Palace of geek in glass and concrete
Being in reading the last two days was a lot of fun. The Microsoft UK HQ is a big place, a palace of geek in glass and concrete :) It's a sort of mini Redmond with its own lake and connections between buildings. Micrsoft canteen is another world, not only cheap but an amazing array of food to choose from. It has US dinner hall style table arrangements (kinda fun to sit next to a gaggle of softies) and a conveyor belt to take your tray away on. It was great to have a Microsoft member from the workshop sit with us to talk more about the day with.
Reading has the same drinking arrangement as Redmond, free softdrinks in coolers but no poweraid drinks of any sort (I guess our hall had no coders in it). It also has loads of coffee bars, this were used by the softies for informal meetings and chats between them selfs and any customers they brought along. They looked very relaxed and a great way of catching up with your team with out the need for a formal meeting, I liked that idea.
The softies as Phil told me are open and friendly and it was good to talk to them and others on the workshop. So all in all if you ever get a chance to go to the Microsoft UK HQ I recommend you do.
Update: I forgot to say that MS UK has no shop, now I really wanted to get some MS T's. I am hoping they add one :)