Following is an e-mail interview with Rob and Andy from June 1999:

Q: What brought you to WebTV?

Andy: I came out to SF to take a break before going back to school. I had been to the Bay Area once during college, and thought it was amazing. I knew that if I didn't do it before Law School, I probably wouldn't get a chance to. I had a buddy from college that I stayed with when I first got out here and he had answered e-mails for WebTV for awhile. When I moved out to the Bay Area he was working somewhere else, but he pointed me in the right direction - south.

Rob:I was running out of cash in September after traveling for so long, so I finally had to move somewhere and get a job. I had worked at a police department in Menlo Park, California, which is in the Bay Area not far from Mountain View, and really liked the area, so I was considering moving out to San Francisco. I ran into an old buddy of mine who was also planning on moving out here, so that sealed the move. Once I got out here, I talked to an old high school friend who had been working at WebTV for a few months and really liked it, so I went to the same temp agency he used and asked them if I could get a job a WebTV. They gave me one, and the rest is history.

Q: Who hired you?

Andy: The person who was supervised all of us e-mailers at the time.

Rob: I have never actually been 'hired', per se, because I still officially work for my temp agency. My first 'boss,' though, was a guy that was in charge of e-mailers, which was my job before it was out-sourced. I think he had something to do with approving me for the job.

Q: What was the interview like?

Andy: I really don't remember. Pretty straight-forward I guess.

Rob: I never actually had an interview with WebTV. I had an interview with my temp agency, and they guarantee the quality of their people, so it wasn't necessary for me to be interviewed by WebTV. Thank God, because I didn't even know what WebTV was before I walked in the door! I don't think you are interviewed until you accept a permanent position with the company.

Q: What was your first position (and subsequent) at WebTV?

Andy: I answered e-mails, and then got the job I have now. Moderation, articles for Club WebTV, writing information for the Help Center sometimes, and other odd jobs.

Rob:I was answering e-mail for about a month, which was pretty depressing and boring as far as the tasks of the job, but ended up being pretty fun because there were about 10 young temps hanging around together all doing the same job. I couldn't believe we had unlimited free Odwalla and all of these other perks, so I just spent my first few weeks eating and drinking and trying to stay awake long enough to answer some e-mails. Andy was actually the person that they assigned me to learn from, so I worked with him and another person in their office for about a week before I started answering them on my own. It is a really informal process.

Q: How did you get to be a WebTV Users Moderator?

Andy: I had been working at WebTV for a few months and really enjoyed it. There were a lot of cool people, lke Rob working there, and we had taken a couple of cool "team" field trips that really sold me on the department. I also knew that what I was doing was not going to be around forever, so I needed to find another spot in the company where I could stay for a while. The previous moderator went to another position and a spot opened up. I knew and had done some work for the person who supervises the moderators, and so I applied for the spot. This actually all happened just after Rob started answering e-mails.

Rob: Well, they out-sourced moderation right before Christmas, so when I got back from Chicago, I realized that WebTV (aka the Grinch) had more or less 'fired' me and everyone else I worked with. Not being too depressed at the idea of an extended vacation, and empowered by the $ I got during the Holidays, I went to live with some friends in Lake Tahoe while my temp agency was looking for a new assignment for me. After a few weeks, they called to say that I could go back and work with Andy as a moderator at WebTV, so I swallowed my pride, put my tail between my legs, and headed back to Odwalla-land to become the smart-aleck moderator that I am today.

Q: How were you trained for his position?

Andy: I was trained by the other moderator at the time (aks) and by my supervisor. Coming from e-mail it's pretty straight forward. You already know the WebTV, the issues people are discussing, and the questions that come up; and the act of moderation itself...well...t'aint rocket science.

Rob: I sat down next to Andy, watched him do the job for about 45 minutes, and then just started doing it on my own. There are a few nuances that take a while to pick up on, but it is basically a job that can be done by a trained monkey, so I was OK. It's actually a lot easier than answering e-mails, and a whole lot more interesting (especially reading the ones that don't get posted!), so it didn't take long to get into the swing of things. I was hesitant to make Mod notes for awhile because everyone in the newsgroup knew more about WebTV than I did, but after a while I started to speak up, mainly just to make little jokes when a message provided a good setup.

Q: Who is your supervisor? (I don't necessarily need a name here. Maybe just how you are supervised?)

Andy: We do have a supervisor who checks up on us pretty regularly. We pass on the information about what has been going on in the newsgroup. The supervisor also checks out the newsgroup - I guess to make sure we aren't running amok. In general, Rob and I are pretty much trusted to do a good job.

