Microsoft Is Good to Its People
Working at any company is bound to have its ups and downs, and yes my experience at Microsoft tells me this company has both. Every once in a while there will be a delay, or something won’t go as planned, but these things are bound to happen at any job and I can’t very well knock Microsoft for suffering the same pains any business does. One of the ups, and something Microsoft does very well, is how the company takes care of its people, interns included.
There are employees at Microsoft that make it their full-time job to create a fun and exciting atmosphere for the interns working there, and they do an awesome job. Yes, you can say that my experience is sugar-coated and that it’s simply a recruiting expense (which it is), but that aside it’s something they still do, even if they don’t “have to.” If you want to take it one step further many of the individual groups and divisions within Microsoft have employees who volunteer their time in addition to their normal duties (designing, engineering, etc.) just to come up with fun ideas for the interns in their own group.
Tuesday was a great example of this. At work I got an email in the afternoon that told me to stop by another office, there were “gifts” for me. I wasn’t busy at the moment so I stopped by and picked up a box for myself and another intern I share my office with. I got back to my office and inside the box found one of each of the following for each of us: a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate edition, a copy of Microsoft Office Ultimate edition, a Marmot Ithaca backpack (embroidered with a nice little Windows Interns 2008 logo), and an American Apparel sweatshirt (with another WIndows Interns logo). If you break it down very simply, the “people in charge” just gave me some free product, but really they didn’t have to. I actually don’t even own a computer that can run the software at the moment (I need a new Intel Mac!), but we’ve all heard “it’s the thought that counts” and in this case it’s true. You’re bound to get a bit overwhelmed at times working for a company that has tens of thousands of employees, but yesterday people took time to make some interns feel appreciated, that’s pretty cool.
