"Time Flies When You're Having Fun"

This morning I awoke and was shocked to find myself done with 2 of my 3 months in Seattle this summer. I have never been a huge fan of corny sayings, such as “Time flies when you’re having fun!” And yet, in this particular case, I can find no better way to say it: I have been having so much fun that no matter how hard I try, time seems to be accelerating!

You may ask incredulously, “How can a girl working 40-50 hours a week at the largest software company in the world be having fun?” I understand why people would be skeptical, so I will attempt to explain why working at Microsoft has been so fun this summer through a few recent anecdotes. What, exactly, does fun in the office look like?

FUN IN THE OFFICE:
Suppose you were walking down the hallway by my office last Friday afternoon. What would you have seen? Surprisingly, you would have found a row of ficus plants spanning the entire width of the hall. My co-worker Jason and I perused my building’s hallways to “borrow” various plants from our office neighbors. The end effect was that we were able to create a barrier which sufficiently acted as a volleyball net. Once we had constructed the wall of plants, we proceeded to play a game of volleyball in the hallway. Other employees who passed by, while confused at first, soon quickly joined the fun. We finished the afternoon game by enjoying some of the infinite free sodas provided for employees.

I have mentioned the office dog, Brutus, in a few posts this summer. The new joke on the block is that I am Brutus’s “office girlfriend.” Every morning when I come into my office, Brutus sees me pass his office and leaps up to follow me into my own office. He waits patiently for me while I check my email, and then we head to the building’s kitchen together where I get a piping hot cup of Starbucks coffee and a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I return to my office to begin the day, Brutus at my side. After finishing my cereal, he is the lucky dog who gets to lick the bowl every morning.Since I complete this morning routine 5 days a week, it comes to little surprise that we all joke I am Brutus’s office girlfriend! Haha.

The Microsoft campus covers a large area, with over 100 buildings. But don’t be fooled – not all of these buildings contain only offices and engineers! In fact, in the center of the campus there is a collection of buildings known as the “Microsoft Mall.” You need your badge for entrance, but it is literally a “mall” with over 30 places to eat, a post office, a massage parlor, bike shops, cell phone stores, fountains, and more! Adjacent to the mall is a full-sized soccer field. Microsoft XBOX sponsors Washington’s soccer team, the Seattle Sounders. Last week, the Sounders had their practice on the Microsoft campus, and the employees were invited to watch. My friend Jason and I decided to watch the practice and then pick up lunch at a restaurant called the “Spitfire Grill” at the Microsoft Mall. It is very common for employees to walk over to the Microsoft Mall during the summer months and enjoy an afternoon off!

FUN OUTSIDE OF THE OFFICE:
While I certainly have fun in the office, most of the fun happens outside of it! For example, last weekend I hopped in a car with a bunch of friends and drove a couple hours to Mount Rainier National Park. We went hiking in a 7 mile loop and had lunch on the trail with spectacular views! You can see a couple of pictures from the adventure below.





I have recently joined a volleyball team that plays beach volleyball a few times a week. Last Tuesday, my team had our quarter-final match on Golden Gardens Beach in downtown Seattle. It was difficult to focus on the game, considering that the ocean was 10 feet to my left! As the sun set over the Pacific and the boats in the marina gently rocked with the surf, my team won our match and will be advancing to the semi-finals. Wish us luck!

Microsoft, like Qualcomm, is famous for spoiling its interns! Last Friday our recruiters put on an event for all interns from the West/Mid-West universities. The event had a free catered burrito buffet, free t-shirts, free video games, as well as a number of other free gifts. They gave us all $50 gift cards just for attending! We also played a massive intern game of “Capture the Flag,” which was a lot of fun.

Perhaps the most impressive event, however, happened last Thursday. Each summer, Microsoft invites all 800 interns to a massive summer celebration. (When Bill Gates was still the CEO, it used to take place at his mansion on the ocean.) This summer, Microsoft rented out the entire Pacific Science Center in Seattle and showed the new Harry Potter 6 movie on IMAX screens (this version won’t even be released until next week). To get us all there, a fleet of 25 buses lined up on the Microsoft campus at 5PM. We had a police escort of 30 motorcycle cops who proceeded to shut down (not one, but) TWO of the major interstates in Seattle to transport all of the buses downtown. You can imagine the look of shock on the commuters’ faces as they were stopped to allow a fleet of 25 bases pass by them across the Lake Washington bridge!! After arriving at the Pacific Science Center, we had a massive BBQ with gourmet hamburgers, hotdogs, and desserts galore. There was also an open bar! We ate the free dinner on an outdoor patio by the ocean and then moved into the theater to watch the movie. To top the evening off, Microsoft provided every intern with an XBOX 360 game console (worth hundreds of dollars) as a thank you for working here this summer! It was an absolutely awesome night! You can see a picture of me with some friends below holding our new game systems:



Today I went to downtown Bellevue to see their Art Festival with my friends Tyler and Lauren. The downtown area is covered with art booths for local artists and food vendors. While snacking on roasted corn on the cob, Philly cheese steak sandwiches, and shaved ice, we enjoyed looking at the various paintings and handmade jewelry. It was another beautiful afternoon spent in the Seattle sunshine!

