No kidding -- this was the scene at a Microsoft spec review meeting today: the meeting was to have started at 1:00 with program managers, developers and testers in attendance. Purpose of the meeting: in-depth spec review for one teeeeeny-tiny feature for the new education platform we're working on. At 1:00 the "feature owner" PM was trying to get her spec to print to the local printer. No go. Paper jam. She tries to fix it, but can't. She sends it to another printer. No go. Paper jam. Since all MS conference rooms are both hard-wired and wireless (with absolutely high-tech, really cool "techy-tables"), she decides to just plug her laptop (all MS employees have them... no pe-ontractors have them) into the conference room table and run her presentation from there. No go. Something's wrong with her laptop's connection to the network. At this point, it's 1:15. She borrows another attendee's laptop and tries to hook-up. No go. I hear "let's re-format the drive," and I'm thinking, 'Holy crap, guys! This is Microsoft!!' At 1:20 she decides to just Xerox her notes and pass them around.
For the second time this week, we had a very low-tech meeting because of hardware/software failure. At Microsoft! I'm sorry, but I'm still giggling! The IT at the puny LOW-TECH nonprofit I used to work at was more impressive!
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