Microsoft Layoffs - Cinco de Fire-O
Well, if ever you wanted to console yourself with some tequila, today might be your day. Phase Two of the big Microsoft 2009 layoff engages today.
- Microsoft continues layoff plan, eliminates thousands more jobs - TechFlash Seattle's Technology News Source
- Steve Ballmer's internal memo on Microsoft's latest round of layoffs - TechFlash Seattle's Technology News Source
- Microsoft Starts The Layoff Machine Again Steve Ballmer’s Memo To The Troops Peter Kafka MediaMemo AllThingsD
Is this it? Will there be more? From Mr. Ballmer's email:
With this announcement, we are mostly but not all done with the planned 5,000 job eliminations by June 2010.
Strangely, Ms. Brummel have asked folks to avoid emailing each other today because the last layoff's email volume was so distracting. Gee, sorry to be a bother while people are trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Let's see... how to avoid that... I know, tell people what the hell is going on and which people / groups are affected. Oy.
Please, if affected by today's events, note which group you're in and any messaging about things going forward (as appropriate and proper).
(And please, Ms. Brummel, if you talk to the troops about this, don't share how people affected by the layoff are thanking you - that just seems creepy.)
Dropping moderation for today, but as usual: be responsible. I will delete comments later that are off-topic, along with any other comments that react to the deleted comments. If in doubt, go visit the CRF parallel thread: http://minimsftcrf.blogspot.com/2009/05/comment-stream-microsoft-layoffs-cinco.html
1,545 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 801 – 1000 of 1545 Newer› Newest»options question - once the ms options, from years ago performances, are vested, can people excercise them after they leave ms (either resign, are laid-off, or fired) but before the options expiration date, or is there any time limit on excercising them after leaving ms.
Not that I would give it large hopes for ms stock to trade above 26+ anytime soon or ever, but am curious.
"Also, anybody here knows about Satya Nadella? What has he done before Search"
I know. He interviewed with Amazon but couldn't get them to pay as much as us. (And on the first day he sent out a 'this is a great company and I and SUPER-EXCITED in its ability to win against Google, that's why I came here' email.)
Also, anybody here knows about Satya Nadella? What has he done before Search. What type of leadership has he provided in his previous group? Is he effective as a manager?
He served briefly as head of MBS (Dynamics AX, GP, etc.).
Emphasis on briefly.
And that's all I have to say about that.
You can figure out the rest.
Whether an ad platform should be smart enough to know when [x] is the name of a person who has written books, or made movies, or produced albums, etc., I'll leave that question up to more technical minds.
A few entries down in the Google search for "Robert Owen", you see:
"Books by Robert Owen
Observations on the Effect of the ... - 1817 - 102 pages
Robert Owen Prophet of the Poor: Essays in ... - 1971 - 340 pages
Debate on the Evidences of Christianity ... - 1829 - 566 pages
books.google.com - More book results »"
For movies, IMDB (Amazon) licenses their data.
For current music, license the data for current music from Amazon or some other company.
Enter "5 + 3" in google.com or search.live.com. Google just displays the result of the calculation and search.live.com displays the calculation results and irrelevant search results after it.
Do search and the ad platform share the same code for extracting semantic data from keywords? There's a long tradition of not doing that at Microsoft because coordinating work across groups is painful.
Google Rolls out Semantic Search Capabilities
Microsoft last year acquired Powerset, one of these companies, in order to improve its Web search engine with semantic search technology.
Two new improvements to Google results pages
Starting today, we're deploying a new technology that can better understand associations and concepts related to your search, and one of its first applications lets us offer you even more useful related searches (the terms found at the bottom, and sometimes at the top, of the search results page).
For example, if you search for [principles of physics], our algorithms understand that "angular momentum," "special relativity," "big bang" and "quantum mechanic" are related terms that could help you find what you need.
Lesson? Resign now -- why wait for the final humiliation? Leave with your head held high. You won't get unemployment or severance anyway -- so take the dignity route.
NO. This is factually incorrect.
If you are terminated, you ARE eligible for unemployment. No severance package, but unemployment, yes.
If you don't care about the $500/week - or if your "dignity" is worth $500/week to you - then go ahead and resign if that will really make you feel better. In this economy, though, consider that it might take you a while to land the next job. During those weeks or months, getting $500/week might not feel too undignified. And you know, you can still leave with your head held high, even if they fire you.
If you quit, you definitely are not eligible for unemployment. If you're fired, you should be (as long as you're not fired for banging the admin, running a porn ring from your office, or breaking any other laws).
one thing to do is take care of yourself, your physical and mental health. I didn't do this and felt I was having a breakdown due to the daily anxiety and constant criticism.