While there have been infinite fun activities this summer, I cannot possibly tell you about them all. I hope you have enjoyed hearing about a few of the highlights in this blog post! When I consider that I have only 4 weeks left to spend in Seattle, I crave to do even more and experience everything I can. Tomorrow I am going on a cruise of Seattle’s lakes with some girlfriends, and tomorrow evening my parents arrive for a few days. Updates on both of those adventure will surly appear on my blog soon. Time may “fly when I’m having fun,” but it seems to “soar when I’m having fun in Seattle!”

Concrete Furniture: The Next Big Thing

People love it when they get Fridays off work. A long weekend. Who could resist? For Seattle, the Friday off during the 4th of July weekend may very well be the best Friday of the entire year; when it rains 10 out of 12 months, a sunny, long weekend to grill and go boating seems like paradise! My 4th of July weekend began with a shopping trip with some girlfriends, including my two roommates Yang and Nanxi (Check out the picture of us, with downtown Bellevue in the background). Later we met a group of people at Alki beach to enjoy fish & chips, the sun, and ice cream (The picture at the beach shows me and my roommates!). We topped off the day by grilling bratwurst and relaxing.




On the Independence day itself, I met up with my friends Eugene and Puneet to grill dinner and relax in their backyard. We decided to forgo the crowds of downtown Seattle fireworks and instead watch the local neighbors shoot off their "less-than-legal" fireworks. The next day we had another large grilling party and made gourmet burgers with every possible topping you can think of: 5 cheeses, sauteed onions and mushrooms, veggies, olives, pico de gallo, and more! We finished off the day by listening to Puneet play his guitar (he has been playing for 10 years and is very talented!). As we all lay spread out on blankets in the grass listening to guitar music, I found myself incredibly thankful to have met such wonderful people this summer.

This past week at work has been much busier. As of last Friday, I have officially completed the first half of my internship. To formalize my review, I had a special 1-on-1 meeting with my manager to talk about the progress towards my project. It sounds like everything is going on track! Microsoft was also buzzing this week about the announcement of the new Google Chrome Operating System (OS). In a nutshell, Google is proposing that the computer user's main experience should be centralized around the web, not the local desktop environment. To be fair, Google has a point. I have heard numbers that users claim 70% of their computing experience is on the web. This number quickly converges to almost 100% when the user population is defined to be younger. While I have heard and talked with many Microsoft employees internally about this announcement, I am not at liberty to reproduce the conversations online. However, I can say one thing with full confidence: We, the world, know nothing about this new OS except some 100+ words released in their official Google blog. Nobody has seen any code yet. And let's be clear, the current Microsoft Windows OS has been in development for 25+ years and includes millions of lines of code and thousands of developer hours. The Mac OS has been in development even longer (closer to 35+ years, depending on when you start counting). You really should not misunderstand me; if there is a single company on the planet that could build a "lightweight" OS from the ground up in a few years, it would be Google. But still, the world has a right to remain skeptical about their recent announcement. Will it be a major threat to Microsoft? Again, I can only speculate as an intern, but I would now say no. Google Chrome OS (at least version 1.0) will be no more threatening to Microsoft Windows than Bing is threatening to Google search.

My last 2 days at work have been spent in employee training with all of the other Windows User Interface Program Mangers (PM). It was surreal to be sitting with so many brilliant, creative people learning the process of designing a user interface for the next one billion people. The room was littered with post-it notes, white-board drawings, and sketches. There was also tons of free food and snacks provided, with the office dog Brutus acting as the Microsoft vacuum for all the crumbs. I learned something funny in the training session that I would like to share with you now. In the early 1900s, Thomas Edison had an idea to invent furniture made of concrete because it would be cheap, easy, and last forever. While Edison may be known as a great inventor today, he had many bad ideas as well. I am particularly grateful that his concrete furniture didn't become a hit, because I am really enjoying writing my blog on a squishy bed instead of a concrete box!

This afternoon I am off to play sand volleyball with my coworker Jason. I miss everyone at home, and will see you all in another 6 weeks!