Richard and Elaina Newman both work for Tellme, which is a Microsoft subsidiary. Bono does not work for Tellme.

The geeks in question: Elaina and Richard Newman, both of Tellme, A Microsoft Subsidiary

So, what are your jobs?
Elaina: User Experience Engineer.
Richard: Software Development Engineer II.
Elaina: …I have a II, too! I just didn’t say it.

What does Tellme do?
Elaina: When you call 411 from most phones nationwide, you’ll usually get us. If you call Microsoft customer care, that’s us.
Richard: We have an appreciable portion of all the phone calls in the US toward automated numbers — which is kind of scary.
Elaina: Well, it would be scary if we weren’t good at it.

Richard: The Microsoft acquisition was accompanied by a lot more Microsoft stuff for the game room. This is our Master Chief, not wearing his customary straw hat...

Was it weird getting acquired by Microsoft?
Richard: Pretty much.
Elaina: For the first six to nine months after the acquisition, I would just say “I work for Tellme.” But now I say “I work for Tellme, a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft.” There were baby steps.
Richard: If you just say, “I work for Microsoft,” people assume “Oh, you work on Windows.” They assume you’re in offices in corridors, working on Windows machines — the stereotypical Microsoft Borg stereotype. But for me it’s like, “No, actually — I show up for work around 10:30 in the morning, I do all my work on a Mac, I deploy on Solaris. I don’t target software for Windows.”

Now, let’s see these infamous offices…

Walk with me through the Tellme offices...

Elaina: The Tellme offices are all open floorplan. The umbrellas aren't merely to enhance the aesthetic... early morning and late afternoon sunshine can cause unbelievable screen glares!

Elaina: People have a very love it or hate it response to our office space. Some people look at it and are just like, “I could NEVER work like that! How do you get anything done? You don’t have offices? You don’t have cubicles?” And then other people just immediately say, “This is AWESOME! I WANT.”

Elaina: We've all known Penny since she was a puppy. One of the original office dogs, Penny's person is Grant. He's usually acknowledged second whenever Penny's around.

Elaina: Impromptu collaboration is a huge part of Tellme's culture, and one of the reasons we're so attached to our open space. Informal work stations let us get away from our desk and brainstorm without shutting ourselves up in stuffy conference rooms or disturbing folks out on the floor.

You two are married — did you meet on the job?
Elaina: Yes.

Was it scandalous?
Richard: Not as scandalous as some others!
Elaina: There’s a long tradition of Tellme couples — we certainly weren’t the first to get married, and we won’t be the last.

Richard: Our space is split up into themed areas, many with pop culture names; this is one of the small recording studios. Elaina: Our audio guys loved that Christopher Walken SNL skit. We gotta have Morecow Bell.

Elaina: The Manhattan courtyard, which recently played host to one of our monthly wine tasting events. Yep... Tellme has a wine club. :)

What are the advantages of working with your spouse?
Richard: Carpooling!
Elaina: …I was going to say the same thing.

What’s the worst part?
Richard: I can’t get away with my affairs.
Elaina: [scoffs] I never get to have big news from work when I get home — he already knows!
Richard: And we do talk about work a lot at home.

Elaina: We call this recording studio Grimace because of the smooshy purple foam.

Elaina: Ever want to know how many scripts it takes to record Directory Assistance? At least that many.

Richard: We have a pretty sweet lobby. Elaina: Yes, yes we do. Recently remodeled, but we all agreed that the garage-style lobby needed to stay true to its roots. It's very Tellme.

How’s it been, adapting to working for Microsoft?
Elaina: Well, here’s a story for you. We went to User Experience week last month up in San Francisco and we all put slightly different things on our name tags. We’d all registered at different times, and so some of us were identified as “Tellme Networks,” some of us were “Tellme Networks, a subsidiary of Microsoft,” and the newest hire had “Microsoft” on his tag.

It was a fascinating social and professional experiment to see how people reacted differently to the tags! There were people at the conference who were just like Zoom!, magnetically attracted to those of us with Microsoft on our name tags! People really wanted to connect with the Microsofties — that’s who they want to talk to. It was an interesting thing to watch.

Richard: Over Tellme's history we always banged a gong when we made a sale. We upgraded to a much bigger gong when we made our biggest sale! It was signed by everyone at the company at the time of the acquisition.