Good thing management switched their bonus structure to cash vs. Anyone going to call them on it tomorrow? The problem is not just with VP and GM. Ask your manger what s he does every day and if they can't describe beyond what their team does or use some buzzwords, then you know what they do!!! So we add k headcount in the last couple of years, spending like drunken sailors, then have to turn around and dump people and spread it out over 18 months to make this a chaotic and nerve racking as possible.
Yes--I know they control the kingdom and it won't happen, b ut for fucks sake this company appears to be run by a bunch of loonies at this point. This is very sad, it used to be a vibrant high energy place to work 10 years ago and now look where we are. The dollar is at an all time high against both the Pound Sterling and Euro.
Get your facts straight and learn some economics. Then you might know what impact more US Debt bought by foreign entities actually has on currency. What are the expected savings here? Far less than the gap in the revenue target for the last quarter. The savings are a pittance, so what's the real reason for this? Cut already happen in MSIT a few months back.
Spreading layoff of people over 18 months is a brilliant strategy of making everyone working their buts off without any perspective of merit increase. Does this means we are not hiring for next 18 months? If we are hiring again, can be refilled in months. BTW, what's with all this hate for vendors and travel? Vendors are the ones actually doing the work that those endless ranks of "project managers" aren't capable of doing.
And travel? You want to focus on customers, but you don't want anyone to travel to customers? You think the customers are going to travel here to Redmond just for the fun of it? I wonder how they handle layoffs in China. Maybe a pink slip email? The question that nobody is asking is: Isn't this too little, too late? Look at Microsoft group by group, and it can be seen that many of the businesses are loaded with legacy staff that have been there forever, and are long past the point when they pay their own way, let alone generate enough profits to justify keeping them.
For the layoffs to be truly effective, it has to start at the top, drastically trimming management ranks especially those who have hardly coded a line of code in years, and rely on their pool of contractors, imported grunts and offshore units to do their work for them. Alas, that is not about to happen anytime soon. Too little, too late. I worked at MS for 6 years and left in somewhat of a BS circumstance in All I can say to those affected is that I'm much happier outside of MS and make more money as well.
Embrace the change as a new opportunity and you will be fine. I honestly would not consider going back to work at MS now. And I hope that they are targeting the thousand of incompetent middle managers but somehow I'm guessing that won't be the case. Vendors are the ones actually doing the work Vendors can do the work.
Most Contractors are bad. I left two years ago, as it had become a really awful environment place to try to do good work. In that time, I'm sometimes struggled and questioned my decision. Today I feel sad for my friends, and very much at peace. This just demonstrates, yet again, how amazingly inept the upper and mid-level management is over there.
All of the information employees are getting via Mini should have been communicated internally first. There's absolutely no respect flowing FROM management to employees, so why should there be any back?
Exactly correct. Head for those lifeboats. The correction for seven ten? The cuts are about making Wall Street get off their backs, and to accept the reality that expenses keep climbing while revenue has plateaued.
I hardly think that Microsoft is doomed, though. Most companies that are going to miss this badly would have pre-announced," said Brendan Barnicle, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities. It's as if this is something that they discovered today. Not a 'softie, but an employee in another big SW company mainly partner of MS, some competition in specific parts of our portfolios.
My thoughts are with you, good luck to all of you. We go through quite some cost cutting as well, although local labour law does not allow to sack people at such a breakneck speed. So far fingers crossed we have not heard of layoffs, but come Wednesday next week All-Hands Meeting I just hope that some social aspects enter into the decision whom to retain.
Best from Europe non-'softie. Go work for whoever you want. This is all about cutting the high-cost blue badge people and backfilling with low-cost H1Bs. There's some schadenfreude here for me but I know it's real people and good ones who are impacted. For you, take the advice of other posters to heart that MSFT isn't the center of the universe and you'll find life outside the bubble.
For those of you college hires who have stayed because you have no clue what the job market is like anymore - wake up! Profitability and revenue growth stem more from monopoly position than innovation, I'd guess.