Rob: We are loosely supervised by a woman in charge of online support, but basically we are self governing. I call her "boss lady" which cracks her up because she really isn't our boss, in the traditional sense. She does give us advice about what to post, what to work on, etc. though, and she is in a position of authority relative to Andy and I. We have fairly strict standards for how we run the Newsgroup, though, so nobody ever feels the need to check up on us too much. The Users do a better job than anyone at WebTV!

Q: What other tasks are in your job description? (Andy, I've seen your contributions to the Newsletter. Is that required?)

Andy: I don't know if it's required, but it's pretty close to being required. Basically, besides moderation, Rob and I are here to provide support to other people when they need it, whether that's writing FAQ's for the Help Center, writing articles for Club WebTV, or doing some other back-end job.

Rob: I don't think we even have a 'job description', but we usually try to lend a helping hand if anyone needs help. It's just the culture of WebTV to do so, at least in this office. This could involve answering e-mails if the queue is getting large, writing articles for Club WebTV (which I have done a couple of times using an alias), helping out with the Help Center, filing bugs on new equipment, etc. It is really just out of the goodness of our hearts, because we could get by doing amazingly little without having to worry about our jobs. To tell you the truth, Andy and I both try to do our jobs well mostly because we like so many of you users so much, and want to keep things running smoothly and we don't have to hear about it all day in the Newsgroup!

Q: Could you describe the workplace; what the building looks like, who you might see on a given day, is there a gym to work off those strawberry donuts?

Andy: The building looks like all those other Silicon Valley buildings. I'd tell you who I see, but I'm not sure you know them *g*. There isn't a gym in any of the WebTV buildings. We do have a basketball hoop that rh and I play on pretty much every day, and there is shoreline trail that rh jogs on religiously -- I go to kick boxing on my way home instead.

Rob: The building is a rather faceless two story typical office building. There are a lot of nice offices with big windows, but it is easier for Andy and I to click on weather.com than to walk to the window from our central cubes. On any given day, we usually see the other folks in Online Support, which include the Club WebTV Editor, the guy who takes care of the Help Center, and a few other temps who come in occasionally to help everyone out. We are in the same building as all of the other Customer Service folks, but we usually stick to our own 'Modsquad Clubhouse'. While there is no workout room, we are really close the the Bay, so I take a nice 45 minute jog every day along the water. There is also a basketball hoop out back that has seen its share of battles between Andy and I.

Q: Do the Mods share a cubicle?

Andy: It's more like a "pod," like a series of open cubicles together. rh and I share a part of the pod...it actually has quite a bit more room than your average cubicle. VM sits across a little half-wall from us, in the same pod.

Rob: There is a nice big cube that Andy and I share, and we sit right next to each other. It is nice because we can ask each other questions about posts, shoot the breeze, punch each other, etc. We can also sing and play loud music without really bothering people (that much).

Q: Is RH an assistant Moderator or co-Moderator? Is there anyone else beside AW, RH and VM who moderate? Does VM cover on your days off?

Andy: (heh heh heh) He is a co-moderator.... (ha ha ha, I can't wait till he reads this question) VM works part-time, sometimes instead of us, sometimes alongside. Occasionally someone else will come in and moderate, like jw, jf, or hh - basically former moderators that are willing to give us a hand when the need arises.

Rob: Hey, I take offense to this question! Seriously, though, no, there are no other moderators besides AW, VM, and I. On very rare occasions when we are all busy someone might help out. Sometimes VM gets assigned to do other stuff when AW and I are both here, so AW and I are the only full-time moderators. Although he has been doing it longer (and does it better), we are peers with the same responsibilities, compensation, etc.

Q: What is your work schedule?

Andy: It varies on what needs to be done, both with the newsgroup or other things. We tend to have someone here from about 9am until 6 or 6:30. We do each put in our fair share of overtime each week.

Rob: The only parameters are that one of us has to work every day, so we arrange our schedules with each other. On most weekdays, I try to get in by at least 11:00 AM, and AW is almost always here before me. Often times, I try to get in to the water on the way to work, so there are days I don't come in until after noon if the surf is good. The main reasons we both tend to work late are traffic (horrible before 7PM) and pay (we have to make some $$$$$?). We are both pretty nocturnal, though, so it works out well.

Q: How is the workload divided? Do you have morning strategy meetings?

Andy: We divide it pretty evenly, in that we take what comes in and get it done. Sort of like two people answering a stack of letters, and each person going through the stack and answering them. We do have weekly strategy meetings, that cover a variety of topics. rh and I have informal morning strategy meetings, in that we look at what has come in and try to get a feel for what people are talking about and what issues are being brought up. That way we can also let someone know if there are 400 posts that say "yahoo.com doesn't work on WebTV anymore" or whatever.

