My One Year At Microsoft!

I completed one year in Microsoft  on 24th June 2014. Oh what an year it had been! From the learnings about our platform and app development to super awesome team offsite, memories from this year have secured deep roots in my heart.

I am going to show you how my one year at Microsoft through some old pictures. Most of these are posted on my Facebook, Instagram (user id -sakhare04) and Twitter (handle - @SameekshaKhare) pages so you might have seen them before, but I am going to share with you the stories behind these pictures, I hope you will enjoy reading it s much as I enjoyed writing it.

Here comes the first photo..

This is the photos of the firsts. My first business card, my first office desk, first office kit, first company meeting, first trip abroad. In the first few months of my job everything was so new and dear to me. I was taking it all slow and trying to grasp and feel every moment of the day as it passed. I still remember how excited I was when I received the carton full of business card! For my first company meeting, we all stayed over in a hotel in Powai, Mumbai, it was a great time for me to connect with my larger team and get to know everybody. The food was delicious and entertainment mind-blowing!

Next picture please...

Most of these photos are from my awesome trip to Atlanta which happens to be my first abroad trip. I think that Atlanta is a very nice city and the people are also very nice and helpful. I made so many new friends and they are all amazing. Many of them are Technical Evangelists like myself. The trip also saw me attending trainings and work with diverse groups. It was a great experience. I have realized that people are not much different from each other around the world.

And the third picture...

A lot of very important people are present in this picture. My friend, my seniors, my whole team, my segment people, office people! All of these people are unique and so helpful. Can you see the grape -crushing picture second column from bottom right? that is a picture from my team-offsite. We went to the Grover's vineyard near Bengaluru. And just next to it on left is the dinner party with whole of my team. Interesting times. Just next to it, on left, the tiny picture with so many people in it, that's the latest one and all these people are from my segment which is Developer Experience previously aka DPE.  

Next up...

Oh this is work-fun-work-fun picture. This pat one year I have had a lot of fun and party. I didn't party much when I was in college, so all this was refreshing for me! On the top left you can see my immediate team members (@s_gandhali, @devgeekraj). This picture is taken in Pune, just after the Pune Dev Camp, we all went to some place in ABC farms and had dinner. Just next to it on right is me with my senior college hires in Pizza hut. It was a post office thing and we were all very hungry! Just diagonally below it is a picture where my manager Aditee Rele (@aditeerele) is feeding me cake. Evidently its a picture from my birthday this year (Its on 4th February, presents are highly appreciated! :)). Its a nice picture I think with contrast of my lemon yellow and her deep red, I like this picture for more than one reason..

And lastly..

You can see a lot of laptop and All-in-one screens here, what happened was after 6 months, a lot of work started happening. When I going through the photos in my cell phone I realized that I do not have any nice clicks at all, all pics are of my computer instead. But I love my computer so that's ok! Look at the picture on top right. Its a back-drop from park Engineering college. They had my name written on it, It was such a great feeling! Just next to it on left is me with my beautiful Lenovo All in one. That night was pretty interesting, I was due some work and I happily stayed in office till late, ordered pizza and disturbed a team-mate Deepthi (@Deanath) for I needed her help in finishing my work. Such a helpful chilled out person she is! Even though it was late and a sunday she was up and helping me out with every single doubt that I had. Can you see the bottom left pic with so man children in it? That was taken at "Bring your child to work day". I was teaching these young adult about app development. Such good grasping power these kids have. I am wondering what I was when I was 13-14 years of age - certainly not making app! The dark picture at the center? That was taken when I had just started blogging. I usually prefer a good ambience when I write.. and the Backlit keyboard of my ASUS ultrabook really helps me out in creating it.

This is how one year of my life has been! This Wednesday I have a review with my manager on how I have performed in this year, its going to be my first review ever, I don't know what to expect or what's the right thing to say. My strategy is to go with the flow! :)