The first working week report

Probably the best way to describe my first week working at Microsoft is with a simple equation: Productivity = k / Security. Long story short, there were some pretty serious leaks in regards to Windows 8 and hence forth receiving access to various resources one requires to one ones work becme a lot harder. That being said there were some other issues that also prevented me from recieving access. Mainly the fact that when a bunch of new employees enters an organisation as big as Microsoft it can take a while for the new network profiles to propogate throughout the servers. And a non propogated profile can't be given access to things.

My first day after new employee orientation (NEO) had a rather "interesting" start. For starters I almost throw out my temporary name from NEO, that had who I was to report to on my first day and which building + office they were in. Fortunatley I was too lazy to find a bin and instead it ended up in my backpack. Then it turns they mistakenly (or otherwise) put my manager's manager on the name tag, not my manager. So I ended up walking around aimlessly for like 45 minutes going back between what I thought was the right office and the foyer area. In hind-sight I probably should have stayed in the foyer area as we might of found each other faster that way. So what should have been a hours meeting turned in a 15 minute meeting.

Also on my first day (the tuesday) I had to set up and then completley whipe the computer I was using. Fortunatley Microsoft has disk images one can load from the network that install the OS and a bunch of other useful tools. So it only took like 2-3 hours to get it into a working state.

The wednesday morning I took off to apply for my social security number (the office only opens in normal business hours). There was some annoyance in regards to the scissors I had in my pencil case being too long. I had to get rid of them and as I took public transport there was to car to place them in. I ended up throwing them in a public trash can at the bus stop (throwing something into a bush would have looked suspecious). Then I found myself at the back of the line. Yay! I managed to get the scissors back though. I have had those scissors since year 2, so I didn't care if they had a little grime on them.

The rest of the week was spent waiting to get access to stuff, more computer setup, highly irritating online courses made by those HR people and reading specs and the like that I could access to. On the Friday I eventually got access to the source code and was finally able to build a copy of the latest developer version of Windows Phone. Yes I know things not in the public domain and yes I value my job too much to tell you them.

The weekend basically coinsisted of a little bit of shopping and a lot of TV. I really ought to look at doing touristy things but that would require effort and ideally someone other people to go with.