*Per Medium’s Policy, names and emails have been redacted*

Like so many people that get an opportunity to work at Microsoft, it was a proud moment for me, if not one of the proudest moments of my life. Not only did I get a job there though, I even got the email address, mitchel@microsoft.com that I picked out when I was teenager, back when everyone said that I was crazy for aspiring to work there. In fact, the last conversation that I had with my grandfather before he passed away consisted of how proud he was that I took a job there, just as I said that I would all of those years ago. It was a big deal to me as I’m sure it was for everyone else that worked hard to get there.

After two years though, I had enough.

I had 3 managers within two years, none of whom had any measurable amount of competence or interest in management, nor did they seem to be invested in the success of their direct reports. Instead, they all seemed to be in a position of management because of tenure, a proven ability to tow the company line and unquestionably do as they’re told, or because of the fact that they were devout drinking and smoking buddies with their manager. In fact, on my very first day as an FTE in CSS, my first manager told me “just don’t create any more work for me” and this sentiment never changed in the year+ that I worked for him; he was the best manager I had there.

In my first org, CSS, we were silo’d away in satellite offices around the country that didn’t remotely compare to the main campus in any capacity. We had to log every minute that we spent working, even if it wasn’t billed anywhere, which also applied to bathroom breaks; no developers had to do this to my knowledge. We couldn’t engage with developers on “Skype” unless they reached out to us first, otherwise we were only supposed to engage with them via Product Studio, which is geriatric and monochrome bug tracking system and even then, we could only after a strict peer review process. Phone calls with dev often resulted in them screaming at us with impunity. What next, no eye contact? Some of their platforms weren’t even profitable without CSS consulting and premier support revenue, but we were still second class there. It was frustrating, so I left after a year to a new team on main campus with Exchange Dedicated Operations (EXO-D)

In EXO-D, no one seemed to know what my new “Manager”, Cole, did besides make illegible graphs in Tableau and follow his manager, Daniel, around as if he shat Amazon stock. I’m not exaggerating at all when I say that uselessness was an ongoing joke throughout the org and for good reason. Cole had to hold his breath while he spoke for some reason and would start speaking like Twista when he was running low on air, which I hear can be a common theme among mouth breathers. He also had to close his eyes while he thought, and displayed his OOF messages on his door instead of Outlook. I could not believe that this person even worked for Microsoft, let alone that I had to report to him.

While our management seemed to spend more time outside smoking with their friends or at the bar than working, we were so understaffed that we didn’t have time to take actual breaks. Most of the time our breaks consisted of a mad dash to the door to get a food delivery or quick smoke break where people did nothing but complain and vent about the company. My peers were anywhere from cliquish to toxic and/or flat out depressed. Few would ever admit it, but it was hard not to see it in their actions as there was rampant obesity, drinking, drugs and chain smoking; virtually everyone seemed to be self-medicating in more ways than one; myself included. We didn’t have a single morale event that wasn’t focused around drinking and stuffing our faces. There was even an ongoing joke about Microsoft being a drinking company with a software problem. Needless to say, getting ahead there without being an unabashed alcoholic or a pack a day smoker was difficult, if not impossible, much like what I would expect a frat to be like. It was miserable.

In spite of what their careers site may lead you to believe, our “ultra modern office” was just a humped out server room with all of the racking equipment, UPS and cooling systems in place, keeping us at 60 degrees year around; because everyone wants to wear layers in August. We didn’t have our own desks or chairs and had to haul our peripherals around with us and the only Windows we had were installed on our laptops. Our management rarely stopped by to interact with us. They had their own offices, but they only seemed to find the time to follow Daniel around for his frequent smoke breaks and to the bar while keeping us at distance via email and IM most of the time. Meanwhile, the Yammer team down the hall from us had an elaborate and modern workspace surrounded by windows, natural light and were even equipped with Macs. They didn’t even have a profitable product, but they were “developers! developers! developers!” and apparently we were just servers.