Category: Experiences

  • 1 Year Later: What do I even do as a Communications Manager?

    1 Year Later: What do I even do as a Communications Manager?

    I cannot believe that I have already been in my “new” role for an entire year! Holy 🐮 🐄 🤠 time flies! To mark this special milestone, I am going to share a little bit about what my role as a Communications Manager at Microsoft is like… based on what…

  • 32 Learnings from 32 Years at Microsoft with Adrienne Hall

    32 Learnings from 32 Years at Microsoft with Adrienne Hall

    What’s it like to meet Bill Gates on a plane to Hawaii or ride the limo with Steve Balmer in Vegas? Adrienne Hall, General Manager of Microsoft Cloud Communications, would know because she was Employee #4029 who joined Microsoft back in 1990! Before joining Microsoft, Adrienne was an elementary school teacher…

  • 7 Month Life Update: I celebrated my birthday and enjoyed the Seattle summer!

    7 Month Life Update: I celebrated my birthday and enjoyed the Seattle summer!

    Trying to hold onto my youth 🎂 August is my favourite month because it is my birth month 😎 but I am another year closer to 30 which is slightly terrifying 😳 This was also the first birthday that I spent outside of Canada 🇨🇦 and away from my family……

  • Top 50 Takeaways from IABC World Conference 2022

    Top 50 Takeaways from IABC World Conference 2022

    Back in June 2022, I attended the IABC World Conference in New York 🗽 (IABC stands for International Association of Business Communicators). I was the only attendee from Microsoft and enjoyed meeting people outside of the tech bubble and learning more about storytelling, social media, and the multi-faceted communications discipline. For those…

  • My Traumatizing Experience Buying Tickets via StubHub and UPS

    My Traumatizing Experience Buying Tickets via StubHub and UPS

    T-2 months 🤔 Earlier this year, I decided that I was going to attend the Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC 2022) in Las Vegas. Since I saw that the ticket prices were really high on the official website (mid $400s), I decided to check resale sites out of curiosity. I stumbled…

  • 6 Month Life Update: I went on summer vacation and felt guilty for unplugging

    6 Month Life Update: I went on summer vacation and felt guilty for unplugging

    After a crazy month of chaos, conferences, and catching COVID-19, I went on a 2 week vacation and visited my family and friends back home in the first 2 weeks of July 🇨🇦 Emceeing at a wedding 🎤 I emceed at my friend’s wedding for the first time and thoroughly…

  • Making the Move: Stay-At-Home-Mom to Exec Assistant to Business Program Manager

    Making the Move: Stay-At-Home-Mom to Exec Assistant to Business Program Manager

    The Making the Move series strives to inspire those who come from unique backgrounds and want to break into the world of tech. Here’s a secret… You don’t need to be a computer science major! Today, I am sharing the career journey of Esther Chen, Business Program Manager at Microsoft where she…

  • 5 Month Life Update: I went to 2 conferences &  caught COVID-19

    5 Month Life Update: I went to 2 conferences & caught COVID-19

    The month of June was very eventful and exciting! The first week, we had our planning meeting and it was great to see the team come together and enjoy the 2 days in-person. The second week, we had an internal conference with all of the Communications Managers across Microsoft. This…

  • First Time Home Buyer’s Guide: Remember These 10 Steps!

    First Time Home Buyer’s Guide: Remember These 10 Steps!

    Back in November 2021, I became a first time home owner and co-purchased a bigger home with my Mom and the process of buying my first home was super stressful and complicated. Since it had been so long since my parents had bought a home (we lived in ours for…

  • Microsoft invested in me before I even joined the company. This is my crazy story about fate and opportunity.

    Microsoft invested in me before I even joined the company. This is my crazy story about fate and opportunity.

    Over the past couple of years, I have been sharing a lot about my time and experiences working at one of the biggest companies in the world. However, I realized that I haven’t shared how I actually got to Microsoft in the first place! Reflecting back on how it all…