busman's holiday: a holiday spent in following or observing the practice of one's usual occupation.
I just returned from a week at my Dad and Kathy's home in Connecticut. The week was a relaxing one, Dad and I got in some woodworking, spent a couple of hours shoveling and plowing snow, walked the property line taking notes with his new GPS, and generally relaxed. Kathy, my step-mom, put on a fantastic Christmas Eve fondue dinner (delayed two days for my benefit), cooked up some wonderful desserts, and made sure I got my fill of taco pizza. All in all a nice holiday break. But no trip to Connecticut would be complete without solving a computer problem or two.
 
This trip was fairly light in that respect, I spent a couple hours at Keith's (family friend) setting up a new computer, and a bit of time at one of dad's neighbors checking up on a RAM upgrade. Add in a couple of minor issues with Dad and Kathy's computers and a few phone calls where a bit of reassurance was all that was needed. The "big" issue, helping out with a web page, didn't get handled, but I did get the basic idea of what was needed and I think I'll be able to follow up via email.
 
Living in Redmond, being a Microsoft employee is not that big of a deal to those that I normally come in contact with. But, when I go to Connecticut, I have instant status as a computer genius once Microsoft is mentioned. All in all I would guess that I usually spend 5-10% of my vacation time representing Microsoft. I don't begrudge my time spent helping with the computer issues. To the folks I'm helping, I am Microsoft. The "busman's holiday" portion of my vacation allows me to work one on one with Microsoft's customers, see how they are using their computers and what they want from the software.
 
Over the past couple of years, Microsoft has, more and more, embraced the concept of community. The numbers of blogs, like this one, that give a bit more of a personal feel to those of us that work here has skyrocketed. Every day more folks are doing web-casts, diving into the newsgroups, doing whatever they can to reach out to customers. I think this is a good thing. Working in the Enterprise Engineering Center gives me the chance to meet and work with many enterprise customers. Vacation time gives me the chance to work with a few home consumers and the occasional small business. Both of these give me a direct sense of what Microsoft means to those that use our software.
 
For the MS types out there reading, think about this a bit the next time you're on vacation. Find someone with a computer problem and help them. It's pretty cool helping out a customer without having to work it into your review goals.