Office move 2009
Yesterday afternoon some long awaited details about my team’s upcoming office move made their way out to the team. At Microsoft, it’s a common practice to divvy up offices based on seniority – meaning those who have been at the company the longest get the first shot at window offices, and those who are newest get the last choice (often this means farthest from a natural light source). Note that seniority in this context does not include factors like level / title or where you are on the management hiearchy (though I’m sure there’s some point on the way up where you’re able to “pull rank”). For example, I am not a manager but I’m higher on the office allocation list than one of our development leads who joined the company 6 months after I did.
As a result of all this, when word of an office move arrives it is a safe bet that at least half the team will immediately begin compiling their own personal seniority list. The goal of course being to see where they fall and estimate their chances at a window office. Among the colleagues I share a hallway with, yesterday’s list compilation was group effort.
It occured to me that a lot of effort is duplicated at times like this. For example, I’ve heard that each team’s admin was working feverishly on various logistics for the move, including compilation of just such a seniority list. I began to wonder if there were any crafty admins out there who indirectly delegate this task by simply walking the hallway roughly 20 minutes after the move announcement is sent out and appropriating one of the various excel spreadsheets the team members had invariably just produced.
A bit of trivia:
In my roughly 4.5 years at Microsoft I have occupied 8 office locations.
Most of my office moves roughly correspond with a change in manager.
The longest I stayed in a particular office (my current one) was 1.5-2 years.
The shortest was about a month.
My office history includes being doubled up in an interior office, sitting in a “shared workspace” environment (basically a big room with about 8-10 fancy / large cubicle setups and a big common area with a projector and conference table), having rather nice window office for a few months, and most recently having a more run-of-the-mill interior office.
This time around, I fell exactly at the middle of the seniority list. Most likely this means I’ll have my pick of non-window offices.
Additional trivia: The gap between me and the most senior person on the team is about 15 years.
I think I’m giving up on trying to get a iPhone 3G S. In fact, I’m really tempted to ditch AT&T altogether and get one of those fancy new Windows Phones coming out next month on Verizon or Sprint. Why? Well, AT&T’s sales / service people have been extraordinarily awful since my iPhone was stolen back in February.
When I went to get my phone replaced, I was informed that I would have to pay the “full price” for a new phone since I had just used my upgrade eligibility to get the iPhone 3G last summer. That wasn’t unexpected… I had gotten a discount on the BlackJack I bought when I first switched to AT&T in 2006, then paid the full price for an iPhone in 2007, then got a 3G in 2008 at the significantly discounted price. I was frustrated that there wasn’t a better option for dealing with a stolen phone, but I didn’t really expect AT&T to subsidize another phone 7 or 8 months later.
Not wanting to wait (as I’m quite dependent on my phone these days), I agreed to pay for the phone. I also looked at the HTC Fuze, but was told that the price would be basically the same, roughly $400. So I decided to buy a new iPhone 3G 8GB (smaller than my original 16GB, but it saved me $100 and I didn’t really need all that space for my usage). As I was checking out, the salesman handed me a sheet of paper and said I needed to sign. “What’s this for?” I asked, as it looked like a service agreement and I knew I wasn’t buying one of those. He said, “Oh, this is just something Apple makes us to whenever we sell a phone, you have to re-sign your existing contract. Any other phone you wouldn’t have to sign it, I don’t even know why they do it.” I thought that was weird, but shrugged and signed it anyway. But before I did I asked an important clarifying question: “This won’t affect my upgrade eligibility, right? If it does I’ll just buy a used phone or get my 1G iPhone back and use that until this summer since I assume there will be a new model.” I was incredibly explicit about this question, and he was very explicit in his response: “Nope, you’ll still be able to upgrade.” Great. So I bought the phone and went about my business.
Fast forward to June when I decided to grab a 3G S. This part I’ve written about before in detail. Well, I did as suggested and went back to the AT&T store in Bellevue. There I was told that I couldn’t get the full discount, but that I could get the “early upgrade” discount, which I think means $399 for the smaller 3G S model. Fine, that seems good enough to me. But they’re out of stock. The sales guy asks me if I want to back-order one, and I say yes. He starts the process, but hits some kind of roadblock. He says, “Sorry, I can’t order one right now and get you the discount, but if you come back when they’re in stock we can do it.” Fine, whatever. I call the place a couple weeks later and am told they’re in stock. I show up to buy the phone, someone starts ringing up my purchase, and then they hit a problem in their software, saying that I can’t get the discount until sometime next year.
