I have a certain amount of business experience and both business and legal training. It is certainly easy to believe that what you said is true. If you are in a better place now, consider yourself lucky, and be happy.
“The strange thing was, the really smart people were the most down to earth and easy to get along with.”
Universal truth (or at least pretty common). Smart people are valuable and they know it. Especially in a field where technical expertise is required. Having no need to prove themselves, they are secure, and don’t need to push others down to raise themselves. They benefit from happy co-workers. Exception: some smart people are ambitions and unscrupulous, they compete without rules. Both types are common in all companies.
“The amount of internal politics that went on was incredible.”
It’s quite credible. It is quite common.
“The was a definite hierarchy within the company with the Windows group at the top and MSN at the bottom. My biggest complaint though was there seemed to be no importance attached to the creative people”
A common belief with two sides. Let it suffice to say you need to find a balance. Personally, I loath marketing people (unreasonable personal prejudice based on unfortunate personal experiences). But a good idea gets totally screwed if you can’t do something with it. My own experience tells me that while you can’t exist without creative people, at some point you have to let managers manage and creative people create. It’s why so many entrepreneurs can build, but can not manage. Doesn’t mean that some managers aren’t a hell of a lot better than others. Best suggestion for a pure creative: make sure you can work for yourself.
You are so totally not alone. And microsoft is just one of many, or most.
I thought your post was pretty rational for a self described “rant”. In my case, verbosity over, but will probably recur soon.
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