Music…

The Show Must Go On

Innuendo

Queen

and Words

Empty spaces, what are we living for?

Abandoned places, I guess we know the score, on and on
Does anybody know what we are looking for?

Another hero, another mindless crime
Behind the curtain, in the pantomime
Hold the line
Does anybody want to take it anymore?

The show must go on
The show must go on, yeah
Inside, my heart is breaking
My makeup may be flaking
But my smile still stays on

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

There’s a tradition at Microsoft.  Upon your work anniversary you bring a pound of m&m’s to work for each year of service.  Yes, you read that right.  That’s one pound for first anniversary, two pounds for your second anniversary, etc.  Initially, I didn’t participate in this tradition for my first few years at the company.  In fact, I subsequently started to do this on my 18-year anniversary.  That year, another teammate celebrated his own 18-year anniversary at that time and there were 36 pounds of candy in that hallway.  It was epic.

I first remember shopping for those 18 pounds of m&m’s with my (now) wife.  When she then asked how I was planning to dispense them, I simply responded with “Oh, I was just going to put them in a bowl.”  She was horrified and insisted that I come up with something different.  I still had a few weeks to plan.  Finally, this is when the idea of the water jug started; that was my personal twist on the tradition.

Meanwhile, through the years there were a number of milestones.  On my 23rd anniversary, I marveled at the fact that I had lost 23 pounds since the year before.  The weight certainly felt heavy when I was carrying it, yet I was carrying on my person a year before.

Moreover, there were a couple instances where I ordered some custom m&m’s and threw them in with the rest of the bunch.  Yes, you can do that and print practically anything on them.  They start at $50 for two pounds.  I joked that custom m&m’s are more expensive than lobster.

For a number of years, I even weighted the jug at the end of each day out of morbid curiosity.  I tabulated the results and sent out the graph.  In short, the trend showed that consumption started strong and then slowed.  Finally, as we approached the end of the jug (and it was mostly the plain m&m’s left), the rate jumped again.  I was never sure if it was a function of the plain m&m’s or people just wanted to complete it.

For decades, I simply put one figurative foot in front of the other and continued to work, day after day; the years accumulated.  I continued this tradition through my 28-year anniversary.  Enclosed is a picture of the jug with 28 pounds of m&m’s; that’s a five-gallon jug.  That was in July 2019.

As my 29-year anniversary approached, we were all working remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic.  I was saddened by the inability to partake on this tradition.  Honestly, it felt a bit self-indulgent that with so much going wrong with the world and the sheer quantity of people dying, that I should be saddened about this, but I was.

It was two days before my 29-year anniversary, and I was called into a meeting.  I was informed that my position was eliminated and with it, my employment.  They gave me all kinds of details that I truly could not wrap around my mind.  Everything passed the first few words was a blur.  Maybe I thought that I was immune to this; I wasn’t.  Thank goodness that they mailed me the details.

I slowly informed colleagues.  It was a function of breaking the news to them and the process of handing off any of the areas that I owned.  The biggest question I got was “why?”, to which I never really got an answer, so I wasn’t able to give one.  I can’t adequately articulate how profoundly sad those conversations were.

In two weeks, it’d be all over.  I started to compose my goodbye message; I struggled for words.  How do you summarize 29 years of service in one e-mail?  After a number of tries, this was my message (with minor edits):

It was a couple of weeks ago when I was asked to commit to saying in DEP for another year, so that two of us may celebrate our milestone anniversaries together at that All Hands; I agreed.  Little did I know then that I’d be unable to fulfill that promise.

It is with a heavy heart that I’m announcing my departure from Microsoft; I wish I could stay, but these are circumstances beyond my control.  I hope and am optimistic that I’ll land back here again, but no one knows where life will take you.  If I do, I’ll reach out to you from within.  My last day is effectively July 24th.

The Show Must Go On.  You’ll just have to do it without me.  ☹

I’ve often thought about how I’d be composing this mail and what I’d say, though honestly I never thought it would be under these circumstances.

I fondly remember:

• Animated design discussions wildly scribbling on the white board.
• Moments of great suggestions or inspiration, where you rush back to your computer to try it.
• Screams in anguish moments after a blackout, an hour into a debugging session.
• Leads who had full confidence in me, even when I didn’t.
• Leads who are, to this day, the voice of conscience and humanity in my head.
• Towers of soda cans on desks, some larger than small children.
• Deeply personal and insightful conversations about inclusivity and empathy.
• Group walks in the afternoons, enjoying the warmth of the sun.
• Monthly Beer Nights.
• Driving to the wrong building for days after an office move.
• Absurdly large water jug filled with m&m’s.
• Reading the MicroNews on Friday mornings.
• Service Award Crystals and Ship-It Awards.
• Being splashed in the face with Dom Perignon during the Windows 95 ship party.
• Hawaiian Shirt Fridays.
• Yellow sticky notes with simply the message ‘Banana’.
• Lunches on Lake Bill and Blibbet burgers.
• Participating in the MS 5k.
• Patent cubes.
• Snide comments about my Five Fingers (toed shoes).
• Pianos, drum sets, and coin-op arcade games in offices.
• Gaming sessions with the same group of friends that ran for decades.
• Hive of Lego Minifigures, population 700+.
• Debug sessions that defy the laws of logic…  Looking at a screen of assembly code for 15 seconds and asking, “Are you writing to a read-only resource?” before speeding off.  (True story)
• Playing music in the office at night, so loudly to be measured in the Richter Scale.
• Mentors that stayed with me, patiently walking me through a problem.
• …and fondly, my opportunity to pay this forward.
• Friendships built on one cup of coffee, one lunch, one popcorn batch, or one conversation at a time.
• Many laughs and even the occasional tear.
• Sharing a drink of Bushmills.
• Reading code with labels like ‘DogLastFish:’.
• Annoy-a-trons, Eviltrons, and countless other pranks and gags.
• Breakfast Clubs.
• And yes, even the silly pictures on your birthday with a funny hat.

Thank you for sharing these moments with me.

For those of you who consider me a mentor, please know that I was merely your set of ‘training wheels’.  You were always doing the pedaling; you always did (and always will) have my full confidence.  You got this!

It’s been both a privilege and an honor to have worked with each you.  I only hope that I’ve inspired you the way you have each inspired me.

You are my Microsoft Family.

I will miss you more than I can adequately express; words won’t do it justice.

-Fwong.