Most of last week I was out sick. I caught some particularly nasty bug and it flattened me. Since most of the work I do is not strongly tied to other's schedules, my being out for the better part of a week wouldn't normally have much affect. But, you guessed it, this happened right smack in the middle of an EEC event where I was scheduled to shoot about 25 hours of video. Tuesday it started hitting me, Wednesday I had to bail after just a couple hours. I left work, stopped at 7/11 and picked up some over the counter remedies, went home and went to bed.

 

I spent the following several days ingesting all sorts of cold/flu remedies and basically ignoring the world. I varied from the window open and the fan on high to stacking on extra blankets. When I would wake up from the fitful sleep, I'd feel guilty about missing work, but when I got up I ran out of energy in a short time.

 

I got back to work on Tuesday. All of the video that needed to be shot had been taken care of by my colleagues. When I went to one of our weekly meetings, everyone greeted me back and inquired about how I was feeling. After the meeting, going for coffee, my boss greeted me with a "Ken! You're back". It was quickly apparent that my team really did care about my health and was glad that I was returning to normal.

 

Another simple experience for me at the EEC that shows me the extent of how being a real team, not just organizationally grouped together, plays a role here at the EEC. While I was out, the team took care of the work that needed done. My email contained several notes asking how I was doing, but not one asking what's happening with the work that I wasn't doing. The work was covered and my boss didn't even have to ask anyone to pick up the slack.

 

Balancing work-life is usually a big challenge here at Microsoft. At the EEC however, it's a lot easier primarily because we are a team in fact not just in name. I love working here.