It’s that season again: The Microsoft Company Meeting

Raymond Chen

Today is the 2006 Microsoft Company Meeting, and with it the continuation of what I consider to be one of the most annoying Company Meeting traditions: The group that cheers wildly any time their project name is mentioned.

It’s never the same group year to year. Instead, a different group (or groups) independent decides to be the annoying one for any particular meeting. For illustrative purposes, let’s call the 2006 group “Project Nosebleed”. (All project names in this entry are fictitious and are used solely for illustrative purposes. Any similarity to actual projects is purely coincidental. But I mean, really, you asked for it when you named your project after a medical ailment.) The Project Nosebleed folks decide to cheer wildly any time anybody says the word “Nosebleed” at the Company Meeting. Let’s see what happens when one presenter mentions their project name:

Thank you, Nosebleed team. You shouted down the presenter telling the rest of the company what your project is, as well as drowning out the introduction of another team’s project. All the rest of the company will remember about your project is “Those annoying Nosebleeders kept screaming so I couldn’t hear what the presenter was saying.” Well, not all the rest of the company. The Bunion folks will remember a little more. “Those annoying Nosebleeders kept screaming so nobody could hear what our project was about!”

I remember one year, the team that cheered wildly at every mention of their project did it a bit too mindlessly. A pre-recorded interview was being screened, and the interviewee mentioned their project in a negative way, but they cheered anyway.

Way to go, Project Nosebleed.

Raymond Chen

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