Sunday, October 03, 2004

Microsoft Giving Campaign 2004

The Microsoft Giving Campaign 2004 kicks off Monday, October 4th.

I love the Giving Campaign (and Microsoft's matching-gift policy), but it has the potential to become the inadvertent victim to the meandering accomplishments of Microsoft as of late due to employee ill will. Perhaps it is our canary in the coalmine when taking the true pulse of Microsofties: lots of giving when things are going well and we're sharing our abundance. Flat giving and missed goals when things aren't going so great at One Microsoft Way.

We missed last year's goal even after the deadline was pushed out and we endured direct cajoling from BillG.

Did upper management bother to take something away from that? From what I've heard, what they've taken away is that this year's giving isn't going to have a real big deal made about. Maybe some banners. An email.

It's too bad that there's potential for all of us fortunate people not to be, well, giving of ourselves as we observe farces of cost-cutting around us (I guess they dropped Dilbert from MicroNews because it was becoming relevant). God awful wastes of money from misdirection and the lack of accountability does make you seriously wonder about whether you need to start playing the ant and build up some cash reserves of your own to weather the future vs. sharing with the greater community.

I hope I'm wrong about ill feelings towards Microsoft impairing our Giving Campaign. I hope we hit the top of the bell for this year's goal. But until we slim down and re-energize our company, I think we'll see mediocre giving to match mediocre leadership results.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

While I like the Giving Campaign and what it stands for, every year when the deluge of e-mails from everybody from BillG down through every level in the management chain, it simply sickens me.

I just want to throw up my hands and scream, "IT HAS BEEN THREE YEARS SINCE YOU HAVE ``GIVEN''. GIVE ME A RAISE AND MAYBE I'LL FEEL WILLING TO ``GIVE''" Then the guilt comes down the pipeline day in and day out, "give! give! GIVE! Everybody else is giving, why aren't you?!"

Really, does it have to be so painful and guilt-ridden? I thought we were supposed to feel good about being philanthropists - not having it shoved down our throat.