Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?
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I am chasing a rumor I heard a half-dozen years ago: once upon a time, a Microsoft advertisement trying to recruit programmers mostly just showed a door. That is, programmers would get an office (instead of working in an open-office area), and this was a major recruiting point.
Unfortunately, I have only heard of this image in rumors. It would probably date to the mid-to-late 1980s; Microsoft moved into the Redmond campus in 1986, and all of the early Microsoft buildings on that campus have individual offices for the programmers. It's more likely to be a magazine ad than a poster.
So: did this ever happen, and can you find the image, or point me towards it? The place I'm working is moving towards open offices, and one of my coworkers wants to print this image/ad/whatever and put it up in the office as a silent protest/whine/whatever.
(I tried asking on Reddit, and then I realized: what if I already knew where some
programmers hang out?)
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Did you ask Dave?
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If you can’t find one, it would be effective enough to fake a Microsoft recruitment ad that fits the requirements … Unless anyone of the people who see it also read this thread, all it needs to be is believably from Microsoft in the [insert decade here]s.
Wait, I’ll mock one up you can use …
time passes
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
Did you ask Dave?
Dave's not here, man.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
Did you ask Dave?
Dave's not here, man.
No man, it's me, open up I think somebody saw me.
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@Gurth said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
If you can’t find one, it would be effective enough to fake a Microsoft recruitment ad that fits the requirements
Oh, man. That reminds me of the April 1st I posted this at our printer:
I came back from lunch to see 6 people shouting at the printer. I doubled over laughing and that pretty much gave the game away immediately.
The real key to pulling it off was the branding, IMHO.
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@error The URL is a nice touch. Not paper's fault it's not clickable.
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@Gribnit said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@error The URL is a nice touch. Not paper's fault it's not clickable.
But it's printed on HP SmartPaper
: !
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@error said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@Gribnit said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@error The URL is a nice touch. Not paper's fault it's not clickable.
But it's printed on HP SmartPaper
: !To use HP SmartPaper, simply insert a SmartPrint into your HP printer or apply it to the surface of any other HP SmartPaper-compatible device.
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@error said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
The real key to pulling it off was the branding, IMHO.
I’d say you’re probably right, yes. If you can get things like typography, colours and layout right too, that will help a lot. Oh, and make sure there are no typos :) But having the right “official” logo on it is what will convince the average onlooker.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
Did you ask Dave?
Dave's not here, man.
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@Gurth said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
If you can’t find one, it would be effective enough to fake a Microsoft recruitment ad that fits the requirements … Unless anyone of the people who see it also read this thread, all it needs to be is believably from Microsoft in the [insert decade here]s.
Wait, I’ll mock one up you can use …
time passes
That is cute, but I mentioned it to someone else, and now someone in Microsoft wants to use this thing. So the genuine article would be much better.
I'll try asking my dad; he did computing in yesteryear...
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@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@Gurth said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
If you can’t find one, it would be effective enough to fake a Microsoft recruitment ad that fits the requirements … Unless anyone of the people who see it also read this thread, all it needs to be is believably from Microsoft in the [insert decade here]s.
Wait, I’ll mock one up you can use …
time passes
That is cute, but I mentioned it to someone else, and now someone in Microsoft wants to use this thing. So the genuine article would be much better.
I'll try asking my dad; he did computing in yesteryear...
They don't have archives?
No, Marketing does not have archives.
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@Gribnit said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@Gurth said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
If you can’t find one, it would be effective enough to fake a Microsoft recruitment ad that fits the requirements … Unless anyone of the people who see it also read this thread, all it needs to be is believably from Microsoft in the [insert decade here]s.
Wait, I’ll mock one up you can use …
time passes
That is cute, but I mentioned it to someone else, and now someone in Microsoft wants to use this thing. So the genuine article would be much better.
I'll try asking my dad; he did computing in yesteryear...
They don't have archives?
No, Marketing does not have archives.
They do, they just can’t find the URL.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
That is cute, but I mentioned it to someone else, and now someone in Microsoft wants to use this thing. So the genuine article would be much better.
Is that a
?
