Different experiences starting at the same company

Everyone who reads this blog knows I work at Microsoft, so, I will speak about something that I find very interesting. A guy I know who is pretty cool although I have only known him for a few months, Mark Curphey wrote a blog post about his first week at the borg that can be found here. His experience sounds awesome, what was mine? Quite the opposite, IMHO. My first week was boring. Was it the team? Was it me? Was it the department we went to? Was it the levels we got hired at(He is a director, I am the lowest level of tester possible)? Was it the fact that I am an unknown and he is very well known? I think it is a mixture of all of it. My first week and my time there since has been filled frustration which I won't fully go into.

I find this very interesting because people's first impressions with a job will go a lot further then the next few months after the first week. Which is probably why I have had a little bit of my frustration. I also acknowledge that my life goals are probably a lot different than Mark's I will eventually be a business owner and run my business as my primary gig. However, Mark has always worked for someone even if he has been a C-level exec, which is not something to take lightly (note I don't know Mark's life goals so I can't say what his are). I think it takes a different person to run a business and start it from scratch then it is to be an executive. Some may say being an employee in as big of a company as MS you need to act like your job is your own business and you need to market yourself to get ahead. Sadly, I agree with that statement and am starting to do that at MS just for practice and as an experiment. Now this isn't a dig to Mark because what he has done and is doing is awesome and helps the security community and the majority of the population would love to be in his shoes. What I find interesting is just our experiences at Microsoft. I am sure when I get to meet with Mark in person and have a few beers we will have an interesting conversation about this, but time will tell :P.

Well back to my businesses (yes plural).