First day at Microsoft

Well today was my first day at Microsoft, according to the New Employee Orientation program in effect I have 1.5 days of orientation sessions before I even get to meet my manager and team.

Overall impression is that those guys know what they're doing. I am probably too tired to explain everything in detail but I will try to mention the outlines.

The day started with a 4 step registration, for completing the legal documents and such. The moment I entered I was dazzled. The quantity and diversity of the newcomers was just totally unexpected. We were more than 200 people there, from everywhere you can possibly imagine in the world. And I do mean everywhere. US, Canada, Australia, UK, Ireland, Uganda, Bangladish, Italy, Russia, India, Korea, and of course Egypt :) and that's just off the top of my head.

The orientation was actually pretty interesting and at most times fun, we were asked to tell stories about impressions we got from friends and family about Microsoft, stories and myths we'd heard about MS before we'd come. No effort was exerted in order to refute the bad impressions, they were just acknowledged as an image in people's head that needs to be changed.

There was also a section dedicated to discussing diversity, how to deal with it, or rather how to take advantage of it not just deal with it.

And it seems that just about everything inside MS has its own portal on the corporate intranet, never mind the obvious things like the HR dept. There is a place where you could decide to send parts or all of your pay checks to 8 different bank accounts, there is one for new comers with everything they might need to know, there is even one for car pooling and finding a car pooling partner. You can see and adjust your current benefit plan, there is a huuuuge portal for security, all aspects of security including your own physical security, we'd learnt that there is even a 24 hour hotnumber you can call if you need security to escort you to your car if you're leaving late at night. And a paid cab to your home if you came to work on a bike or pooling cars with a friend and didn't find a way back home.

It was almost overwhelming, you get the impression that those guys never leave anything for chance. Everything is well accounted for. And some of the benefits were nothing like I've heard of before. Weight management for example, where MS pays for your consultation with a therapist, physicist, or even a personal trainer to help you lose weight should you decide you need to. Another benefit that I can't remember its name (and am too lazy to check the booklet we got) allows you to double whatever donations you make to non profit organization as Microsoft matches whatever donations you make dollar for dollar to the same organization you decide to donate to, and even pays $17 to such an organization for each hour you spend doing charity work. Just amazing.

Some really cool trivias I got to know during the day was that on average 8 new babies are born to MS employees, that last year MS recruited 5000+ employees in Redmond and another 7000+ elsewhere in the world. And those account for 20% of the current MS work force of around 60 000 employees.

It was a good day, tomorrow I'm scheduled for a half day more of orientation sessions and then I will finally get to meet my manager and team and get my office and computer(s)

And I thought I'd post a photo of me and Helal all dressed up for today just before we go to attend the orientation (business casual dressing was recommended for the orientation but I can go to work wearing shorts and slippers starting tomorrow :) )