jchenx's Journal: An Experiment

So I've decided not to hide where I work anymore. Yes, I work at Microsoft, specifically in MGS (Microsoft Game Studios). I'm curious to see how that affects my karma and postings. Will everything by automatically be modded down (or up) simply because I happen to work at the "evil empire"?

It really shouldn't matter all that much. Yes, I'm obviously a bit biased towards my employer, but now you know why. That said, though, I don't consider myself an MS "fanboi", as they do a lot of things I don't agree with. However, I work in a very small part of the company so there's nothing I can do to affect the goings-on with Office and Windows, which MS gets the most flak on. And I'm just a normal guy who needed a job after college, really wanted to get into the games industry, and working in MGS was the best way to get in. If I weren't here, I'd most likely be working for some government contractor (ugh) back East in the DC/Metro area, making the same amount of money that I do now.

Anyway, the reason why I decided to do this was because I was annoyed by all the "MS-bashing-for-no-good-reason-except-its-MS" that regularly goes on in /. Yeah, most are troll or karma-whoring posts, but still annoying nonetheless. It was really the Bill Gates Donates $258 Million to Fight Malaria article that got me. Way too much cynicism for a guy who donates all that money for a good cause. (Would the cynics rather have him never donate?)

There also seems to be a lot of hate towards everyone who works at MS. But I look around and everyone's pretty normal. (I think many of the millionaires that made bank with MSFT stock are long gone ... retired, or at other companies. Or, they're much higher up the food chain than I am and I wouldn't work with them anyway) For my product, MS is not #1. We're struggling to always do better (fortunately my group is one of the few in MGS that makes a profit!). And we always try to do the right thing for the customer, because it usually makes good business sense (although I admit I am a CS grad and I have no business savvy).

Anyway, now you know where I work and what my biases are. I'll make the same posts I do (usually games related, since I'm a huge gamer). Obviously anything I post shouldn't be considered "official MS word". I just want to be able to voice my own opinions. I'm also not afraid to bash MS if they do something stupid either (and there's surprisingly a lot of like-minded, vocal folks within the company already).

Of course if this bombs and everything I post turns out to be -5 flamebait, then I'll probably have to yank this experiment. I hope that doesn't happen. :)