The company is too large, and has too much monopoly control of its marketplace to correctly reorganize. Most companies gain discipline by taking on leverage. Here's a company that's had way too much cash for decades, and developed a heroin-type addiction to aimless spending of it on ill-conceived projects. It will be interesting to see case studies of the situation decades from now. Truly a cautionary tale for human organizational behavior.
Adding legal fees it's the exact opposite. There is no cost savings by bringing in an H1B. This is an extremely bad day for Microsoft. Management gives wall street no warning they will miss earnings targets, hence investors assume if they stick to traditional earnings release date they must have made their numbers.
The company then misses the numbers but has results largely in line with what buy side investors forecasted. The company holds a call with investors and manages to drive the stock down further. Management also releases a confusing attrition plan, and seems to minimize to investors the net reduction in headcount.
They are "stuck" with their current job description until they get a Green Card. Even though they can get merit increases, they cannot get a promotion new title, new duties. Be mindful about what you say and signing anything, particularly if you are in a protected class. Expect "high pressure" sales tactics - take it or leave it Signing may prevent you from being able to pursue legal action.
H1Bs can move around all they want internally. They just can't jump external. They are trapped in a sense but not if they're happy with MS.
She is one who should go. We need to have less overpaid SPSA. Its like sell more and lose heck of lot more. Blog: The bad economy took a significant toll on the two parts of the company which have never done well. In other words, after being assigned its share of Microsoft's corporate overhead, it probably did not break even.
Promotions are not being halted are they now? He doesnt know - the magnificent leadership team is buying itself time! The first is very likely impacting at least the reorg component big time. This is the reason the SLT wont say when it happens or which roles which groups - corporate events will tell, not strategy. This is merely the tip of the iceberg - youre on candid camera and Steves just started to Wag the Dog.
I'd love to be at the Town Hall meeting tomorrow and ask them questions that most won't ask like direct questions and then call their bullshit when they give the vague answer that doesn't really answer the fricken question. I hated the DOJ case but at least these some of these idiots had their bullshit vague answers called out by good government attorneys.
The mail clearly says that merit is cut for september That's not the same as promo budget, or gold star. Get a promotion or get a star to increase your bottom line; managers will be assessing these as the tools for saving those they must keep.
Bet those are FTEs. If you add in the vendors and contractors being let go previous and current , those numbers are probably upwards of 10, Microsoft is doing itself a favor by cutting the dead-weight.. But the way they are going about doing it blows chunks. Some entire groups need to go. Perhaps MSFT will be doing that in the next round. Get back to its core and stop trying to do everything. Spending the next 18 months in a lifeboat on stormy seas? Wanna know how much "lower wage" H1B are making at MS?
Check out this link and get dose of reality! Also you'll get to see the pay for typical title and level too. By the way, there are 2k H1B working at MS. When was it sent? I'll call BS on this one. Run a search on "labor arbitrage" and H1B and see the results - this is a tactic to lower the overall cost of labor, nothing to do with a shortage of talent.
Ax the now and give them the opportunity to look for better opportunities outside of MS. Keeping in your back pocket just drags down the morale of the entire company. Let's see what happens to the housing market and banking industry if H1B visa holders are laid off..
Wonder if they'll bother leaving the keys at the bank before they head up to Canada to switch visa status. See if there will be rush hour at the border crossing. Also incorrect. They can go work elsewhere if that company sponsors their H1-B. The transition is very risky, though, so few people dare try it. Heard that CRM Live is going to be severely impacted.
I hope these poor folks will be able to find positions in other groups. Who is the freaking CRM troll? Plus there's the Facebook vandalism a few months back. I don't get it. Not everyone received it though exchange issue. I know Enrique forwarded it because of not everyone receiving it.
All the people for Obama have to ask, why is it that he is for increasing the number of visas, and so is his labor secretary?
I guess you'll have time to follow his every move on cnn and in the coffeehouse when you are unemployed. And even before today, the stock is down deeper than Nasdaq during the crisis. What kind of executives do we have who can not make decisions and can not run a company, what kind of board do we have who do not adress these obvious issues?
