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May 31, 2003

Morale-ity

I'm sure many of you have heard the rumours of Microsoft employees putting in 80-hour work weeks, neglecting their families and sleeping at their desks. This is a half-truth.

Although it's not uncommon to see people working away at their desks well into the evening, these are usually the same people that take advantage of Microsoft's flex-hour policy and roll into work sometime around noon.

Of course during crunch time (shortly before the end of a product milestone or release) the pressure is higher, but for the most part, no one works themselves into the ground unless they want to.

Microsoft is very concerned with its employees' morale. Since I've started there's been free espresso twice a week and beer bashes every month. I've been saving a lot of money on groceries by staying late and having dinner bought for me. Yesterday was a May's beer bash with free beer, wine, food and raffles (no, I didn't win).

The other companies I've worked at didn't seem to care much about employee morale. There's a reason why I didn't apply for a full-time position at Corel (besides their now penny-stock status and consecutive budgets in the red). Ask me again in a year how my morale is doing. I'd be willing to bet it's still as high as it is now.

00:00 | Work

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