Tbh I’ve been maybe mildly impressed by how honest the past like, 5 updates have been about changes not working / taking / resolved as expected. Would have anticipated less direct honesty for whatever reason. But also sadly comical in that I feel most engineers have been there and know the feeling, and also holy moly it’s been an issue for a while!

I sort of agree but also: what else are you going to say? Some kind of soviet "Nope, everything working fine, you must be imagining things"? :)

Haha doesn’t hurt to try a different approach!

The forced status updates come from the idea that resolution is a linear and quantifiable process, like copying a file from here to there. The idea an issue is caused by the unknown, and the remedy is unknown, is incompatible with processes and worldviews.

Forced status updates are still good. Even if they just say "we are still working on it and attempts so far have failed" it keeps people from thinking Microsoft is just playing GTA VI instead of working on it. Managing expectations is just as important as restoring service. Sometimes (probably not with a global email service) even more important. You can get away with a lot of downtime in some services as long as you are communicating what's going on

> a linear and quantifiable process, like copying a file from here to there

I take it you've never seen a Windows file copy dialog :)

No more "Previous", just "We’re continuing our efforts to improve server stability to improve traffic flow"...

Maybe the execs went home, so its the lower-level people approving the updates now and they just want to get it out and get back to trying to help resolving the thing.

I doubt the execs are “going home” today

This is a very entertaining message but I do feel bad for the engineers