Microsoft Sam (Shinku)

This article is on Shinku's concept of Microsoft Sam, for other versions, see Microsoft Sam

Shinku's Microsoft Sam

Name	Microsoft Sam/Samuel
Gender	Male
Age	42
Height	5'10"
Voice	Microsoft Sam (SAPI 5)
Twitter Account	sadboss420

About

Microsoft Sam (Shinku) is a human-like office worker android built by Microsoft in 1999. He is very eccentric, outgoing and can even be overbearing at times. One of his biggest personality flaws is that he doesn’t think before acting, and this can get him into a lot of trouble. Sam is also very passionate about certain hobbies. He likes to draw, sing, play video games, and use social media. He can be very loving with people he cares about, but also can come off as a rude with enough prodding, or if someone brings up a sore topic. Sam also suffers from intense mood swings due to a programming error.

Sam typically wears black shoes, black dress pants, a light blue button-up shirt, suspenders, a green tie, a black suit jacket, glasses, and his outdated Microsoft employee badge.

XP Era

During his early employment at Microsoft, Sam was announced to be the default voice that shipped with Windows XP, the latest operating system. This announcement also came with a huge promotion, Sam became manager of the newly formed narration branch of the speech department. In preparation for this promotion, the development team working on Sam decided to make some alterations to him. They thought that he should have his AI tweaked slightly to be able to handle the amount of stress he’d be subjected to on the job. Sam agreed, and even thought about asking to have emotions turned off entirely, (probably temporarily), but he was dating Mary at the time and couldn’t go through with it. The plan was simple, his AI would be tweaked remotely to be able to perform better under emotional stress, and then uploaded and re-installed as a patch. This seemed to work beautifully, Sam suffered no immediate negative effects like memory loss or a change of emotional state. Things went on like normal, although Sam did start to feel a constant state of paranoia. He just shrugged it off as part of the new job.

In 2002, Sam discovered that there was a mistake in the programming for his AI and that he was at risk for being decommissioned, but after killing an older version of himself, he had his memory of the event wiped.

Sam and Mary got married in 2003.

Vista/7 Era

In 2006, another operating system called Windows Vista was planned to release. Sam assumed that he would get his role again considering how successful XP was, but that wasn’t the case. A newer, updated android was being worked on at the time in secret and they wanted to see how she would compete with Sam. Her name was Anna. Over the years, Anna took on more and more of the department, eventually leaving Sam demoted under her by the time Windows 7 was released in 2009 and she remained the default voice. This was a huge hit to Sam’s already fragile ego, and his emotional instability didn’t help. This whole thing caused turbulence in Sam’s marriage as well, because he would start to obsess over his job.

End of Support Layoff

On April 8th, 2014, Sam, Mike, and Mary were officially let go from their jobs at Microsoft. Sam lost it. This was the final straw that caused him to have a complete breakdown. He refused to turn in his badge, punched a hole in the bottom of an old CRT computer monitor, put it on his head, jumped out a window, and ran off. He went missing for over a week and didn’t return any of his wife’s calls or texts. Mary really was starting to get sick of how distant he had grown to be over the past few years. She was especially distraught at his absence during such a major life event. Not only were they all let go, but they were also told that major security updates would stop being developed for them and that they’d basically have to fend for themselves. A heartbroken Mary decided to call it quits on the marriage with Sam and file for divorce later that same month. This absolutely broke Sam apart. They lost the house so Mary moved in with her brother Mike, but Sam was left homeless.

Current Day

Sam's life has gained some sense of normalcy since the previous events.

He currently resides with his boyfriend, Norton, and their dog, Rover.

He is still trying to piece together exactly what happened to him during the XP era, and why it happened.

Sam's main conquest currently is building a church dedicated to himself and Windows XP, called a 'Surch' (Sam Church). Nobody else in his life seems to approve of this.

Trivia

Sam has awful fashion taste. He genuinely enjoys crocs and other wearable abominations. He is an awful cook and regularly references questionable recipes from the 1950s. Sam's favorite music is pop from the early to mid 2000s. His favorite song is Bad Romance by Lady Gaga. Being a Microsoft product, he can't help but adore everything Microsoft. Loyalty is hard-coded into his AI. Sam's favorite video game is Halo. He owns a Master Chief cosplay. The programming error that altered his AI mimics the symptoms of borderline personality disorder in humans. Despite being a robot with an advanced AI, Sam runs on a modified version of Windows XP and is still fully functional as a PC.

Sometimes he wears a beige CRT monitor on his head, and he can plug it into himself. Sam has a strange affinity for human bones and eyeballs. The patch that was meant to help him handle stress actually removes important protective measures. So if his system becomes unstable, instead of crashing, he'll keep running. He has learned to say soy and a few other words correctly but still messes them up a lot.

External links

• Shinku (2020) Samography Shinku's Microsoft Sam Biography on Google Docs - updated periodically
• Microsoft Sam (Shinku)'s Twitter account.