Rob: Strategy? What's that :^) Well, in the mornings we usually look at all the posts that have come in since we left (usually about 300-500), and if there are really long threads we will remove some of the repetitive answers. We will also go through all the posts and pull out the ones that have bad subject headers, etc. so we don't have to deal with them later. Once we have the queue pretty well sorted, we start to take posts in date order, usually about 150 at a time, and go through and post them by subject. There is no specific division of the workload, but I would say overall Andy does a bit more than me, because he gets bored with the internet fairly quickly, and always steals the posts while I'm reading ESPN.com.

Q: When you receive a post, is it raw or pasteurized? By that I mean, has the post already gone through a program?

Andy: Well, it has gone through the program that we use to post messages.

Rob: When we receive the posts, the HTML has already been de-activated by some sort of program. We still have to go through and check the links for bad content, but beyond that, we just read them and then put them on the board. We just have to type 'wua' to send a post to the board, and I always do it with copy and paste, so I actually rarely make contact with my keyboard. Andy and I always joke about the ideal 'click lifestyle', in which eventually we could moderate without ever touching the keyboard (or moving). We just have to find away around those darn posts we have to return!

Q: How many posts come through on a given day (approximately)?

Andy: That really depends. You can pretty much look at how many new messages are on the board and that's about 80-85% of the posts we got that day.

Rob: I think usually around 800, but at times like after this big upgrade/Real Audio announcement, we have been getting well over 1000 a day.

Q: Do you read every post that comes in?

Andy: Yep.

Rob:I only read the posts that I put up, and the ones that make Andy laugh or that he has questions about that he calls me over to read. You end up getting the gist of all of them, though, once you start reading responses, etc.

Q: Perhaps you could describe the process a post will go through. We see what happens when a post makes it up there, and a few of us have received rejection letters. Do any posts go to abuse? Are statistics collected (i.e. 70 posts about transloaders, 200 posts about spam, etc)?

Andy: I think maybe I should keep this part a secret (Bwa-ha-ha-ha)

Rob: A post will either be posted, returned, or trashed. Occasionally we will forward a message to someone to check out a possible bug, but that is fairly rare. I almost never send a post to abuse, but I suggest to users that they could do so. I'm so used to abuse from users I don't even notice it anymore. :^) As far as statistics, we don't have a computer program that collects the type of information you mentioned, but every week Andy and I turn in our 'Top 5' list to our 'boss lady', and we try to point out the biggest problems, features, issues, etc. that people have been talking about. Soon there will be statistics like those (when they finish the new moderation tool), but as for now it is just us passing things on.

Q: The WebTV Users love the bantering we see between you two. Is this a reflection of the workplace?

Andy: Absolutely 100%. It never stops - we pretty much get the same reactions from the rest of the office as we do from the newsgroup too. Actually, what you see in the newsgroup is probably only about 75% of what it is like in real life. You don't get to hear us actually singing songs out loud, or pushing each other, or me showing rh a rude comment I made about him on a post, just before I send it. I notice that they've moved out everyone who used to sit near us however.....

Rob: Sort of, but what really goes on wouldn't be appropriate for WebTV.users! We definitely don't hold back on the barbs or insults, but it is always really good natured. We spend most of the day just babbling to each other, singing songs, goofing around. I swear, this job would be so boring if that guy wasn't around.

Q: Why is AW always hungry?

Andy: I wish I only knew....

Rob: AW has to feed his extraordinarily large brain. I think he also tries to beef up so I can't take him to the hole so easily when we play hoops (sadly, this will not ever work).

Q: What posts are you capable of answering? Do you know how to build frames, find people, and what the difference between Java and Javascript is?

Andy: We really only try to answer questions that no one else can answer, or that need to be answered immediately because the confusion might just lead to more questions (such as email hoaxes). Yes, yes, and yes. (I never have built frames, but I know I could do it if I needed too. I don't use the internet to find people because currently there is no one I need to find, but I do know how. I've dabbled in javascript and HTML; rh has dabbled in javascript, but considers himself something of an HTML master.)

Rob: I think at this point we could answer almost every post, although not necessarily off the top of our heads. I think we are both better at knowing where to look to find information than actually storing it in our heads. I must say, though, some of the regular posters, especially Paul, occasionally post messages that make me scratch my head and ask "Why isn't that guy running this place??".

Q: What subject area generates the most replies?

Andy: Either upgrades or disconnects, slowness, etc - the times there have been problems wherever or whatever, we know we'll be swamped. I remember rh came in on a weekend when the transloader went down and he literally had to wade through a sea of posts.

