My Personal Mentoring Story, Career Choice in IT and Path to Microsoft – Part 4

Editor’s Note: The following article is written by me! With the New Year upon us, I thought this was a great time to share my personal mentoring story in hopes of inspiring others who may be undecided about their career options, think success is out of their reach, and how a great mentor can help you achieve your goals

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This is the fourth article in a multi-part series. Check out Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3

I last left off where I was struggling with Domain and Trust Relationships in NT 4 and was frustrated and ready to throw in the towel. Nick suggested that we form a study group and so the four of us met every Saturday at Karen’s enormous house. Nick was our group leader and reviewed the material we covered in the previous week. Kevin and I needed the most help, well me the most. Karen, I think, just enjoyed hosting the gatherings. Nick had these flip charts where he would diagram things out. He never got impatient and would take the time to go over things until we understood them. If we just nodded our heads, he knew we did not get it and started again. And when it was explained simply “point to the people you trust” Ed is a person, so that domain would be the trustED domain. And other tips like this and it just clicked. When I started my first job after finishing school I was the resident expert on domain and trust issues! When class was finished, and we were ready to take our exams, Nick insisted that we meet on both Saturdays and Sundays. We went through all the Exam Cram books. Nick would draw out scenarios and ask us how we would solve them. We even used the practice tests and would keep taking them until our scores went up and we knew the content inside and out.

I had a part time job as a Front Desk Receptionist at Rehabilitation hospital that allowed me to study after 6pm which was super helpful. I think for the next 6 weeks we breathed, ate and drank Windows NT 4. We all passed our exams and were now MCSEs! Nick of course was the first, then Kevin, then me. I am not even sure if Karen bothered to take the exams. However, I was surprised I passed the dreaded TCP/IP exam which was thought to be one of the more difficult of the electives….all that subnetting!! So in case you have not figured it out, Nick was my mentor and Kevin and Karen my support system, along with Mr. Petersen, they had faith in me, saw potential there and they never let me give up. Without them, Nick especially, I honestly don’t know if I would have made it through. After all, mentoring is the theme of this blog. So Nick, Kevin and even Karen, my mentors and friends, if I never told you before, I am thanking you now for all you did for me. .

After school ended and we completed our exams and went our separate ways. Ironically, Nick ended up being the Network Administrator for the Rehabilitation Hospital I worked for as a student. We never saw Karen again. She just sort of vanished off the face of the earth. I was having a harder time finding work at first. As a woman in IT in the late 90’s, this was my more challenging than it would be today. Woman in the industry were an anomaly and hiring managers were not sure what to think. I could tell you stories but that would have to be a separate series I won’t even get into. In fact I was later told when I started at Microsoft, that I was one of the first 100 female MCSEs. I don’t know if that is official or accurate but I like to believe it is true and that I was on the cusp that paved the way for the women who came after me.

Kevin got this great job working for a Microsoft outsource partner called Stream doing technical support for Windows NT4 Server. He said that they were hiring and could put in a good reference for me. Shortly after I received a call and was offered a job to work on their Exchange Support team. I was kind of disappointed since I wanted to be on Kevin’s team and work on NT4. Not to mention I knew nothing about Exchange 5.5 Server. Stream was a unique environment. It was known as a place where students with no real world experience came to make their bones so to speak. Typically employees worked for one year, maybe 1.5 years and then moved on to greener pastures and bigger paychecks. But since we all shared a common goal, there was a camaraderie that I had never experienced before. We all wanted to help each other get to the next level and the support system was incredible. If a colleague was stuck on call, 5 of us would be in his cube brainstorming solutions and white boarding them out, staying with him as long as the call lasted, which could be hours. There were characters there like my dear friend known as Edwah who placed Dove chocolates on the keyboards of the female employees each morning. Our goto person and Tech Lead was Brian who we affectionately called “The Brain”. Then there were the Friday emails which were always entertaining.

Because Stream was a company with a large turn around, and employees here were being actively sought after by Head Hunters, each Friday at least 3 people were leaving. And people started getting competitive about who would write the best goodbye email. And let’s just say they got pretty creative! They might say something not so nice about a manager, one guy even confessed his “admiration” for me, but most often they just thanked individual co-workers by name and wrote a blurb about that person. The work was non-stop but we still managed to have fun. When the Melissa virus came out, my co-workers jokingly put yellow police tape all over my cube. And Edwah took to referring to me as “Virus” after that. Around this time Kevin left and got a job paying twice as much as Stream but was the norm then.

When the time came for me to explore my options, an aggressive Head Hunter set up an interview for me. It would be working with an ex-Streamer who recently left there and had nearly the identical background that I had. They offered me the job after just a phone interview. It happened that quickly then, where the companies want to quickly snap up the talent before a competitor did. I went in to their office to negotiate a few things like salary and realized he was making $10k more than they were offering me. I turned them down and started to walk out 5 minutes after my arrival. They said it was not negotiable and I may have said something like “I am sorry to hear that” and left. I was really miffed by that, but will have a turnabout is fair play moment of sorts later.

Then came the bad news, a week later we all got word from our managers that Microsoft was taking technical support back in house and we would all be laid off. Dang, maybe I should have taken that job. They also said Microsoft would be coming onsite to interview employees who were interested in relocating to their Support sites in Redmond, WA, Las Colinas, TX or Charlotte, NC. Moving seemed like a big hassle and my husband and I were looking into buying a house in a small suburb nearby now that we had more money coming in. Relocation was not in our plans. Besides, we had to register in advance for the Microsoft interviews and I was one of the few who didn’t do so.

The Microsoft interviews were conducted on a Saturday, all morning and into the afternoon as 150 people registered. I was scheduled to work my normal shift early that morning. Saturday was a casual dress day. Which meant I rolled out bed early that morning, probably got 4 hours of sleep after a typical Friday night sendoff party for someone leaving the company, had my hair piled on top of my head in a tangled mess, and was wearing sweat pants. Slowly the co-workers who interviewed started coming into the phones area to tell us how things went, how great the benefits were and how excited they were by the whole process. “You have got to interview, Melissa” they urged. By this time if I stayed at Stream I would have been a Tech Lead so had garnered a decent amount of respect from co-workers. “They would definitely hire you” they kept telling me. Then someone said, “you will regret it if you don’t. Maybe not now but years later.” This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to have a chance to interview. After all most of the resumes never made it to the top of the heap or guaranteed you an interview. Maybe I should take it? I did not think they would hire me and if they did I could always decline if I did not want to move. But I had to know. I went to the person in charge and asked if there was any way I could interview even if I did not register, and she said they could squeeze me in as the very last interview of the day.

This was a blessing because I was not at all prepared and needed the extra time. My resume was not ready; I desperately needed to do something about this hair and ditch these sweat pants. Then a very efficient team of co-workers stepped in to help. A few of them took over my phone duties for the day. While others helped me with the resume doing the final tweaks while I flew home in record time (note I am 45 minutes away). I already alerted my mother begging her to iron my interview suit and find the detangler. I manage to look presentable after all of that, my resume was in order, my co-workers were cheering me on and it was time for the moment of truth! Did I really have what it takes to work for the world’s largest software company? I was about to find out

Read more in part 5, and hopefully the final installment!

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