However I'll confirm that Robbie sent a very vague email that announced some mgmt changes but neither confirmed nor denied layoffs. Correct me if I am wrong - a H1B cannot receive any type of job description change. It depends on how the employer operates. Pretty awesome that the only word so far from LisaB and HR is a blog post over a month ago about the HR site redesign. I would settle for anything, even if it was just a "come drink the kool-aide!
We have lost 20 guys so far. Some of them were on the bench though. I've only been here 1. But I'm also on a TN visa -- should I be extra scared?
Are you benefiting from it? Everyone know it's a source of cheap and obedient labor. I am in Services and just got canned today after 11 years with MS and 7 years with Services. Had Achieved or Exceeded for last 7 years except once 3 years ago was promoted last year.
No details on any. I was a local expert in sharepoint and workflows. Published to MSDN. Was lined up to speak at TechReady. And had a full time customer billable gig until June 09 lined up The utilization is an interesting story. I took a parental leave, full 12 weeks. That is supposed to come off your utilization target in a year essentially take hours supposed to work and subtract 12 weeks.
Well, I dug into numbers yesterday and they only appear to have subtracted 8 weeks. That extra month of supposed utilization really skewed my numbers downward. There is reason for optimism for Microsoft. The company has a tremendous business model with relatively low fixed costs compare to Intel , no debt load used to finance sales IBM and broader diversification than current technology thought leaders Goog, Apple.
Steve and management team care deeply about the company and it's employees. I think that is why such a tepid plan for fte reductions was announced. The team could also reduce the layers of organization, process and cost in HQ and regional HQ's. The thousands of people in Marketing, Business Managers, Program Managers needs to be cut in the double digits at a minimum. The team needs to set a goal for what it wants to achieve - it is one of the largest most successful publicly traded companies in the world - and investors have no idea what the goal is for increasing value.
Now employees are also confused. This place has great opportunities to create value. It needs to move fast ahead of the inevitable decline in the Office and Windows franchise values.
An opportunity exists for continued greatness The company has had a great 30 plus year run and defied critics numerous times The challenge is greater now than ever. To help with mini's request.. I was part of a RIF about 8 months ago.
First, the outplacement service MS offers if it's still the same one , kind of sucks. The only thing of value is their web site. Of course, do the obvious.. There are a lot of ex-msft out there working at either companies they started, or for other Tech companies. It's highly likely you know them, or know someone who knows them. I'd prefer to be laid off and retain some dignity. Take advantage of the counseling benefit and get in and see someone to help. When I left, Mini was just getting up to speed and this was a great outlet.
I had a sweet glass of scotch last night after hearing about my old dipshit manager getting cut. Its about time. If you are someone who only focused on how to build institutional knowledge about how MSFT works you know all the TLA's , then you may struggle a bit on the outside. But if your tech skills were truly good enough to get hired at MSFT and stay on awhile, then you will be a valuable resource to your next company.
One interesting scenario I talked with old microsofties about was this: what if SteveB announced that during the terrible economic crisis, MSFT wouldn't lay off a single person non performance related. Think of how much loyalty and goodwill that would have built?
Everyone would be lining up to show their loyalty and getting logos shaved into their heads or some such stuff. Once again showing how to lead in this industry and refute the popular myth of the company as a ruthless place. This kind of action would have inspired the masses and added to the legend of the place. Before I finish, I do think SteveB had a sleepless night like many of the folks who were fired or did the firing yesterday.
I think he's the one exec who will stand tall and take the body blows that we all fling at him and upper management. This wasn't the most gracious way to handle the layoffs, but its not like the company has much experience in the area. Take your skills, dust off the resume and show people you still have intellectual horesepower.
Long time reader, first time poster]. CNN's saying that Microsoft can pink slip anyone at any time. Gee that's a serious morale piece of information. Lots of people that I know are not worried about losing their position. Because they're awesome. Be the best and don't worry. If you're a dev, fix the most bugs, write code that is well factored faster than everybody else, become not only awesome but evangelize and help make everybody around you better.
If you're a tester, open more bugs than everybody else, understand product quality, advocate for the customer and be the best tester on the entire team. If you're a PM, write better designs than everybody else that balance simplicity with power with development time, understand enough about development to know what's practical and figure out what we need to do to outperform everybody else.
