What’s it like to work at Microsoft during the COVID-19 crisis? I’ve never seen anything like this. Here’s my perspective, as a director managing our Puget Sound ops. Our team handles all things commute, dining/catering, mail/distribution, reception and facilities mgmt services.

When the WFH order came, our jobs seemingly changed overnight, as we realized our community’s needs have to come first at a time like this.

We usually work on supplying our campus and caring for our own 52,000+ Puget Sound employees. But with COVID-19 impacting our community we’ve quickly shifted to sourcing and shipping PPE, hand sanitizer, and disinfectant wipes for our employees and the local hospitals in need.

This has been a team effort! Partnering with the State of Washington Department of Enterprise Services, Microsoft procurement, legal, trade and real estate & security teams, along with our suppliers from around the world

Each day, my incredible team is either WFH or 6+ feet away from one another when we’re on site (for essential business, like mail/distribution). Our goal? To get health professionals the PPE they need.

Within the last couple weeks, we’ve procured & distributed 240,000 medical masks, 100,000 nitrile gloves, 3,000 sanitizing wipes, 74,400 goggles, and 850 protective suits. That’s just a start. More is coming.

And since few are on campus, we’ve also started assembling and delivering 6,000 box lunches a day to families in need. That’s 30,000 lunches per week –or 66,000 meals to date for non-Microsoft employees.

What’s incredible is the food usually supplied and made for our employees is now being shared with the community.

Our lunches are being sent to school districts, @Boys&Girls Club, @YMCA, @NWHarvest, @oslserves, @MarysPlaceWA, @PlymouthHousing and @Hopelink.

This is hard work. But I’m absolutely amazed by so many people behind the scenes. THANK YOU to my team, Jodi for working with our Philanthropies colleagues to source, assemble and distribute meals. Mohan for leading sourcing from around the world for PPE and supplies.

Katy for leading inventories and logistics to distribute PPE and supplies, and Esther for working on the future of commute keeping employees safe as we return!

THANK YOU to our suppliers, including Compass Group (dining) CBRE (facilities management, logistics), SBM (janitorial), and MV Transportation (commute)!

We love our Puget Sound community. Thanks to support from our leadership, our teams have learned and grown so much.

This has been an incredible learning curve and a great opportunity for our hourly workers to also contribute their skills to a worthy cause.

That’s a quick update on what life has been like for us over the past month. Back to work!