She calls over a manager who explains to me that because I got a discount back in February, I can’t get another one so soon. Wait a minute, what discount? I was told I was paying full price in February, and was explicitly told by an employee of that store that my upgrade eligibility would not be affected. I explain this to the manager who insists that none of his employees would have done that, and basically accuses me of lying. I pressed the issue and he said he couldn’t do anything about it, but that he would contact his “regional supervisor” or something and request that they do some kind of override for me. He says it’s too late to reach that person today but that he’ll take my e-mail and phone number and get back to me.
I waited. I never got a call. I never got an e-mail.
I went back a few weeks later and got the same run around. This time I was told the manager wasn’t in, and was given his card. I haven’t written to him yet, I’ve been too busy, and I’m pretty disenchanted with the whole prospect.
I’ve been a pretty good AT&T customer for several years now. I pay extra for text messages that cost them nothing. I never make late payments (except when their useless AutoPay system kept screwing up, so I gave up on using that ages ago). Last year I paid a ton to to them to use my phone while I was in Europe (when I probably should have just unlocked it and bought a pay-as-you-go SIM there).
What bugs me more than not getting the discount is that they’ve made a habit of lying to me and giving me the run around instead of being straight with me. First, when the salesman told me that buying the replacement phone wouldn’t affect my upgrade eligibility. Second, when I was told I could get the discount if I came back when they were in stock. And then once again when I was told that the manager would try to help me out and get back to me.
Given the hostile treatment I’ve received I may terminate my contract early, pay whatever ETF there is, and switch to another carrier — if only in protest to the way I’ve been treated by the Bellevue AT&T store employees. So which phones and carriers look like the best options to you? Palm Pre? The new HTC Leo looks pretty sweet, but they don’t have any details on who will carry it or when. Let’s hope it’s not AT&T…
My favorite new TV ad
I got a sneak peek at this yesterday at the 2009 Company Meeting before its first airing last night. Check it out:
What do you think? Good way to build some excitement? 🙂
P.S. – Everytime I hear that song, I think of G.O.B from Arrested Development.
Gnomedex 9.0
I’m spending most of today and tomorrow at the Gnomedex 9.0 conference at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle.
You can follow my updates about the event on Twitter or FriendFeed.
Andrew Garcia is about a week late to the party, but has posted an article about why he thinks Apple is building Google Voice-like functionality into a future version of MobileMe.
This is, of course, something I (and others) wrote about last week. Unfortunately Andrew doesn’t bring any new evidence to the table and just echoes the same theory. So I guess the best we can do at this point is wait and see if the FCC investigation started on Friday sheds any light on the situation.
Anyway, this makes me wonder why it took so long for a mainstream tech blog to catch on? Is everyone just that anxious to vilify AT&T?
TechCrunch says, “Apple Is Growing Rotten To The Core.” Apparently they’ve begun pulling or disabling applications that leverage Google Voice, and have blocked the official Google Voice app from the App Store.
Some, like TechCrunch, suggest that AT&T is behind this. Others like Om Malik think AT&T has nothing to do with it, since they allow similar apps on Blackberry devices.
I’m not sure who to blame, and it really could be either. AT&T surely doesn’t like the idea of you having access to unlimited SMS (that, via Google Voice and the iPhone’s push notification API, could work exactly like real SMS — where your friends can’t even tell the difference). I bet the SMS fees they charge are just pure gravy. I’m also not convinced by Om’s argument that the existence of Blackberry GV apps is sufficient for ruling out AT&T as the decision maker.
But let’s say Om is right and they don’t really care. Why would Apple block Google Voice? I can think of a few possibilities:
- Someone at Apple thinks AT&T cares, and doesn’t want to strain their relationship.
- Apple is afraid that Google might establish a beachhead on the iPhone and in the future use it to steal customers away to Android devices.
- Or maybe, just maybe… Apple has plans to offer Google Voice-like functionality in the future, and doesn’t want to have to compete on their own platform.
I have no idea if Apple is even capable of that, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me. Apple is smart. They know this is just delaying the inevitable and that eventually we’ll have seamless integration between normal PSTN voice service and VOIP service. Or we’ll just have VOIP and nothing else. If Apple doesn’t drive this, someone else will, whether it’s on their platform or another.
Update: Apparently I’m not the only one thinking along these lines.
Update 2: Or maybe it wasn’t Apple’s call after all. John Gruber claims to have confirmation that AT&T was indeed behind this.
Windows 7 is RTM!
Today the Windows “ship room” signed off on the final build of Windows 7! We in Find & Organize had a bit of a celebration this afternoon, and it’s a really aweome feeling to have officially completed such an amazing product.