Be the first person that your group manager would want to hire and the last person that they'd want to let go. If everybody were to do this, we'd all benefit and sell more product as well. I'm not worried about losing my job because I'm a top performer on a team that makes a ton of money. I can't control my god-given talents but I can control how much effort I put in so I out-hustle everybody else. It's a formula that works in every industry. There are enough slackers or average people in the world and, yes, even within Microsoft that frankly it's not that hard to stand out if you really want to.
Be that person and you don't have to worry either. And if your group is not making money then make it make money. Agree with a lot of comments. Overall the Townhall was a load of BS. They came they talked and never answered straight.
We have too much fat in the middle and senior levels- we spend too much time looking important in hour long at a min meetings when we can get to the point in 20 min because the CVP has no control over the marketing blabbermouth , who once he gets the stage will never let go so we cant get to the real issues.
My husband was cut yesterday, after being hired within the past few years. There is no "generous severance" for people with a short tenure, as that one week of severance for each six months, after you sign the severance agreement waving all your rights to sue them.
I would stop the K match before taking away the free pop, if it were up to me. Let's see, what else - oh, hey, stop bringing people into work who have to be relocated from other countries at great expense and great effort to work aroound Federal requirements. Look at any executive perks or excess that can be put on hold for a year or so.
We do not live extravagantly, but are now looking at what we will have to sell, from holding a "Microsoft Layoff" garage sale, to selling the cars and the house, and possibly breaking into the kid's college fund. We will be using our prepaid legal counsel for the first time, to have them go over the severance agreement, write our wills, and discuss how bankruptcy works. For everyone who is laughing that their keycards still work - it's not over yet.
The Seattle Times is quoting people by name who say they don't actually know anyone who is laid off - well, ask around, or wonder why you don't actually know the people who have disappeared in the night from your hallway.
Them former Micrsoft employee at my house is devastated - professionally and personnally, and keeps saying "I'm sorry" to me - over and over and over. Beware any confidential one-one meeting request, especially if you are busy celebrating your safety.
My husband said we might have to move in with his parents, but hell will freeze over before then - we have friends with basements, so maybe that will be the solution in 6 months.
We will be pulling the kid out of his pay-to-play sports, and cancelling his tutor for his learning disabilities when we can't pay that any longer. If you are still on the payroll, do what we are doing - go to the doctor for your last physical, get your dental work caught up, and kick yourself every way that you didn't refinance the house in November - do it now, don't wait to hope that the rates will drop some more. Good luck to everyone - my husband loved working there - said it's the smartest bunch of people he has ever been priviliged to work with.
Sorry to break it to you, but effort is not the problem. Doesn't matter how brilliant or diligent your developers are if upper management sets them up to fail.
A GM in one group yesterday said that they were cutting "roles", that the decisions of which roles to cut were made fairly high up, and it didn't matter who was filling those roles.
Super star? Didn't matter. If you're in a role that got cut, you're out. At least SharePoint is making money. Maybe that's just your grief talking, but seriously, come on. I'm really sorry about your husband losing his job though. I hope he has luck with finding a new one. We should each feel responsible for the success of our product even though we can't decide what features we decide to go after.
I acknowledge that that was a glib statement and nobody's saying that an entire product's developer staff is lazy - in fact I hope that the top developers from cut groups join my org :.
How did your theory work out yesterday? Shareholders didn't applaud it. That's just the beginning too, because without forward guidance there is no clear target for 09 EPS, therefore no good way to determine an appropriate current price.
If it's so tremendous, efficient, and diversified, why did MS miss while three of those beat? Best comment yet. Yes, they could. Steve even seemed like he might at the beginning of yesterday's call.
But by the end it was clear his first statements were scripted contrition and his real feeling is that everything is A OK as is.
The meaning isn't that you can do it by yourself, but that we all have to be accountable for the success of our organization. As a grunt you only have control over the stuff you do, I certainly cannot control investments on Zune, Xbox, and Online Services, or any other business that does not make much sense for Microsoft to be in.
