brian's blog

Earlier this week was my three month milestone at work. General thoughts about work + life in Seattle?

• I feel somewhat more comfortable in my job now and enjoy it quite a bit, but the feeling of being dramatically less talented than those around me is hard to shake. Apparently this is normal for new PMs.
• The most important part of being a PM is working effectively with many people. If you can nail this, you're practically set.
• Microsoft treats their employees very well (working environment, benefits, management support, culture, etc).
• Working full-time is often much more stressful than working as a co-op
• The product space I get to work in is challenging and very interesting. At the same time, it's disappointing to realize that the number of cool technology plays we don't make (or aren't yet making) due to limited cost, time, resources, and/or business reasons.
• I really enjoy being able to bike partway to work every day. Exercise helps my meager concentration level.
• Not owning a car has turned out to be far less of a pain than I thought. There are almost always easy alternatives when I think I need one.
• I don't do much outside of work. I need to change this, such as by taking classes, meeting people, pursuing outdoor activities, etc.
• I also need to get much better about keeping in touch with friends.

Overall, it's going well.