Everyone I know who moves to Seattle ends up moving back within a year. They can't stand the rain and the wieners at Microsoft.

I can't even speculate why anyone would want to work for MS. They are not a huge company because of great products or marketing. It is simply because they got a foothold on the PC market early on, and every PC comes with Windows. Most users rarely upgrade or change their operating systems, so once it's there, its there...

I think there are cool things to do in Seattle, however. I am also fond of Costco and their Kirkland brand. Anyone tried the Kirkland brand Vodka? It's some French Vodka, 5 times distilled, and it's on par with Grey Goose, but only $30 for a huge bottle...

Oh, and grunge. Alice in Chains is like my fave band... I like that song about the man in the boat.

horsewhip wrote:I just moved here. So far I like it pretty good. Good record stores (Sonic Boom and Singles Going Steady). Some good and not so good clubs, but you can see a half-decent band almost every night of the week. Lots of Greek food. Rent's not too bad if your standards aren't too high. Oh, and there's a Goodwill AND Value Village within walking distance from my apartment.

Unfortunately, there's a lack of good video stores. Rain City is okay. Scarecrow is good, but too far from where I live. Looks like I'll be signing up for Netflix. The band I'm in can't get arrested in Seattle, but I think that's just as much our fault as the city's.

Anyone else live here? Anyone moved away 'cos they fuckin' hated it?

Everyone I have known who has moved to Seattle moved back before a year. It's a nice city, with things to do, but it is always raining.

Someone who moved there told me about "the Seattle freeze" which is that it's hard to meet women there because they don't like newbies in Seattle. They only like locals. I doubt this theory. The person who told me this is morbidly obese, and can't get a woman unless he is her manager and offers to advance her career in exchange for tang... He also goes for anorexic chicks, which is tough thing to pull off when you're pushin' 300 lbs.

yut wrote:
Everyone I have known who has moved to Seattle moved back before a year. It's a nice city, with things to do, but it is always raining.

Despite the reputation, I don't find that it rains that much in Seattle. Bellingham, only 90 miles north, gets more rain and cold crappy weather.

tallchris wrote:

yut wrote:
Everyone I have known who has moved to Seattle moved back before a year. It's a nice city, with things to do, but it is always raining.

Despite the reputation, I don't find that it rains that much in Seattle. Bellingham, only 90 miles north, gets more rain and cold crappy weather.

I felt that way until I moved to Iowa ten years ago. Suddenly it became clear just how frequently it rained in Seattle.

Chicago has about as much precipitation as Seattle, but it is in the form of snow. Snow is great for the first 2 weeks, and then you have to watch out where the huskies go... Also those banks of brown plowed salty crap snow are just disgusting.

When I lived in SF, a lot of people moved to Seattle post dot-com meltdown. I would hear them say "Oh, it rains more in SF than Seattle" (which is simply not true, this can be determined by looking at the facts on weather.com, unless one is determined to dupe one's self). Then they moved back a year later. Part of it was the weather, but appearantly the corporate culture in terms of software companies is nothing like the Silly Con Valley. Microsoft, in particular, seems to be a bad employer. I know a lot of ex-Microsoft employees who now hate the company (although, I am informed it is no longer in vogue to hate Microsoft -- I don't know why... Their products are so crappy these days)

Nonetheless, Seattle is a good town, but I would never live there.

Anyone can say what they want about MS products, but I don't know anybody who worked there and regretted it, really. It may not have been his/her dream to stay, and sure it ain't a fun circus every day, and many people have come and gone, but it's not because they disliked working there. I've worked all around the greater area, including MS, and the perks at MS -- free bus pass, free drinks, flexibility in work hours, decent public transit between Redmond and Seattle, really lax dress code, far less bullshit office politics usually, etc. -- are really hard to call shitty or bad.

Just like any big company though, some people realize after a decade or so that they've pissed away having a fun life by being too loyal for a demanding company. At the point, that's not necessarily the company's fault.

yut wrote:I am informed it is no longer in vogue to hate Microsoft -- I don't know why...

yeah, i wonder

i'm in seattle right now! for the next two hours.

back sunday night to tuesday, to see more of it.

i've had 3 cups of coffee already, and i've only been up for a few hours... looks like a lot of good bands come through this town.

yut wrote:I can't even speculate why anyone would want to work for MS. They are not a huge company because of great products or marketing. It is simply because they got a foothold on the PC market early on, and every PC comes with Windows. Most users rarely upgrade or change their operating systems, so once it's there, its there...

Your knowledge of the history of the personal computer industry is a little lacking - you gotta stop treating slashdot like a reference work. Microsoft won out over companies offering competing products in the OS space (CP/M, TopDeck and some other proto-windowing software), the application space (Lotus, WordPerfect, etc.) and the development space (Borland, Delphi, etc.) because of a) extremely canny business sense and b) they offered the right products at the right time at the right price. If you fail to see these products as great, you are in the minority. Whatever you think of its architecture, implementation or feature set, Windows (and DOS before it) along with Intel's success consolidated an extraordinarily fractured hardware/software market with a fairly slow rate of growth and innovation (because everyone was busy trying to get their product to run on 8 different platforms instead of adding new features) into a hugely successful industry from which thousands of people now derive their income and hundreds of millions are able to enjoy technology undreamed-of 20 years ago. It is a massive positive feedback cycle and really quite amazing considering that it's happened in my lifetime.

yut wrote:Part of it was the weather, but appearantly the corporate culture in terms of software companies is nothing like the Silly Con Valley. Microsoft, in particular, seems to be a bad employer.

The Silicon Valley software industry, probably because of its concentration in the area, always seemed to be much more focused on what was happening in the next 15 minutes and in how ridiculous the stock option grants could get instead of focusing on, oh I don't know, building a successful business for the long-term. Maybe all the rain encourages people to hunker down, I don't know. I've worked at Microsoft for nearly eight years now and the only thing I don't like is that it's very far from my house in Ballard. They're a great employer if you are a great employee. If you don't meet this requirement, it's probably not a good fit. They're certainly more conservative than a lot of the Silicon Valley software companies in terms of crazy perks, but perks don't make the job - a fun working environment, long-term career growth and a constantly evolving, challenging set of problems to solve do. (At least for me.) Like any demanding job, people burn out and leave to spend more time with their families or to do non-profit work or a thousand other things. Others leave to try to make more money elsewhere. Everybody is motivated by a different set of incentives.

Dan

Chicago has the READER
NY has the VILLAGE VOICE
What kind of weekly free paper does Seattle have?
I'll be there over Xmas and would like to know what going on around town,
especially in the underground music/arts scene.