The Memory of Programming in Seattle (2) Working
The Memory of Programming in Seattle:
- The Memory of Programming in Seattle (1) Places
- The Memory of Programming in Seattle (2) Working
- The Memory of Programming in Seattle (3) Living
- The Memory of Programming in Seattle (4) Food
- The Memory of Programming in Seattle (5) Playing around
- The Memory of Programming in Seattle (6) University of Washington
- The Memory of Programming in Seattle (7) Microsoft Picnic
In this part, the working environment and style will be introduced. Because I do not prefer to show up my face or the Microsoft office internals here, in this part:
- Most of the photos outside office are shot by me;
- All of the photos inside office are from the Internet.
Microsoft Redmond Campus
The north of Bellevue (introduced in part 1) is Redmond. Microsoft Campus is tens of buildings distributed in the trees and flowers. These photos are shot by my legacy Nokia N73.
Actually Redmond is as beautiful as Bellevue. Rabbits and squirrels can be seen frequently:
My friend Wei tried to give him a cigarette, and I tried to give him a chocolate, but he said he does not like those stuff…
And this was shot during the heavy snow in the winter of 2008:
This is the mail box outside RedWest E. The car is a Microsoft shuttle, which will be introduced later.
Originally I was working in Building 9 at the main entrance of the campus, later the team was relocated to Building 34:
So the exciting thing is, I was working with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer in the same building:)… I was in the 1st floor, and they were in the 5th floor.
I shot this in the garage of Building 40 / 41:
Building 40 and 41 are the office of the .NET and Visual Studio division. We have many thunderous people there, like Anders Hejlsberg, etc.
This is the photo of Microsoft Visitor Center, from Microsoft.com:
In 2008 the Visitor Center was relocated to Building 92, as well as Microsoft Company Store. I bought several shirts there, like this one.
Cafeterias
Many buildings have cafeterias. They are excellent, and not expensive at all. We have Chinese food in the cafeteria of Building 88, served by a very nice uncle from Shanghai.
This is the cafeteria of Building 34, where I often had my lunch (The picture is from Microsoft.com.):
And this is the inside view (This picture is from PCOnline.com.cn.):
Below is the way outside Building 16 (This picture is from PCOnline.com.cn.). Since the cafeteria of Building 34 does not provide supper, sometimes when I was too lazy to cook, I walked through this way to go to the cafeteria of Building 16 to have supper:
On the plates those are the names for each Microsoft product.
This is the salad in the Building 16 cafeteria, each costs $6.95 max, which is cheap enough. I do not use any salad sauce, because it tasted horrible for me:
The drink is a bottle of 100% apple juice. The drink is free. I will talk more about drink later.
Office
Because publishing pictures of Microsoft office internals might cause trouble, in this section I will mainly use pictures from the Internet.
The name of the employee is on the plate of his office. I also have my own office in Building 34, but I am sorry I do not prefer to publish photos of my office.
Ok, here is the key point, the drink. There is at least one kitchen for each floor of each building:
The free drinks includes kinds of cola, kinds of milk, kinds of 100% fruit juice, etc.
And we have free Starbucks coffee and hot chocolate:
And also other free drinks, like kinds of tea, etc:
Yes, it is said that “Your drink, our passion!”. My favorite are
- sprite,
- chocolate milk,
- 100% apple juice,
- 100% orange juice,
- hot chocolate.
At the beginning, the most horrible drink for me is V8. But later we invented a simple way to change it into delicious: heat via the microwave and add a little sugar.
We also have a lot of recreation stuff:
And this is from my friend’s blog:
Yes, Mark, Steven and me we are playing Street fighter II in Building 50. You can see this arcade belongs to the IE team.
This is fancy:
You can play with the surface multi-touch device in the Microsoft Visitor Center, also in Building 43, etc.
Transportation
Since the buildings are distributed in the campus, people like me (do not have a car to drive) could have trouble. But don’t worry, Microsoft provides free shuttle service between buildings and areas. For example, sometimes we call a shuttle to go to Building 88 to have the Chinese food, then call a shuttle back to office.
The above picture is from Flickr.
This picture looks like the shuttle connector in Overlake Transit Center, also from Flickr:
Every morning I took a 245 from apartment (in Bellevue, introduced in part 1) to office (in Redmond). This one is shot by my Nokia N73:
Links for more pictures and information
For more pictures of Microsoft Redmond Campus: