Microserfs Ordered Back to the Office, Given 10 Days to Appeal

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

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)

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.

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)

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.".

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.

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.

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

“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.

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

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

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.

Comments moved thither. Thanks!