I also became weak(both mentally and physically) during this process. The managers are shamelessly dishonest about these type of criticisms. There are lots of such cheap managers who spend most of the time for finding fault of the employees rather than doing the actual development or management works.
What about managers? Have any managers been laid off? I can think of some groups around the company where there are manager levels taht are not required. What's going on in JAllard's group? Extremely top heavy. Has GMs with no reports
To those who made the "tough" decision of laying off employees indiscrimately, let me leave you with a portion of President Obama's speech today at Notre Dame :
"... an economy where greed and short-term thinking were too often rewarded at the expense of fairness, and diligence, and an honest day's work "
To the person being 'managed out'... I too shared your perspective. Like you, I had measurable results that were sky high.
Talent, Experience, Brains, Metrics, Revenue, Results, Happy Customers (internal, external, partners), favorable press and analysts reviews. Did not matter.
Working around the clock. Missing sleep. Missing weekends and holidays. Thinking just one more success would make the difference - the bully boss would finally stop finding fault with everything I did and recognize me for the talent I am.
Didn't matter. Sadly, I was one of the unlucky people laid off.
I now realize I was dealing with an abusive relationship - not with a spouse, but with a boss. NOTHING you can do will change the situation except LEAVING.
Even in today's economy - it's better to have your health and dignity than have to deal with a psychopath.
I mean literally a psychopath - lots of business and scientific research supports this - check
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/96/open_boss.html "Is Your Boss A Psychopath?" Fast Company
Your life is too short. Even though I am still searching for my next job, I face the journey with my dignity and pride and don't look back.
We went to some very different presentations then -- and I went to most of them, so I'm curious about which ones you attended..
Brown bags, rotating/guest speaker things, basically internal evangelism. The presenters were getting everybody fired up about the amazing hardware and lucrative industry. I apparently didn't go to the "this prototype hardware is inadequate and we won't turn a profit for ~8 years" presentations you attended.
XBox gen 1: I also remember attending a briefing, maybe a friday breakfast thing, not sure--where the speaker talked about the possibility for making big $$$ from the games, and the console being the lever to make it happen. Sorry this is so vague, you know it was several years ago now.
Getting "managed out":
this happened to me too. I found a new job last year. I wish I could say I "never looked back", but truthfully it was a traumatic period of life. Weathering it was in part due to reading mini-microsoft and coming to an understanding that bad stuff does happen, but you can get through it okay. A big part of how you recover is the attitude you take. For me, I had to honestly look inside and find areas of my life where I could improve, face up to it, work on making changes, and moving on. Also, I recognized that unfair things will always happen, just don't let it bother you to the point of letting others destroy your life and sense of self-worth. Fix what you can, come to terms with what you can't, don't let the b******s get you down. Living in the Puget Sound region, even though our family is struggling right now (changing jobs, economy, etc.) we realize we are some of the richest folks on the planet. So, I still try to give a bit to various charities when I can. Life is rougher right now, but truly truly not that bad. Ask any Indian coworker about their home country, and you can probably tell you stories of poverty to make your hair stand on end.
Oh yeah, as far as me being a middle-aged white guy, thinking about H1Bs: probably the USA gov should not allow any more until the economy brightens, but nothing but praise for the many fine coworkers and friends I had from India and China. Don't take it out on the people already here, they are just trying to better their own lives, like me.
>>Sony didn't need to cannibalize its own PS2 sales and chose not to. And while I think adding Blu-Ray to PS3 was a mistake if they wanted to win this round, it did have the end result of making Blu-Ray a success<<
Stop contradicting yourself. Funny how you're singing the praises of Sony, a company that just reported a billion dollar loss for the most recent quarter. If they're willing to take such a hit to ensure the success of BluRay, how is that any different from MS's position regarding the future of XBox, which by the way is making money NOW, something Sony can't and probably will never say this generation.
Lastly, on my YouTube comment, tell me...just what are the rules around when it's ok to lose a shitload of money on a product? Explain to me why it's ok for Google to lose money on YouTube.
Like I said, idiotic.
re: options question
There is a time limit of 90 days from leaving the company in which you can exercise your options. I give zero chance of this working for options at 26.
I'm glad I ditched all my options last summer while it was hovering around 28.
To the person (or persons) being managed our, or targeted for elimination: I agree with the previous poster (@12:14PM). Take care of yourself first. Sign up for the MS cares program, where you can talk issues over with professionals (all paid by MS). These people will give you good advice on how to navigate the MS management minefield. When I got targeted, this is what I did, and it helped me eliminate 80% of the stress I was going through.