Default back to core competencies instead of having our hands all over the market. That refocusing can only come from the top. Unless my manager sits down in my office and says not to worry, the potential by itself will discourage me. I'm also a top performer on a team that makes a ton of money. I do not feel safe. That number of people is fewer these days. I would now expect it to decrease further. If you're management, I would suggest talking to your stars and verifying with them their job safety.
If you cannot do that, I would expect some stars to shine less brightly. Some people are motivated by belief in the company more than money. That belief is shakier now. Probably not actually a good thing. I personally don't know anyone who is 'rich enough to retire' anyway.
As for your situation, sorry to hear about your husband's layoff. It's never easy to go through, but the reality is you more often than not come out on the other side in a better situation. Not much comfort when you are dealing with the initial shock and anger and grief of it, but I've been there more than once and experience has taught me that you will survive.
And, eventually, you will thrive again. So, take a deep breath, let your husband vent his distress, anger, grief, etc. Chances are after this you will never be caught unprepared again. In my opinion, it's best to think of all jobs as temporary 'gigs' these days anyway. If you let other people control your destiny, they will. Best of luck to you and your husband. In fact, as another poster pointed out, it may be that some of us rose too quickly, incited a bit of jealousy, etc.
Who knows, really. I'm moving on. I couldn't agree more as an outside shareholder. Why must they have their hands in everything? Do a few things, and do them well.
You're right, a lot of other measures should have been exhausted first before resorting to layoffs. Anonymous said In keeping with this sentiment, he will not give a rat's ass about the next people he cuts, either. PLEASE don't pretend that the executives care about my family as we deal with the loss of a job that we thought would be the place where a difference could be made in the software universe. Don't do the happy dance yourself just yet, over the fact that you and your best pals weren't cut - yet.
Your reference to the Sword of Damocles seems out of place, being applied to the employees at large.
The Sword must hang over the head's of those in power -- Partners, Exec's, most importantly of all, over Steve. Operating expenses will increase in the second half from a year ago. We view [yesterday's] expense announcement as only Round 1. The damage is done that Microsoft never does layoffs.
Therefore in the future layoffs will not be a surprise anymore. It important to remember that no job is for life and it is up to you as a person to be responsible about your own future. To those people that have been laid off, I feel sorry for you but in another breath you have a choice to make, either you going to consider yourself a victim or you going to step up and say okay I need to take charge and plot a new journey. Really Microsoft is just catching up to how it happens in other organizations.
So it is an end of a era for the old Microsoft and welcome to the new way things will be run Google is hiring Check this link, WinMo is hopeless. Think for a minute about the dynamic this sets up. Managers are incented to climb and take on big flashy things and rarely if ever punished for their failure. Well, now the only talent they're going to be able to recruit for anything that MIGHT fail, are tenured employees actively seeking severance packages, who WANT it to fail.
Welcome to the brave new world. You're going to see if consumers go for it? You're surprised that the kind of people who'd have phones that play music would be upgrading every months? The corporate culture a MSFT is horrible. I've only been working here for six months and I've never wanted to leave a place so quickly.
The caste system that has been implemented will cause this company to rot from the inside. Managers do nothing but warm chairs in meetings and send out emails that nobody reads. Vendors are overworked and never given the time to complete tasks. They are also given jobs that should be in house you know vendors have access to ALL payroll information, they're the ones prcoessing it. So I will be on the list of people who will be looking for a new job while milking the clock. Could it be So I'm one of the director level folks who's job was eliminated yesterday.
The general reaction from my peers to the news has been What the fuck? Looks like we know which PUM bends over and which drives. I am drawing a blank on their names. What Directors got laid off?
Am I only the one who thinks Lisa B could have dressed up a bit. Cargo shorts and a sweatshirt? Was he not given 60 days to find a job? Seriously, bankruptcy? I'm sad that your finances are such. We all make decisions And we all pay a price for our decisions. Surely you are just reeling from the shock - your DH will find work. You may have to move, but work is out there for talented people with a good skillset and proven track record. I disagree on most of your points. The K, the legal program, and even the transit does this!