You can see a bit from the Windows ship room sign-off event at the end of this cool RTM video clip:
You can also read more about it here:
Windows 7 Team Blog – Windows 7 has been released to manufacturing
Engineering 7 Blog – Our next engineering milestone: RTM
Woohoo! Time to go do a bit more celebrating 🙂
Neely Tucker gives some good advice for dealing with police and offers a perspective similar to mine from yesterday’s post.
Here’s a snip:
It doesn’t matter if you are right, wrong, at home or on the street, or if you are white, black, Hispanic, Jewish, Muslim or whatever. When an armed law enforcement officer tells you to cease and desist, the wise person (a) ceases and (b) desists.
If you’ve been following this story, I highly recommend checking out this piece.
Washington Post: Neely Tucker on the Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrest
Windows 7 RTM availability schedule
Brandon LeBlanc over at the Windows Team blog has posted a nice overview of when the final Windows 7 “RTM bits” will be available through various channels.
There’s also a note in there confirming speculation that a Family Pack offering for installation on up to 3 PCs is in the works.
Henry Louis Gates arrested, released
I’ve seen a lot of tweets the last couple days about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates (or “Skip” Gates). Lots of my friends have expressed outrage and derided the police offices who investigated the break-in report and eventually arrested Gates.
I’ve not been so quick to do so. Yesterday I read the official police report, which has since been pulled from the link I had (if I find it again I’ll link it here). I’ve also read the Washington Post interview with Gates after the arrest.
Now, a bit of background about where I’m coming from. Three years ago my house was broken into. I came home to find the door wide open and a window that had been taken apart. I called the local police who told me to wait outside, and an officer arrived moments later. He proceeded to enter the house to make sure the perpetrator wasn’t still inside. This was his job, and I felt nervous for him… someone could be in there with a weapon. I’ve long empathized with law enforcements officers. Every day they’re at risk, and I don’t know how I’d deal with the fear that even a routine traffic stop could end in disaster.
Not long before that I was home sick and locked myself out of the house when retrieving something from my car. I had to climb in through a small window that was open on the front of the house, and I was nervous that somebody would see me and think I was breaking in. Part of me wished someone had. It would’ve made me feel greatly at ease to know that my neighbors or passersby on the street were looking out for me. Instead, nobody saw, or cared enough to follow up on it. Just the same as when my house was actually broken into a few months later.
So as I read the story about Gates, I found absolutely no fault with the neighbor who reported to the police that two men appeared to be forcing their way into Gates’ home. Then when I read about the police officers who arrived and went to investigate the house, I completely understand them being on edge. They have to be prepared for the worst, that’s their job and how they stay alive.
The police report says that Gates initially refused to provide identification, and accused the police officer of being a racist for investigating the report. On this count I absolutely 100% disagree with Gates. The police officer was doing his job. In the WP interview, Gates says:
“I was thinking, this is ridiculous, but I’m going to show him my ID, and this guy is going to get out of my house,” Gates said. “This guy had this whole narrative in his head. Black guy breaking and entering.”
So Gates basically says that he assumes any police officer doing his job is a racist. He then says:
“I said ‘Who are you? I want your name and badge number.’ I got angry.”
But why? Again, the officer was doing his job and was trying to leave, and Gates gets angry? Why? I would have been thankful. They investigated an earnest report, found that nothing was wrong, and were ready to leave. But instead he got angry. Angry about what? About them investigating a reported break-in?
I just don’t get it. Up until this point I believe the police acted appropriately, and that Gates had no reason to get angry. The officer left the house and Gates followed him outside yelling at him.
At this point, the group of police officers he was antagonizing decided to arrest him for disorderly conduct. I’ll agree that this was probably unnecessary, and the fact that the charges have been dropped supports that. But I believe police officers often arrest and detain people for antagonizing them or a crowd. Anyone who is doing that is probably trying to get arrested.
However, I’m still at a loss for where race factored in on the side of the police. Does Gates think that if a black police officer had arrived, he wouldn’t have approached the house and asked for identification? Does he think that if he’d been white the police officer would have just told the neighbor to go about her business and not investigate the report?
It seems to me that the only place in this story where race factors in is in Gates’ rather bigoted assumption (which he explained in his remarks above) that the white police officer must be a racist, and that an appropriate thing to do would be to try and provoke him.
Maybe if some eyewitness accounts come out that dispute the police report, or if someone can find some shred of evidence that this officer has any history of racial bias, then I’ll start to understand the outrage. At this point, I feel like I must be missing something… or are we really that insecure about race issues these days?
What do you think? Is there some part of the story I’m missing?