I can’t believe that I haven’t written for over a month! My excuse, like everyone’s excuse, I was busy!
April was unusually hectic with the start of the final three months of Microsoft’s fiscal year and Rich and I throwing ourselves into finishing the flooring at our Kirkland house. First, a comment or two about my job. While I was thrilled to have been hired by Microsoft, the job description provided during the interviews bore no resemblance to the actual job. Instead of doing a three-year strategy, I’ve been doing content management for a 4,000-page website!
The silver lining (and it’s a huge lining) is that I work for Microsoft whose slogan is "Your potential. Our passion." Within a few months of starting on the job, I created a Powerpoint presentation that showcased how the website could be revised. This document became the starting point for the transformation of the site. I’ve seen written several other strategy documents and created numerous mock-ups of potential templates and navigation scheme.
In spite of my recognized strategic vision, I’m still stuck in the weeds. Not a problem. In late fall, I entered a contest and became a seed finalist for one of my ideas. This idea provided the groundwork for collaborating with an engineer. Together we wrote a Microsoft ThinkWeek paper, which a few weeks ago was reviewed by Bill Gates. Okay, he reviews about a quarter of the 400 or so papers.
The paper also provided an opportunity to pester the Microsoft Health Solutions Group, where I’d eventually like to work. For the past few months, I’ve been doing informational interviews with the group and feel optimistic that after I complete a year in my present job (July 2, 2008), I’ll be able to transition to a better role… possibly with the Health Solutions Group. Yeah!
The best news, however, is that two weeks ago, Rich finished putting bamboo flooring in our four bedrooms, hallway, living and dining rooms! That means that last weekend, we were able to bring most of our furniture down from Mount Vernon! We’re months (years) away from finishing everything we want to do, but at least, I get to unpack my collectible, lamps, pillows… pictures… and everything that’s been boxed up for nealry two years!!!!!
Check out the finishing of the floors:
Rajalary 