If people cannot give, Microsoft doesn't match charitable contributions. If they do, thank GOD that Microsoft matches in such a bleak time as this. Charities need money now more than ever! To help people in dire financial situations - like those that cannot even afford a bag of rice! You are trying to justify why your husband should have been kept.
There is no reason to look back. It won't be easy but you will grow from this. I'm guessing your financial decision making will grow substantially since you mentioned selling cars, selling possessions, and possible bankruptcy And for those whose finances are "paycheck to paycheck", please take note and plan for the deep recession we are in! Hoping you don't get laid off won't pay the basic bills if you do.
The most telling point of the whole town hall meeting was when a woman in near-tears, listing off the kinds of people who'd been laid off, asked someone on that stage to just say "I'm sorry". Ballmer took a good 3 minutes to very pick his way around that to avoid saying he was sorry, instead saying he felt bad for people but not sorry he eliminated positions.
Make of that what you will, good or bad. And Lisa was as almost completely incoherent as she was inappropriately casual-dress for a somber discussion about the state of the company.
I so hope my test ex-mgr got axed The HR person was a guy. Plus my ex mgr was part of the good ole boys club I got 3. I am proud that while there are a handful of people spewing anti-immigration rhetoric, there are more people condemning it. As a white lifelong US citizen, I am happy to welcome anybody from anywhere to my country.
As a previous poster said, if you don't like things, vote with your feet. Stop making life unpleasant for the rest of us. I think somebody is trying to intentionally derail this comments thread with anti-immigration trolling. Let's please ignore this and get back to the business of making MSFT a better place with grownup solutions, not hate speech. Then, let us all name names of the nincompoops running the place who we think should go. It is time to stop being theoretical and to get specific.
Microsoft does not provide numbers for its contract staff, but analyst Sid Parakh at McAdams Wright Ragen said he estimates the figure to be between 40, to 60, Microsoft said it will cut spending on contractors by up to 15 percent, on top of the full-time job cuts. Microsoft was saying they need h1b because they can't find talent here.
BS there is so much good talent graduating each year hire them. Steve isn't expecting a quick rebound. From the conference call: "Our model isn't for a quick rebound. The economy shrinks and then it builds from a lower base. No, I'm not expecting a bounce. When we did our resizing, we did with an eye toward margin, total profit, shareholders in the short term and long term investors.
A year, two years -- I don't know what it'll be. Strong performers not necessarily safe. Today's job cuts are really about reducing investments in projects that don't make sense. Good and bad performers' positions are being eliminated alike, though the good ones will likely find a place somewhere else in the company. Mini-Microsoft: "Microsoft should be better than this.
And laying people off. The day that has been rumored for a month now has come. And the staff reductions I've been wanting since starting this blog back in are here, though within an economic context I certainly Do Not Want. I wanted intelligent, well-thought-out leadership to have seen long ago that we've doubled our ranks far too fast and exceeded our ranks beyond what we can sustain let alone need. Yet here we are now, in the choppy waters of the global economic crisis, being reactive rather than opportunistic.
Microsoft should be better than this. Severance details. Capped at 39 weeks. On life after Microsoft. From Mini-Microsoft comment thread : "Best of luck to everyone in the coming months. I left Microsoft over a year ago for several different reasons.
One of which was because I thought the company had become too big for itself and it had become too hard to get stuff done Life outside Redmond has been different and at times more difficult. But at the same time, it has been much more rewarding. Layoffs are tough, but they often bring new opportunities both for those who leave and those who stay behind. Eliminitations are in the works.. Low performers will be fired without severance later?
From the Mini-Microsoft thread , an employee comments: "There will also be a "performance management" portion, where they lay you off without a severance package. And then there will also be a lot of people who can't bear an axe hanging over their neck and leave voluntarily.
I'm certainly contemplating this. Moscow safe, phew. Just got the axe today. I am in MCS as an Architect. I had been working on a number of technologies with customers such as Active Directory, Exchange and in some cases Virtualization. Recently the sales cycles have been extended due to customers pulling back on what they had planned to implement. TEDK was graceful about it.. I did not get that feeling while watching steveb at the townhall..
