First Run in the Seattle Rain and other tidbits

Today, I had my first run since moving to Seattle a week ago.  Started out from my flat on Lake Washington and ran around the lake to the town center in Kirkland and back around the lake for a total of about 7 miles.  (the lake is something like 90+ miles all around, so I’m just running along a short stretch on my side.) It started out raining a bit and by the time I was done, it was pretty much pouring.  Since this is after all, Seattle, I better get used to it!

This was also the conclusion of my first two weeks at Microsoft and it has been an intense but amazing experience so far.  As usual, the first weeks are filled with all of the usual logistics: new PC, passwords, benefits enrollment, office set-up, ID cards, parking passes, office keys, audio conferencing passwords, and a million other things.  I’ve been fortunate to have great help from my admin and other support people who have really looked after me in a good way. I participated in something called NEO (New Employee Orientation) this past Monday with other Microsoftees (yes this is a word) who were joining at the same time.  This is very much an indoctrination into the company, culture and campus, plus employee/manager expectations.

And of course, from a work environment, there is the usual getting to know my new colleagues, people and peers/relations in other business groups and corporate.  I won’t go into the work aspects here except to say that the job load is large of course, performance expectations high and we are in our 4th quarter of our fiscal year (ending June 30) which means all efforts to secure FY09 numbers as well as massive planning for FY10 and sales/marketing plans and kick-offs.

I had a group all-hands meeting on Tuesday followed by a group lunch and it was great fun to meet the group and start planning our new future together.  There are hundreds of new acronyms to learn – as in any company – and specific ones to MS and to the businesses that they serve.  I decided the best defense was a good offense so I started making up my own – and asking my group to adopt them!     We had some fun with that.  To put it in perspective, I am in GM WW (Marketing) for CS which is part of EPG which is part of SMSG headed by KT. 

On a personal front, I am working to get settled into my temp housing which I moved into Sunday evening.  I’ve had to make a few trips to the local grocery stores to stock-up and did some shopping today in two of my least favorite stores (Sears and Bed, Bath & Beyond) to buy things like hangers, soap dishes, glasses and bowls, tupperware, crock-pot, etc.   And then spend time peeling off all of the sticky labels they insist on putting on items that are not removable by human beings.

Well, that’s a short update on a Saturday night before I got back to catching up on work email and moving things further along.

All for now – and maybe another run tomorrow!