For Microsoft, ranking by building might be effective. Happiness in building 12 vs. building 42 will be very different.

It also really depends on your interests. Much of my dissatisfaction with Microsoft was due to its heavy integration with a suburban lifestyle (Bellevue and Redmond), but some people are into that. A vague metric like happiness isn't really something that will be universal.

Work environment toxicity isn't really related to where you live. Many Microsofties commute from Seattle, and they have Connect/Kinect buses to support that (like Googlers who commute in from the city, only that Seattle is much closer to Redmond than SF is to MV).

I mean, if you are going to ding Microsoft for that, you might as well ding Google and Facebook as well. Heck, only Amazon and some smaller companies have true urban campuses.

I did move to Seattle and the commute was pretty terrible, via driving or the shuttle, sometimes upwards of ninety minutes.

I really like working at a Google satellite office but I would absolutely never work in the Mountain View campus for similar reasons.

I found it easier to get into a Google satellite office while Microsoft wanted me to work on the main campus.

Good for you, simplifying your life is useful (I work in LA but live two blocks from my job in Westwood).

It depends on when you want to commute, if you want to fight it out 7-9:30/4:30-6:30 with rush hour traffic, then ya, it might take 90 minutes (wait, no, it would never actually take 90 minutes unless you were commuting from north or south of Seattle....or maybe West Seattle, I guess you are exaggerating a bit here). If you travel off peak, its like 20 minutes between OTC and downtown by bus.

That being said, if I had to choose between a toxic work environment with a great location and a great work environment with a crappy location, I would probably pick the latter for my own sanity (best to have both, though).

There were a lot of challenges, I had things I wanted to do in the city at particular times and could not get to them. Ended up doing everything at Microsoft, kind of like a continuation of living on campus in college. Not a toxic culture, just not for me.

Regarding the ninety minute commute it was frequently Thursdays to where I lived in Belltown that would consistently be 70-90 minutes. I ended up staying late at work to avoid it, which didn't help my enjoyment much.

I'm not familiar with buildings at MS - what is the significance?

Departments usually are in the same building. I think 12 may be some of the studios as well

Glassdoor has ranking by country.