One of the stories that my first manager used to tell, that I always got a kick out of was the following. Context: Think Week was a week that Bill Gates used to take every year to learn about a huge variety of topics, and folks at MS would submit papers/bits. It was a big deal.
"I joined Microsoft on 3/19/99 and found out I was working on a new language. The first week was a blur just getting up to speed and I don't think I even installed the complier (not that it did much then - I think you could define an interface but not use it yet).
In my second week (3/27/99) I get an email from Drew saying that Bill [Gates] wants the C# Language spec and the latest build of the compiler by 4.30 (Note that it was 4.30 not 4/30). I'm still getting used to US dates so I see 4.30 and think it's 4:30pm that day.
It was around 10:30am and I was like holy sh*t got to get moving. Since I didn't want to be the PM that sent Bill and compiler that didn't run - I went and found a compiler build, downloaded and installed it and tried it to make sure it ran.
I then needed to find someone to burn a CD for me and since I was new it meant getting a lead from Eric and then ringing people in the VS build lab to see whether they could do it and, of course, it's now lunch time.
I finally find someone to burn the CD for me and now I need to get it to Bill's office. I find out his building and then get a shuttle there. Find the office and drop it off (to Eric Rudder) and head back to my office.
It's now 4:30pm and I have my head on the desk and Drew stops by and asks me what's up. I explained that I only just managed to get the CD to Bill and he looks at his watch and says that I had 3 weeks left to do it.
He had a good laugh and at the next team meeting I got a watch so it could tell me the day 🙂"
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