Layoffs are obviously no longer a big deal. It looks like the media reaction was very muted this time around. Add the bump to the stock price and management has every reason to make those layoffs a regular and permanent fixture of life at MSFT. The subsequent layoffs will be just a patch.
He he you know all of our products need bug fixes and patches. AlexGo is clueless on search or ads. It is a shame we keep degrading our credibility in front of Google by promoting AlexGo to an even more important position.
Qi should do something to stop the BS Same goes to the group of Search PMs who surround satya all the time. May be by less than one fourth of them we can get all the works done. My sense is that Tedk does care of his people. He sent e-mail after all is done but that did provide a relief for the rest who survived the layoff. I recall that driver that was running in real time and was the top crashing issue in PSS.
Aha, you didn't know that we keep promoting people who couldn't ship or deliver innovative product? However, he thinks he is smarter than most people around him and he didn't want any help from people around him. Except Brian A big pumpkin van was in front of 25 today, some press people came out and got in.
Joe Austin said it well as he was leaving to Juniper, the end is near as he pointed at the stars. Went to Alexgo's office hour once to talk about poor leadership, release management and quality of the product I was from Windows and did not like what I saw when I moved to adCenter.
He dismissed them as non-issues, and were pretty happy about what was going on at the time He was either fooled by people around him or he is too dumb to see them.
Never felt inspired by him or any other leaders in adCenter I didn't get that. This layoff was skewed towards marketing roles rather than engineering. Is that really where the fat at Microsoft is concentrated? In my org, only job shares were let go. Finance changed how they were allocated so instead of two part-time people sharing a head, they split it into two heads.
Completely removed the incentive for job shares without telling the affected employees, which are also disproportionally senior women with families. Go, Microsoft, keep those senior women leaving in droves! What about the people in Windows that are "working from home" this week due to the giant office move? Anyone cut there?
Regarding AlexGo, I had the pleasure of knowing him briefly in my earlier days and I thought he was a very strong, competent, developer. He was responsible for work on COM and the rich text control. However as he moved up through the ranks it seemed as if he was being promoted outside of his area of expertise and he always seemed uncomfortable in an increasing array of senior roles. The worst part of promoting engineers is that as they lose contact with their technical peers and move away from being individual contributors, they continue to have influence on the product but either become increasingly reliant on their reports to control the product quality or, for those whose ego won't allow them to do that, they try to jump in and control the quality without being directly hands on with disastrous results.
We need to eliminate development manager and partner engineer roles, all of which are principally management directly or indirectly and focus on technical development leads being promoted to chief software engineer roles where they both contribute to and control the code and are ultimately accountable for the quality.
This model works extremely well in the open source world. It would be instructive to think about people at Microsoft who went into development manager and now moved back to SDE lead.
It happens a lot more often than you think and for a good reason. Anonymous said Wednesday, November 04, PM No, no! I saw him in the bathroom doing the Seattle Times Sunday Jumble.
He looked pretty stumped. Agree with the first poster about MSN. I was there too and talk about dead wood! So many people that have just lingered there because they cannot work anywhere else. Have not heard about cuts, tho, unfortunately. Now it is making sloppy silver-light toolbar that it ships with Sun Java download :.
Based on the way the layoffs were handled today, it's clear that the Microsoft SLT no longer feels obligated to even attempt transparency or empathy. Once upon a time, management at least least went through the motions of telling employees that they were an important resource.
Now, they're only useful until the current release gets out the door, unless they've curried favor with the right folks. I feel like most of us are stamped with an expiration date now. In some cases, the faster you reach your goals, the quicker you can be put into the "kim" bucket. The economy has made it easier than ever for SLT to think of senior and more expensive employees as expendable, only to be replaced by eager-eyed cheaper new hires.
This attitute does not help people or teams achieve success, not to mention the mental toll of doing the increasingly intricate MYCD and August review dances. Never mind that for some orgs, stack ranking comes before people turn in their reviews. It bugs me that SLT was so clueless about the advice of some economic analysts and hired willy-nilly over the past few years.
