Reviews and Fed-Ex Packages
Microsoft has a fiscal year that ends June 30th and our performance review cycle is set to that same timing. That means in July, things get busy for managers at Microsoft - reviews to read, comments to write, and rewards to distribute. The last time I was involved in an annual review cycle at Microsoft was June of 1999 - eight years ago. Shockingly, the tools have changed from 8 years ago. 
So tonight was my "suck it up and learn the tools" night. Some of our stuff is amazing - huge improvements from years ago. Some is still a work in progress. But all of it, the great and not as great, has the goal of helping managers do a better job of guiding and rewarding employees. It is great to come back eight years later and see how much progress Microsoft has made on that front - we really are committed to taking care of our employees and managing their careers. It's cool.
However, there is only so much time in tools that one can take. By about 9pm, my brain was full and my contacts were dried out, so I headed home. And there were packages waiting - sweet, sweet Fed-Ex packages full of stuff I'd ordered a few days ago. iPhone accessories (an additional iPhone dock and a pack of universal dock adapters were the first to arrive, more stuff coming), Wii accessories (more Wii-motes and MarioParty 8), and three completely unrelated hi-def movies - on Blu-Ray, Ghost Rider and Bridge to Terabithia and on HD-DVD, BBC's planet earth. My iPhone is now nestled in my Altec Lansing inMotion portable speaker/amplifier and blaring "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC and I'm trying to decide between watching Ghost Rider and checking out MarioParty on my Wii. A nice break from review tools!!
Happy Friday!
Comments
You'll like Planet Earth on HD...very cool. I just got season 3 of Veronica Mars from iTunes for my iPhone and it is very watchable at that screen size.
Gotta love the iPhone! Now, if I can just develop apps for it.
Posted by: Paulsc | July 7, 2007 11:43 AM