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@error said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@Gurth said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
If you can’t find one, it would be effective enough to fake a Microsoft recruitment ad that fits the requirements
Oh, man. That reminds me of the April 1st I posted this at our printer:
I came back from lunch to see 6 people shouting at the printer. I doubled over laughing and that pretty much gave the game away immediately.
The real key to pulling it off was the branding, IMHO.
I saw the image before reading the rest of the post. My first thought was another reason to not buy HP printers.
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@Gurth said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
That is cute, but I mentioned it to someone else, and now someone in Microsoft wants to use this thing. So the genuine article would be much better.
Is that a
?No, it's me hoping to find the actual advertisement that Microsoft used to recruit developers. Authenticity is the goal here, not just "it's a door, it looks like it's supposed to be an advertisement, good enough."
Gurth's image is great for a quick joke, but unfortunately, I'm looking for a... uh... slow joke? Meta joke?
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@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@Gurth said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
That is cute, but I mentioned it to someone else, and now someone in Microsoft wants to use this thing. So the genuine article would be much better.
Is that a
?No, it's me hoping to find the actual advertisement that Microsoft used to recruit developers. Authenticity is the goal here, not just "it's a door, it looks like it's supposed to be an advertisement, good enough."
Gurth's image is great for a quick joke, but unfortunately, I'm looking for a... uh... slow joke? Meta joke?
And you say Microsoft wants you to look this up. Not the other way around.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@Gurth said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
That is cute, but I mentioned it to someone else, and now someone in Microsoft wants to use this thing. So the genuine article would be much better.
Is that a
?No, it's me hoping to find the actual advertisement that Microsoft used to recruit developers. Authenticity is the goal here, not just "it's a door, it looks like it's supposed to be an advertisement, good enough."
The joke image is not any random door, which is why I asked.
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@Gurth said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@Gurth said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
That is cute, but I mentioned it to someone else, and now someone in Microsoft wants to use this thing. So the genuine article would be much better.
Is that a
?No, it's me hoping to find the actual advertisement that Microsoft used to recruit developers. Authenticity is the goal here, not just "it's a door, it looks like it's supposed to be an advertisement, good enough."
The joke image is not any random door, which is why I asked.
So it's a specific door. Are you Nicolas Cage?
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@Gurth said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@Gurth said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
That is cute, but I mentioned it to someone else, and now someone in Microsoft wants to use this thing. So the genuine article would be much better.
Is that a
?No, it's me hoping to find the actual advertisement that Microsoft used to recruit developers. Authenticity is the goal here, not just "it's a door, it looks like it's supposed to be an advertisement, good enough."
The joke image is not any random door, which is why I asked.
Using Microsoft Bob is just a bit too much on the nose. Thus, good joke image.
If I explain this about five more times, each time pointing out just a single reason why I might not have
, but each time failing to mention something else about the image that implies I did , would that help?
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@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
If I explain this about five more times, each time pointing out just a single reason why I might not have , but each time failing to mention something else about the image that implies I did , would that help?
Not as much as six or more times, but it's a good start.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
If I explain this about five more times, each time pointing out just a single reason why I might not have
, but each time failing to mention something else about the image that implies I did , would that help?All you needed to have done, was make an initial reply that didn’t give the impression you failed to get the joke.
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@Gurth said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
If I explain this about five more times, each time pointing out just a single reason why I might not have
, but each time failing to mention something else about the image that implies I did , would that help?All you needed to have done, was make an initial reply that didn’t give the impression you failed to get the joke.
That sounds like a lot more competence than I can gin up this week. (A week, I will note, without gin.) I can offer extra cluelessness to go with my obtuseness and baseless assumptions, though.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@Gurth said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
@PotatoEngineer said in Did Microsoft ever recruit using the image of a door?:
If I explain this about five more times, each time pointing out just a single reason why I might not have
, but each time failing to mention something else about the image that implies I did , would that help?All you needed to have done, was make an initial reply that didn’t give the impression you failed to get the joke.
That sounds like a lot more competence than I can gin up this week. (A week, I will note, without gin.) I can offer extra cluelessness to go with my obtuseness and baseless assumptions, though.
So do you need a door on the Microsoft campus? That was in an ad? That ad itself?
You can catch even airplanes with a large enough net, but you'll need too good of reflexes.