In the Puget Sound, it added fuel to the rising housing prices, overcrowded schools, and screwed up local traffic. Now, some people's livelihoods are derailed, and everyone with a soul is mentally impacted as they think about their laid-off colleagues. The guidance for SLT for the future is: "anticipate, anticipate, anticipate! If not Are there other WARN notifications that are going to show up over the next few days, to bring the number in line with what was announced?
Hello gregoire.. Ballmer - thanks for paying off the state, can you give me 30k for unemployment? If he was empire building, he would have stayed over in SE, not come over here to Azure I heard of some people bumped in Health Solutions and Public Sector.
Friends tell me he had a 40 OHI before they finally put him in a "new sales role. That guy could have saved us millions. Proxies are out - cast your votes on the board, shareholders. New board, and Turner out. Thursday, November 05, AM If dell can dump Kevin Rollins, we can dump KT. Wednesday, November 04, PM geez. Hell, the damn tool isn't even ready before stack ranks are performed.
Heard second hand that the entire Danger office in Boston was closed, and all of those employees laid off. Don't know the number of people involved. That's BS.
It was posted on the intranet page. You don't need an email from management every time we issue a press release, no matter what the topic. It was also a topic discussed in the last town hall. I think the SLT is useless. Even if I thought they provided value, I still wouldn't have expected an email from them with more info.
What is the "dial business"? What is "pre-corrigan"? Hiring bar was pretty low for the last few years. Since all the orgs, hiring managers would hire independently there were lots of corruptions. At certain cases favors from hiring manager played crucial role than technical expertise. Lots of unqualified people were hired way above their level. Search is one such organization. Reviews are written for your future managers wow - that was a very HR-ish statement - sorry. Your calibration should NOT be based on what you write in your review, it should be based on a year's worth of work that both you and your manager are aware of accomplishing.
You're kidding, right? Operative term: "should". Case in point: Although my manager saw report after report after report after report listing me as responsible for project X throughout the year, she still claimed in writing at review time that I had NOT in fact been responsible for project X based on a faulty summary SHE had made of my accomplishments. Ideally, managers "should" use the employee's self-evaluation as a verification of their understanding of what the employee has achieved.
And heya, managers, if an employee says something on their self-eval that you think is inaccurate, save yourself embarrassment by discussing it with them and getting the story straight BEFORE you question their accuracy in the manager comments section of the review.
Orgs are always performing stack ranks with a regular cadence. This isn't something to worry about. Steve - Land Rover -- new ford focus :. The big cheeses have confirmed, once again, that we employeefolk are indeed 'at-will' employees. So much for the notion that " And the SLT is telling us that loyalty is expected for about 8 hours a day, because that's all we're being paid for.
After years and years of blogging, senior management is still as dumb as ever and the company is still a rocket ship accelerating towards the ground.
You're obviously a talented person and it's time to pull the rip cord for your own sanity. I'm glad you jumped on board with the rest of the human race and bought an iPhone.
Now you just have to finish the job and quit. We're all waiting for you on the outside. Do tell. During the Give campaign I received at least a dozen reminders from people at various levels of middle management in the district, region or US level, all with some variation of manager, general manager, or VP in their title.
It really struck me as our consultants are struggling to find engagements to stay busy and avoid the axe or get dumped into that bottom bucket during annaul review because they weren't utilized that we have entirely too much management, and it is focused on the wrong priorities. Best line in Don Dodge's blog entry: My email at Microsoft will go dark in a day or two, so my new contact is DonaldDodge gmail.
Brought a huge grin to my face! I'm one of the Got a call on my cell to inform me of this job eliminated because they were consolidating locations and was not about job performance. Got to my hotel room and found my network access was already cut off. Exciting times. I fear for the customers of what had been my product for all of these 14 years. Senior management is as rich as ever and ready to fail-upward. Roz Ho Corporate Vice President, Premium Mobile Experiences Exclusive: Pink Danger leaks from Microsoft's Windows Phone [Page 3] "She was also responsible for the "Pink" codename, which has a lamer backstory than anyone has guessed: she was listening to a song by Pink the singer when she decided she was just the person to go one-up the Sidekick.
I heard second-hand that a consulting firm was brought in to direct how this round of layoffs went down.
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