Saturday, May 07, 2005

You mean you just have to say what you want?

Well thank goodness that seems to be over. Though a bit late, and we shuffle to the grave of HB 1515 to praise it rather than bury it, the whole bumbling I think had one fantastic result: when enough pissed off employees express their displeasure, executive management does take notice and act.

I can only hope that this new bit of realized empowerment can be channeled into something just as effective from the point of view of employee owners being concerned about the direction of Microsoft and the lack of accountability for those unable to ship. Speak up!

Now if you find yourself on the other side of the issue and being pissed off about Microsoft's support and feeling this isn't the company for you, well, sit right down. All that advice I gave to pro HB 1515s applies just as well to you. If you feel this company's actions are out of line enough with your values and what you define as important in living your life, there are plenty of other places I'm sure that'd be willing to hire you onto your staff and not trouble you with such political theater.

Rather than just cursing about it, follow Jeff Koertzen's example of living his values and submit your resignation and move on.


Other than that, things will be slowing down here as the weather gets nice and I find myself enjoying biking into the late sunny hours. Unless I get a flash of brilliant insight I just have to share (which I'm sure you know the odds-on favorite for laying your money down on the likelihood there), I'll be happy to post once a week. There's certainly a lot happening to type about: the major review, upcoming re-laddering for PM and Dev, welcoming our new HR chief, and decoding Bob Herbold's advice to Microsoft. But right now, the road is flat and wide and dry, and I have many miles to peddle pedal before I type.


Updated: just finally got around to fixing this HTML-escaped post. Closure. Ah. Plus going through wiping out the usual naught comment-spams.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is great to see that MS is finally starting to get the message that when there is an outcry by a large number of employees something needs to be done. This is very different from the way they handled last summers benefit cuts.

If things like this had been done sooner, I might still work for MS.

Anonymous said...

Could you go into more depth on the upcoming re-laddering? Also, do you have any advice (besides go else where) for a new employee? I'm starting as an SDE in mid-July.

Anonymous said...

My dear, your slip, ahem...HTML markup, is showing!

Anonymous said...

Maybe there should be an outcry about why it takes an outcry to get something done.

Anonymous said...

Reladdering devs and PMs. Again. Right, THEY are indeed source of all the trouble. Yes, it is them who approve 'black hole' projects. We really need to crack on those pesky level 60 guys...

Anonymous said...

And I think you mean "pedal."

Reminds me of some devs I know who have a habit of doing big, broken code checkins right before they leave for the weekend...

Anonymous said...

Perhaps mini-Microsoft is actually Eric Gunnerson? They both seem to enjoy riding bikes...

Anonymous said...

Nah, Eric has a family right? I get the impression this guy is single..

Anonymous said...

"Perhaps mini-Microsoft is actually Eric Gunnerson?"

Perhaps you're an asshole making reckless speculations about who Mini is?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I agree with something on that topic.

I think reckless speculation should be avoided. But if it happens, the person speculating should at least identify themselves.

Anonymous said...

It's great that you've mentioned Bob Herbold's advice.

His own division is having so much of the issues that his "advice" is trying to fix.

Perhaps that's why he left.

Anonymous said...

"Perhaps that's why he left."

Or perhaps he was smart enough to see in advance what the future held for MSFT and its stock price and got out at the peak for both?

Anonymous said...

re-laddering?? What?

Corpnet link, please!!

Anonymous said...

then maybe you should tell your senior execs that if they can't grow the company could they at least stop tanking the stock by leading the ENTIRE market in insider selling?

Anonymous said...

Someone who can't even correct this horrible HTML-mixed-with-text should not be working at Microsoft. I propose we get rid of Mr. Mini-Microsoft. Let more deserving employees get his salary.

Anonymous said...

My vote goes to letting mini-msft stay. I like the blog.

Anonymous said...

"My vote goes to letting mini-msft stay. I like the blog."

I second that. While growth slows to a crawl, the stock collapses, we can't ship shit and Bill/Steve give their prerecorded "everything's fine and success is just around the corner" spiel, at least Mini is trying to avoid this death spiral by highlighting the issue and trying to identify and address some of the causes. You may or may not agree with him/her but at least he recognizes what the market clearly has, namely that there's a problem - and has provided a forum for others to comment and present their own ideas. Given that senior management still seems unprepared to even acknowledge that a problem exists, I'd say that's a valuable service.

Anonymous said...

This is actually not related to the post, but I coudln't find a better way to ask this question, so please forgive me.

I'm interested to find out, if I quit MS right before Sept 1st, say, mid Aug (suppose all ranking, reviewing is done by this time), will I still get my annual performance bonus?

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

"Let more deserving employees get his salary."

LOL - you mean "More politically correct, quiet employees that will not call BS when they see some"??

Or - should we fire Mini and hire another manager?

Whatever... I hope Mini sticks around for a while.

Anonymous said...

mini-ms is putting out the truth.

I just hope that all this spring cleaning is for real. I hope it hits hardest in Windows those clowns in Networking Experience need to be cleaned out.

Hey Dalen .. look out

Anonymous said...

doh

Anonymous said...

I believe that the team formerly known as netxp has died.

Unfortunately, the CYA'ers are still there.

SL

Anonymous said...

Did Mini get canned? This post went up with errors almost two weeks ago now...it might have taken maybe ten minutes to fix.

Anonymous said...

I hope Mini is still with us.

If he got canned, seeing that this site is not hosted by MS, I'd expect him to post something anyway.

Could be using vacation days? :)

Anonymous said...

they are probably on vacation or busy at (winhec *cough)

Anonymous said...

maybe mini was really Ken the former HR guy. At least he had added "benefits" that others aren't getting...