Headhunted by Microsoft
BeepetyBeepety…BeepetyBeepety
Hello, Mike Young.
Hi Mike. This is Anna.
(Searching for customers with the name of "Anna" to bring up the proper record.) Hi Anna, what can I do for you?
You are a Software Engineer, right?
(Pausing my search in confusion.) Umm. Yes.
Well I am a recruiter with Microsoft and we have some job openings that we think you might be suited for. When would be a good time to discuss them with you?
(Looking around to see if my co-workers are playing a joke on me.) Do you realize that you are calling me at work? (Sudden feeling of derision and disgust) And I don’t ever think I would work at Microsoft in my entire life!
Oh… well I—
Click!
The other day at work, I received a recruiting call from Microsoft. I have no idea how they got my number of if they were just randomly calling numbers in the IBM exchange. It was so flagrant and baffling to me that a company would do that without even trying to be discreet about it. I never put anything past Microsoft though (one of the reasons the color for the recruiter’s dialog is 666).
Had I not been at work, I would have had a much longer conversation with the recruiter about how she was doing the work of the devil. As it was, I simply hung up on her for her audacity.
Once, my mother asked me what it would take for me to work for Microsoft. She said that one day I might be desperate for a job and they would be the only ones offering. I told her that arguments of fear would never sway me, but there was a price for which I would sell my soul. That price was 17 million dollars a year. The number 17 was chosen to ensure that post-taxes my salary would be 10 million or more.
At this stage in my life, my soul is worth about 10 million dollars a year. As time went by and I received raises and bonuses and the such (all part of my contract) I would expect the price to rise until the very act of employing me was sucking their profits away. Then I’d be rich and happy. 
April 13th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
$10 Mil per year. Is that all your soul’s worth. That’s a bargain. I will remember this and buy it one day. Shoot higher for your soul, hell Bill G got to be the richest human in the world. I’m just saying don’t sell yourself short or one day someone like me will buy it for a mere 10 Mil a year.