Official: Microsoft Buys ME Lunch & Gives Private Tour!
Posted by Ben | Under Microsoft Thursday Aug 7, 2008So this is kind of crazy. I don’t know if you guys have been following the comments over on my post here but a couple people from Microsoft have contacted me because of this blog! Apparently they’ve been following my posts about my tech troubles at work and through their commenting have offered some helpful solutions. In particular like their free online training site which includes training videos. Pretty helpful stuff. I really didn’t expect Microsoft of all companies to reach out like that. I guess they figure it’d be good PR for them or something. But, what I REALLY didn’t expect was their offer to take my buddy Josh and I out to lunch and give us a private tour of their office in Irvine! Kinda badass right? Needless to say I’m pretty excited about it.
The first guy that contact me (Edwin) left a bunch of info about online training resources for MS products and the other guy (Sam) reached out and asked us to come visit him at their Irvine offices. Which works out well since Josh and I are in LA. We’re going to go over there at around noon next Thursday. Initially wanted to do it on Friday but I guess Sam surfs and reserves Fridays for sessions at Salt Creek in Dana Point. He said that if we wanted to we could join him which I thought was really nice of him to offer.
Anyway, should be an interesting trip and hopefully bring some resolution to my tech problems at work. Maybe this could lead to a real job!
Hopefully my manager doesn’t read this posting about surfing.
Oh I am dead… Maybe I could start a Save the Microsoft Technology Guy blog now…
Anyway, it is tour of the Microsoft Technology Center, just like we would give to Chief Technology Officers and IT folks in SoCal. If we work it out, maybe we do something with your company.
Also, I am not a recruiter, my job is to work with students at the local universities and community colleges to help them understand our technology.
I have had a number of students come by the Microsoft Technology Center, although I normally don’t buy lunch if it is a big group.
I do think it would be cool to have a beach party closer to LA sometime. Something cheap and cool, Frisbee golf, skimboard contest, over the line, etc.
Question number 1: did they pay you for this post?
Other thoughts: no offense, but you sound quite pathetic when you describe your experience with Vista. If I were a Microsoft employee, I would take you not only to a lunch, but to Disneyland as well so you could feel better.
While I myself have changed the preinstalled on my notebook Vista to Kubuntu after 4 months of use, I must say it is not half as bad. I switched mostly because I was paranoid about security, not because I couldn’t do simple things in Excel
Oops! Sorry about that Sam. I really hope you don’t get in trouble! Would you like me to edit that post?
Gary, Microsoft did not pay me to post this, I recently graduated from college and moved to LA where I have an internship working with computers. My friend Josh helped me start this blog where I started rambling about my problems at work, specifically with computers/Microsoft stuff. I am pretty bad when it comes to tech stuff so I agree with you about being pathetic. I’m thankful that Microsoft is trying to help me change that.
Ben, I know all that you’ve written, I’m reading this blog for a while
Side note: If you are bad with tech stuff, what are you doing then in an internship that involves working with computers?
Btw, what area do you consider yourself good at? I remember stumbling on this blog because you had some funny things posted here
Well anyway, good luck to both Sam and you
Hi Gary, I know…it’s pretty comical. I really needed an internship to basically prove to mom and dad that I’m worth a damn and to build my resume. I am horrible when it comes to computer stuff but the company I’m working for now needed help and I saw an opportunity. I figured that I could take this job, wing-it for the most part and figure the rest out along the way. It’s been pretty trying and on some days I just want to say fuck it and walk out but I’m charging through it. It’s interesting that these guys contacted me and who knows, it could turn into something.
What area do I consider myself good at? Well I majored in English and I like soccer and beer. So i don’t know if that answers your question or not. When you say “area” do you mean tech-wise? Because I’m pretty retarded with that stuff.
Well I can also say you have a talent for writing funny stuff here
I loved your posts with funny tech links :))
Have fun at Irvine
Make sure you write something about the trip here 
I’ll definitely write about the trip. Should be pretty interesting. I feel slightly funny about it, almost like it’s a blind date or something. At least there’s a free lunch involved! Maybe A Vista burrito with extra blue screen
No problem with the post, just having fun with it. My boss is out on infant care leave for a few weeks (a really cool benefit at Microsoft) so he won’t know about it. Let’s face it, blogs are a pretty good place to keep secrets.
Am I paid to do this? Good question…Ben is a student, I am paid to work with students to help them understand our technology and use all of the free stuff we give them. I guess so.
Do I have discussions about this type of thing with my boss? No, unless I say something stupid, which I can’t give an example of because that would be stupid.
Should I be doing something else other than posting on this blog at this time? Yes, I should be working on my newsletter for North American Faculty members and reviewing the World Wide Telescope, which is pretty cool: http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/
for use in the Cal Community Colleges. So I guess that I am doing this to goof off at work, in a manner of speaking.
Is meeting with Ben like a blind date? No it isn’t, meeting at the look mini-Golf course would an example of a blind date.