Microserfs ordered back to the office, given 10 days to appeal

https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/09/microsoft_return_to_work/

by rntn • 11 months ago

99 21 11 months ago

blakesterz• 11 months ago

The headline writer is a Coupland fan?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microserfs

I haven't read that since it came out, I wonder if it still holds up. I read Generation X recently and I didn't like it as much as my first read when that came out.

Computer0• 11 months ago

Sounds like an interesting book - from someone way too young to have been there.

GuinansEyebrows• 11 months ago

i read a lot of Coupland in high school and just before i entered the IT space. i credit him, along with Office Space and Dilbert (BEFORE Scott Adams went full weirdo), for helping me set and maintain realistic expectations :)

Mountain_Skies• 11 months ago

Might be ok for nostalgia but the software development world and the Bay Area/Seattle in general have changed so much that Microserfs would be alien to anyone living there today. His spiritual sequel, jPod, is quite a bit more fantastical. The CBC made it into a one season tv show that ends on a cliffhanger. It's about time for Coupland to write a third novel on the industry but I'm not sure he's really interested anymore.

jmcphers• 11 months ago

I don't have a source for this, but I believe the term Microserfs was not minted by Coupland and predates his work.

(I worked at Microsoft from 2004 - 2013)

JohnFen2• 11 months ago

My colleagues and I were using the term years before that book. I always assumed he used the title because it was already recognizable slang.

It was just one example of a long tradition of collective nicknames for employees of computer and software companies. For instance, Digital Equipment Corporation employees were "digits", Wang employees were "wankers", and so on.

bityard2• 11 months ago

El Reg has always had nicknames for companies and employees. "Microserfs" goes back at least a decade or two.

Google == Chocolate Factory, Intel == Chipzilla, Cisco == Borg Collective (pretty sure Broadcom deserves that title these days)

jp57• 11 months ago

The Register's writing style really makes it hard to take them seriously. Maybe that's what they want?

bdcravens• 11 months ago

It has always had a snarky tone. I think for the target audience, they have more credibility, since it's obvious they are taking the side of the users/practitioners. It's why they "bite the hand that feeds I.T.".

Terr_• 11 months ago

The phrasing of the motto also harkens back to the days when it was (more) common for anything remotely computer-related to be lumped into "IT".

klodolph• 11 months ago

It’s one of the few “old internet” (1990s) sites around. It’s somehow managed to hold on to the culture it had from back then. IMO, snark is more and more relevant now that ChatGPT is polishing everybody’s writing into a milquetoast mush.

bityard2• 11 months ago

Perhaps their target audience is readers who don't take themselves too seriously. ;)

antisthenes• 11 months ago

If you want to level up as a person, you should pay more attention to the substance than style.

Otherwise it's hard to take you seriously.

debo_• 11 months ago

It's hard to take anyone seriously when they unironically use the term 'level up'.

unglaublich• 11 months ago

You're totally right, I should rewrite the story to make it more polished and pleasant to read.

adenner• 11 months ago

Here is a lightly less snarky rewrite: https://copilot.microsoft.com/shares/M6Zv39MQSBqXSp3oLYvmb

JohnFen2• 11 months ago

El Reg does tech journalism that is better than most, but trusts you to both have a sense of humor and to be able to tell the difference between opinion and fact.

I would be very sad if their tone ever changed. Fortunately, that won't happen.

ghaff• 11 months ago

And mostly Brit-style humor, snark, and vocabulary that a number of the old Brit tech pubs had. But probably not to everyone's taste.

cjbgkagh• 11 months ago

“The proper relationship between a journalist and a politician should be akin to that between a dog and a lamp-post.”

In this case replace politician with the company they’re reporting on.

ChrisArchitect• 11 months ago

[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45184432

dang• 11 months ago

Comments moved thither. Thanks!

Microserfs ordered back to the office, given 10 days to appeal

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