Rangers Sabbatical, part 5 - Microsoft City
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The second part of my trip was a short stay in the city of Redmond (near Seattle, Washington, USA)—the location of Microsoft’s worldwide headquarters. I knew it was big, but I suspected it would be more like a big office park… I very quickly stopped thinking of it that way and instead saw it as its own city—a Microsoft City—because it is MASSIVE!
Let me step back here: I got off the bus from Vancouver and caught a cab to Microsoft. I expected to have to tell the driver where the Microsoft Campus was, but he knew—in fact, he knew so well that he even asked which building I wanted (which did not help, since he still got lost looking for it). Coming off the highway to Redmond, all you see are the Microsoft Connector buses and shuttles (they have nearly 60 buses alone), which help staff navigate the massive place. A good overview of all the transport options—which aren’t just buses and shuttles—is on the Microsoft Alternative Commuting page.
I didn’t think to take a photo of the buses, so here is one I found.
Once inside the buildings—building 41 (.NET Framework) and 25 (Team Foundation Server)—you suddenly feel like you’ve stepped through the looking glass. Outside, Microsoft looks very corporate, and even sitting in reception in building 41 feels corporate (except for the people in shorts who walk past every so often). But inside, the individuality of the people and the passion of the teams shine through. Every office there is different and reflects a lot of personality—whether covered with Australia-themed items (like boomerangs), Star Wars memorabilia, or cat photos—there is plenty of variety.
Looking out of my temp office in Redmond—that’s building 42, where ASP.NET teams are based.
The team passion also becomes apparent as you walk around. Monitors on passage walls display burn-down charts, information on outstanding bugs for releases, and inspirational items. For example, in the reporting section for TFS, this team has a section of the passage wall with a dozen or so different-looking reports. I can imagine a developer standing there, looking at them and getting inspired about improving their reports—or even finding a new way to visualize data. For security and NDA reasons, there are no photos of this, but if you want to see what it’s like, you should watch a Channel 9 video where they tour the SQL Reporting Services team—it is exactly like that.
In Vancouver, I stayed with Willy-Peter Schaub, but for Redmond, I needed a new family—so Charles Sterling opened his home and family to me, which was brilliant! Charles gave me deep insights into Microsoft life and its history, which you’d expect from someone with his depth of knowledge. But I also had no idea that Charles is an amazing cook—the dinners at his house are some of the memories I’ll remember for a long time. He also showed me what life in America is like: shops open at 10 at night, Netflix (which is a pipe dream in South Africa), self-checkout (a dream for many criminals there), and, of course, a lot of Halo 3 gaming! It was a truly enlightening experience and helped me adjust my views of America, which, until then, were shaped mostly by South African media and American movies and TV shows (oddly, there are no natural disasters everywhere, like in the movies). So, I owe Charles a huge thank you for all of that!
Unfortunately, my time there was too short and too busy for sightseeing, but I’ll fix that soon!