flavor of the week Rails shop. Or wherever. And for some people, maybe that's a better option and if they can make it work, good for them. I work for a small company practically no one has heard of, and right now it works for me. But, I'm to the point where I would much rather have the greater stability that working for a larger company would provide. In a few years the questioner will likely start to see the same thing.
Microsoft will pay you well and you feel you are part of a community.
The downside is that you have to hide your MacBookPro and iPhone from public view.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Perhaps Slashdot, slowly accepting their continuing decline in the web forum discussion arena, is trying to reinvigorate what they perceive to be their original driving force (shitting on Microsoft) instead of trying to fix the actual problems (that the site is stale, the "editing" still is non-existent after all these years, and that other outlets on the web provide more open ideas than the stagnant masturbatory groupthink).
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Microsoft wouldn't really be that bad to work at because all their problems occur in management. Everyone who I've talked to that works at Microsoft loves it, the reasons their products are crap is because they have terrible management, separate people into "teams" which have little communication with each other, then they have separate "teams" working on the same product... which ends up being a mess.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Microsoft is and always has had a good reputation as a place to work. A lot of the senior managers came up from the trenches and do care about the working environment.
I mean, say what you want about their business practices, quality of software and anything else, they've always come across as a good employer.
We are constantly inventing new phrases and new usages. Why raid an ancient and well used phrase, disembowel it, and stuff a completely new meaning inside? If you want to play alien body snatcher, do it with real humans, not with time honoured Latin phrases.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
He said "decline in the web-forum discussion arena" which means a relative decline. You don't have to change to decline at all if everyone else is improving around you.
;)
That said, my only problems with it are what seem to be an increasing number of Troll stories seemingly posted for the sole sake of getting a nice, hit-count generating flamewar going and a certain echo-chamber like quality amongst the mob where it seems people come here to tell each other that their ideas are radical and right (piracy group-think, I'm looking at you) and to shout at people who don't share the group think.
On topic, why the Hell is this a story? Reasons to work at Microsoft? They pay you money. Or is that out of fashion these days?
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
A friend that recently departed from M$ said the internal organizations are so politicized other groups would refuse cooperation or willfully withheld information "because they can."
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Sorry, I'm most a Linux guy these days but your post is nonsense.
Whatever you or I know or think about Vista and Windows 7, clearly Microsoft had "real challenges" getting both those OSes out and both of them made at least some attempt of getting over some of the "real problems" of inexperienced Windows XP users & XP's architecture, both of which (to some degree) allow applications to run with more permissions than they need but exploit security holes as a result.
And, incidentally, I work for a telecoms company where 95% of our products run on Red Hat Linux - yet many of my colleagues have been victims of "random downsizing", simply because the need to show profit has nothing to do with what OS you happen to be using.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.