As you can guess from the title, this is my last post to this blog. A few weeks ago, I was offered a position as a PM (Program Manager) in the IIS team, and tomorrow is my last day with UAG support. I’ve aspired to be a PM for many years, and that dream has finally come true. In my position as a program manager, I will take part in shaping the future of Microsoft’s Web Server platform and help make it better and more successful.
It’s been a bit over 4.5 years since I joined Microsoft’s customer service and support (1688 days!). It was a rough start…I knew next to nothing about IAG (that was in 2008, before UAG was released), and spending 8+ hours a day on the phone trying to figure out a product with little documentation was very trying. Lucky for me, I had colleagues with super-human skills who helped me along the way. Two years later, UAG came out and by that time, I was already making a name for myself, and being quite successful in my role.
As time passed, I realized that this is the best job I ever had. I had two amazing manages (Jeff and Mohit) who supported my efforts to develop and exercise various peripheral skills such as training, writing and developing code. I was also lucky enough to be to mentor to several other engineers and their success and growth gives me tremendous satisfaction and pride.
Letting all of this go isn’t easy. UAG is not just a job or a product for me – it has become a part of me, and I part of it. Working with my colleagues and customers was something to look forward to every morning and I’ll miss it a lot. This blog will remain as-is, and I hope the vast amount of knowledge I poured into it will continue to serve both my colleagues and customers for years to come (as you might have noticed, I posted over 20 items in the past week, cleaning up various in-progress items I was stashing). I’m afraid I won’t have the resources to investigate and help with UAG issues in the future, so I’m removing the “contact me” link from the blog and I won’t be responding to comments on it. Those resourceful enough will figure out a way to get in touch, but I hope everyone will respectfully honor the boundaries.
Farewell, my friends! I wish all of you fun using UAG, and I’m sure our paths will cross in the future again!
Erez Ben Ari
April 2013
