OK, OK, calm down, I’ll tell you more about the meeting rooms. There are maps on every wall, which is perfectly normal, right, for businesses to have a map on the wall showing their territories or distribution routes? Well, on Microsoft’s walls are maps of the world, and in case you’re still unclear about their dominion, under these maps are the words: THE WORLD. The day I realized their goal was WORLD DOMINATION, I was out at Redmond having lunch with Elgie.
“What’s Microsoft’s mission, anyway?” I asked, wolfing down a piece of Costco birthday cake. It was Costco Day on campus, and they were signing people up for discounted membership, using free sheet cake as enticement. No wonder I get confused and sometimes mistake the place for a marvelous Utopia.
“For a long time,” Elgie answered, not eating cake because the man has discipline, “our mission was to have a desktop computer in every house in the world. But we essentially accomplished that years ago.”
“So what’s your mission now?” I asked.
“It’s…” He looked at me warily. “Well,” he said, looking around. “That’s not something we talk about.”
See, a conversation with anyone at Microsoft ends in either one of two ways. This is the first way — paranoia and suspicion. They’re even terrified of their own wives! Because, as they like to say, it’s a company built on information, and that can just walk out the door.
Here’s the second way a conversation with an MS employee ends. (MS — oh, God, they’ve got me doing it now!) Let’s say I’m at the playground with my daughter. I’m bleary-eyed, pushing her on the swings, and one swing over there’s an outdoorsy father — because fathers only come in one style here, and that’s outdoorsy. He has seen a diaper bag I’m carrying which isn’t a diaper bag at all, but one of the endless “ship gifts” with the Microsoft logo Elgie brings home.
OUTDOORSY DAD: You work at Microsoft?
ME: Oh, no, my husband does. (Heading off his next question at the pass) He’s in robotics.
OUTDOORSY DAD: I’m at Microsoft, too.
ME: (Feigning interest, because really, I could give a shit, but wow, is this guy chatty) Oh? What do you do?
OUTDOORSY DAD: I work for Messenger.
ME: What’s that?
OUTDOORSY DAD: You know Windows Live?
ME: Ummm…
OUTDOORSY DAD: You know the MSN home page?
ME: Kind of…
OUTDOORSY DAD: (Losing patience) When you turn on your computer, what comes up?
ME: The New York Times.
OUTDOORSY DAD: Well, there’s a Windows home page that usually comes up.
ME: You mean the thing that’s preloaded when you buy a PC? I’m sorry, I have a Mac.
OUTDOORSY DAD: (Getting defensive because everyone there is lusting for an iPhone, but there’s a rumor that if Ballmer sees you with one, you’ll get shitcanned. Even though this hasn’t been proven, it hasn’t been disproven either.) I’m talking about Windows Live. It’s the most-visited home page in the world.
ME: I believe you.
OUTDOORSY DAD: What’s your search engine?
ME: Google.
OUTDOORSY DAD: Bing’s better.
ME: No one said it wasn’t.
OUTDOORSY DAD: If you ever, once, went to Hotmail, Windows Live, Bing, or MSN, you’d see a tab at the top of the page that says “Messenger.” That’s my team.
ME: Cool! What do you do for Messenger?
OUTDOORSY DAD: My team is working on an end-user, C Sharp interface for HTML5…
And then they kind of trail off, because at some point in every conversation, there’s nobody in the world smart enough to dumb it down.
It turns out, the whole time in L.A., Elgie was just a guy in socks searching for a carpeted, fluorescent-lit hallway in which to roam at all hours of the night. At Microsoft, he found his ideal habitat. It’s like he was back at MIT pulling all-nighters, throwing pencils into ceiling tiles, and playing vintage Space Invaders with foreign-accented code monkeys. When Microsoft built their newest campus, they made it the home of Elgie’s team. In the atrium of his new building, there’s a sandwich shop with the sign BOAR’S HEAD FINEST DELI MEATS SERVED HERE. The moment I saw that, I knew I’d never see him again.
So here we are in Seattle.
First off, whoever laid out this city never met a four-way intersection they didn’t turn into a five-way intersection. They never met a two-way street they didn’t suddenly and for no reason turn into a one-way street. They never met a beautiful view they didn’t block with a twenty-story old folks home with zero architectural integrity. Wait, I think that’s the first time the words “architectural” and “integrity” have ever been used together in a discussion of Seattle.
The drivers here are horrible. And by horrible, I mean they don’t realize I have someplace to be. They’re the slowest drivers you ever saw. If someone is at a five-way stoplight, and growing old while they’re waiting for the lights to cycle through, and finally, finally it’s time to go, you know what they do? They start, then put on their brakes in the middle of the intersection. You’re hoping they lost a half a sandwich under their seat and are digging for it, but no. They’re just slowing down because, hey, it is an intersection.
Sometimes these cars have Idaho plates. And I think, What the hell is a car from Idaho doing here? Then I remember, That’s right, we neighbor Idaho. I’ve moved to a state that neighbors Idaho. And any life that might still be left in me kind of goes poof.
My daughter did an art project called a “step book,” which started with the universe, then opened up to the solar system, then the Earth, then the United States, then Washington State, then Seattle — and I honestly thought, What does Washington State have to do with her? And I remember, that’s right, we live here. Poof.
Seattle. I’ve never seen a city so overrun with runaways, drug addicts, and bums. Pike Place Market: they’re everywhere. Pioneer Square: teeming with them. The flagship Nordstrom: have to step over them on your way in. The first Starbucks: one of them hogging the milk counter because he’s sprinkling free cinnamon on his head. Oh, and they all have pit bulls, many of them wearing handwritten signs with witticisms such as I BET YOU A DOLLAR YOU’LL READ THIS SIGN. Why does every beggar have a pit bull? Really, you don’t know? It’s because they’re badasses, and don’t you forget it.
I was downtown early one morning and I noticed the streets were full of people pulling wheelie suitcases. And I thought, Wow, here’s a city full of go-getters. Then I realized, no, these are all homeless bums who have spent the night in doorways and are packing up before they get kicked out. Seattle is the only city where you step in shit and you pray, Please God, let this be dog shit.
Anytime you express consternation as to how the U.S. city with more millionaires per capita than any other would allow itself to be overtaken by bums, the same reply always comes back. “Seattle is a compassionate city.”
A guy named the Tuba Man, a beloved institution who’d play his tuba at Mariners games, was brutally murdered by a street gang near the Gates Foundation. The response? Not to crack down on gangs or anything. That wouldn’t be compassionate. Instead, the people in the neighborhood redoubled their efforts to “get to the root of gang violence.” They arranged a “Race for the Root,” to raise money for this dunderheaded effort. Of course, the “Race for the Root” was a triathlon, because God forbid you should ask one of these athletic do-gooders to partake in only one sport per Sunday.