I may have mentioned that I’m not a big social media poster. This includes LinkedIn. I posted exactly twice: once after my mom died in 2022 and once upon my departure from Microsoft.
Why not post more often? Well, a couple of reasons.
As much as I do not want to admit it, I am somewhat of a perfectionist. (In fact, I found an error in my final email as I was posting it here, and it will haunt me for at least a week.)
Perfectionism is time consuming. The first draft is pretty easy. But the proofreading and editing and rewriting and abridging… aaaaaaand now I need a nap.
Perfectionism is also riddled with fear: will anyone read it? What will they think of me? What if I have a grammatical error? The horror!
But I put on my big-girl pants, took a deep breath (well, several), and took the plunge. Here’s my second ever LinkedIn post:
Top 10 Things I Learned in 20 Years at Microsoft:
10. Impact can be positive or negative: "Higher impact = higher rewards!" or "She was impacted in the last round of layoffs."
9. Stranded prepositions are completely acceptable (but should they be?): "Where are we *at* on this?"
8. If you don't talk on mute at least once a day, do you even use Teams?
7. Adding enough gradients and icons makes even the most chaotic scenario look strategic.
6. Gremlins are real. And they live in my Outlook calendar.
5. Fluency in a language made entirely of acronyms-- and everyone in the meeting understands.
4. Adding a tiny icon next to a bullet point instantly makes it look 40% more official.
3. One can never have too many Microsoft hoodies.
2. A.I. does not stand for Absolutely Intuitive.
1. Simultaneously managing 4 Teams IMs and a GIF-littered Teams meeting chat while presenting a deck to VPs (on the correct monitor) is a multitasking marvel. But If I'm in the office and the conference room isn't on the invite, I'm paralyzed.
Thanks for all the lessons, Microsoft! I am forever grateful for the people and experiences. Looking forward to switching gears completely and trading Corporate America for the mental health field… after a little R&R, some travel (oblications and vacations), and lots of Tahoe time this summer!
Cheers,
Annie
