Microsoft Culture - as recorded in a PingPong tournament.

A million myths exist about Microsoft Culture. Like all myths - some are true and some are false. Yes we have unlimited free soda across campus (it sounds a lot cooler if you are in college - it doesnt anymore) - and No we do NOT work 15 hr days (well its a different issue that I work them anyway - 7 of them while a movie is going on at home - but thats besides the pt).

So this Monday - we had a ping pong tournament at WWESS. its a 65 odd member team now - promised to grow to 100+ by end of this yr! It was a 20 member team when I joined - and that was just this summer 2005!

Over 44 ppl played on the ladder (50+ wanted to play) during office hrs and we had the entire building gawking in envy about this team that was "socializing" over pingpong. We had 4 tables rented at our lounge with parallel games going on - with referees to boot!

In fact we had the General Manager, Directors, Group Managers, Managers - all playing in this - with our extended team support folks from Legal, HR/Recruiting, Admin and Finance.

There were 4 strong statements that came out in the tournament:

* Super Competitive: Everyone who played hated to lose. Even the ones who were playing the game for the first time - absolutely hated to lose. It was funny.

* Very Diverse and Fun Loving: There were various degrees of emotion being displayed in as many as 8 languages that I could discern - and considering that I was organizing the event and running operations for it (I am also on the Social committee) - I was not paying attention to these details!

* Team-Oriented: It is tough to say competitive and team-oriented in the same sentence but it was. While everyone was trying hard to get their opponent down - there was a huge degree of camraderie going around. Everyone who lost - stayed around to cheer for the next game. It was super fun.

* Strategic Thinking: Especially with the beginners/novices it was interesting to see them plotting strategies to win to make-up for lack of skills. In fact some actually came close to winning this way. The "Never say die" or "a there is always a solution - we havent figured what it is yet" attitude was rampant and obvious for all to see.

From a recruiting perspective - it might be great to know what the team is like - and what ppl do beyond work - and this event showcased it to the fore!