Rob:Java is always on the board someplace, although we try to keep it under control. Real Audio is always a popular topic. Questions about Upgrades always seem to be present, whether we've just had one or not. I think what you see on the board is an accurate reflection of what we see before we post them.

Q: What subject area interests you the most?

Andy: Conspiracy theories...see above. Also the posts that we can't post. Those are the best. Oh and posts about me of course.

Rob: At first I was really fascinated that a newsgroup like this existed at all. I had never chatted or seen a newsgroup or anything, and I was blown away that there were so many nice, knowledgeable people out there willing to help people out. After that initial fascination wore off, I was pretty absorbed with almost all the topics because they were new to me. Nowadays, I usually pay the most attention the the really technical posts from the regulars and all the humorous posts. It is the humor that really keeps me content with this job. A lot of the usual posts (eg Can we have JAVA) just pass before my eyes almost undetected at this point.

Q: How do you avoid newsgroup burn-out? How do you stay fresh and how do you keep from taking the personal attacks to heart?

Andy: Vacation and shooting it with rh. The personal attacks just don't bother me. If they are pointing out something I'm doing wrong, then more power to them, and we can work on it. If they are attacking me/us for something we're not actually doing than that's not really something I can do anything about. If I'm doing my job well, and someone doesn't like the way I am doing it, what can I say...*shrugs shoulders* Most people who get mad though are upset because they did something wrong and we won't post it....then they get even more upset....it's pretty hard to take that personally.

Rob: I don't avoid newsgroup burn-out! I tell ya, there are some times I would kill to be doing anything but this. Most of the time, though, I really get a kick out the newsgroup, and enjoy reading what everybody has to say. It's really weird feeling to feel like you know some of these people, but when it gets right down to it, you don't know if it is a 12 year old girl or a 60 year old man. You just know their angle on things and the way they'll usually respond to stuff. It's kind of strange, but pretty neat. As far as personal attacks, I never get my feelings hurt (because people don't even know me enough for their comments to have much merit), but I can get pretty riled up when I feel like people are picking on us for no reason. We are just an easy scapegoat, I guess. I must admit, though, I would just love to lay it on people sometimes, but I always hold back. It's really a lesson in self control.

Q: What are your shining moments as a Moderator? A witty comeback? A fire you put out? A policy change?

Andy: Every moment is a shining moment for me. Actually our best moments have been incredibly funny comments that we've made on posts that no one saw. Some post will come in and rh and I come up with something sooo good, and we post it, and the post just floats through the back of the board without even a response to the post itself. Most definitely our finest moments have been lost. I've also had some really good professional moments - getting things fixed, attracting the right sort of attention to an issue, but the funny moments are the ones that stand out. My interactions with Steve were definitely right up there too though.

Rob: One would probably be convincing Andy the beauty of the click lifestyle. Another would be spearheading the movement to get us some laptops so we could work from home on the weekends (a serious lifestyle improvement). Another would have to be the fact that when I got here this Newsgroup would always tend to be pretty far behind (by no fault of Andys), and now we are almost always caught up. The newsgroup is just so much better when people can ask questions and get responses in the same day, so we try to keep up. I also remember some of my best mod notes, but I regret so many more that I just couldn't put on the newsgroup.

Q: Do you realize that you two have the awesome responsibility of often being the only human contact WebTV users have with corporate WebTV?

Andy: We totally do. We talk about it all the time, how weird it is that the two of us, pretty much at the bottom of el totem pole are also like the only direct corporate face for the company. Our impact is incredibly disproportionate to our actual positions. I don't think a lot of people actually realize that, but oh well. Steve definitely realized the way that the newsgroup was a connection to the users. He really did/does(?) read the newsgroup all the time and understood the job that rh and I were doing. Not that we're so great, or our job is so hard, but just that we and it occupy a unique positions. Our boss "gets it" too, which has been great.

Rob: Yeah, we actually do realize this. We always joke about it because we are probably the two least important employees WebTV has as far as status, pay, etc. within the company structure. It is a really ironic situation. One day, they are going to out-source this job to people that won't have as much of a stake in the company, and that will be really sad. Because we realize our role for the users, we take our job seriously. Believe me, we could be a lot more slack about everything without any repercussions, but we try to do our job well because we respect the users.

Q: Who writes the titles for closing post #1 and closing post #2? Do you have a personal favorite?

Andy: Whoever is here last puts up the posts and titles them. Personal favorites....hmmmm....too many to choose from.

Rob: Whoever is here latest puts up the end of day posts, and we usually just try to put up something funny or catchy. My favorites are the ones that people to write in and say "What in the heck does this have to do with (whatever we wrote)", because then we know we at least got people to read them. It's the little things that keep you going.

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