@hummingrain If it's any consolation, the first time I lived in Seattle (circa '99) and had a temp job as an Encarta proofreader, I DROVE TO MICROSOFT on autopilot one Saturday morning.
For years I had to fight the urge to answer phones with the name of the transcription company I used to work for, too...
@hummingrain My first impulse is to say it wasn't all it was cracked up to be... but honestly, Microsoft was surprisingly generous to its temp workers back then, and I had extremely low work ethics, so... it was pretty cushy, honestly. I have _stories_ about how badly I exploited that workplace. :D
(Among other things, I had 24h access, and would drive to Scarecrow Video back when they had super late-night hours, then to Redmond for all-night movie marathons on the projection screens. XD )
@hummingrain And I mean, it was my first-ever job that was remotely relevant to my useless liberal arts degrees. The best part of the job was eavesdropping on policy discussions—foreign governments threw some FASCINATING shitfits over Encarta's (generally well-researched and factual IMHO) versions of history, especially Korea and Japan.
The work we had to do to adapt when Nunavut became a full Canadian province was also pretty exciting by my warped and pedantic geo nerd standards. :D
@zebratron2084 oh no!
Also I'm jealous you got to work on Encarta. That thing was awesome, and while I realize it doesn't make a lot of sense in the age of widespread(ish) internet, I miss it