Secondly (and this applies to all) always be aware of the vibes your manager is sending you. If ever you feel that you are getting bad vibes, try to figure out why (maybe talk to other peers, or your manager's peers, or a mentor) to see if you could figure out why your manager is doing this. If I look back at my last 1 year, and do some introspection, I can see that the biggest mistake I made was not to recognize these signs earlier. I had gotten subtle indications since Jan'08 that my manager was not happy with me, and inspite of me trying everything in my power to turn our relationship around, it didnt work, and I stupidly continued to work under him. I realize now I should have left long time ago.
So, my one advice to you is, always nurture your relationship with your manager, and if it is not working for whatever reason, QUIT! There is no product/technology/company great enough that you have to slave under a manager that does not recognize your accomplishments or value you as a person.
Esp in these times that MS has lost it's layoff virginity, the people who will get targetted once the slackers have been let go, are people who dont have a good relationship with their manager. MS will lose some good people and gain jerk managers. Sad, but that is the way things are going....
good luck! And remember that there is life after MS. I have a family with two children, and I was afraid of leaving due to the copious health insurance. But I realized that there is no dignity in working for a person/place where I am miserable, and my accomplishments arent recognized, and so I left. You should always weigh the whole package - salare/benefits + working environment and your happiness - and see which one works better. For me, it was no MS.
"So, my one advice to you is, always nurture your relationship with your manager, and if it is not working for whatever reason, QUIT!"
So very true. I was a low level IC and I did this 8 months back.
After slightly less than 1.5 years in my former role, I was expecting a level promo during Feb08. Didn't get it and my lead told me I was pretty close to one and would have gotten it had it not been a couple of minor fixable things. Subsequently, We had a reorg and I ended up with a new manager. He seemed(I still think he is) a pretty decent straightforward guy during 1:1s and whenever i discussed my level promo with him. We agreed on some of the things that I would do in the Feb-June 08 time frame to demonstrate I am ready for a level change. All along this time he kept saying "i was on track" and that but as a manager he would never commit on a level promo. I felt it was fair enough.
Come July 08, some time before the actual review discussion he indicated I didn't get a level promo - he said there wasn't a lot he could have done since I was under him only for less than half of the year and that he didn't feel i was ready for a level change. He also said my former manager had inputs in the process but didn't push for my level promo. I didn't get the level change and ended up with an A/70. I had to try again and I took up 4 pretty major (for my level anyway) responsibilities. We tracked for 2-3 months, again "things were on track" but "there would be no commitments'. At this point i was more than 2 years in to the role and teams were slowly going in to hiring freeze mode.
I realized i was heading for a A/10 and started looking around. Forunately, Teams were still hiring and i moved back to my home country to work in the field.
I would say the key thing is the difference between what you hear during your regular 1:1s vs the review discussion. If there is simply a lot of discrepancy for worse, you better quit or at least be prepared.
I am seeking advice from the mini community re: jobs in the Puget Sound.
I am one of the MS1400. Despite a tireless job search, I'm finding that job opportunities in the Seattle area are very limited for a tech marketing pro over 50.
Three questions
1. Is life better / different working for Microsoft as a- or v- contingent staff?
2. Since the layoff, I've been approached by H-1B vendors for temporary opportunities (top 3 months) at a 50% wage cut. Is this the norm?
3. I've explored every route for jobs I can think of (job boards, linkedin, facebook, dice, indeed, networking, etc). What job sources are people finding success?
"Xbox gen 1 was never slated to be profitable."
Then Bach lied. Because he gave several public interviews between 2001-2003 where he stated it would be profitable within a few years. Of course, he also said Zune would be the clear #2 by Christmas 2007 and sold a bunch of his options just before announcing the Xbox RROD disaster. So his credibility, along with his personal ethics, is somewhat questionable.
Satya Nadella - Let's talk a little about his "brief" experience in MBS.
1) To his credit, at that time Satya had the habit of going around and "talking to the troops", in small groups of about half dozen people, at all levels.
a) That backfired quickly. If you ever brought up during such meetings any problems happening in your team then Satya would send after the meeting an email message to whoever was in charge of the issue, copying you, your manager, and several other high-level people in the management chain. The end-result: a committee would be created to deny that the problem ever existed, and you would be toasted! The result is that people soon learned about this, and Satya would only get rosy reports during the meetings.
2) Again to his credit, Satya would really have an open door approach. You would be surprised on how accessible such person at VP level was (don't know if he still is).
b) Same as "a" above. Never bring up bad news, or you are toasted!
3) Satya didn't really have any knowledge about the line of products from MBS, but at least he tried to talk a lot with people and learn more about the subject.
c) And he failed. Probably Satya still thinks that SAP and Oracle are competitors to Microsoft Word and Excel, and never really understood what an ERP system is.
4) Satya at least is a loner, and don’t carry along a huge bunch of friends. He arrives and works with whoever is there.
d) However, Satya is very hierarchical. Despite the meetings cited on item "1", he would contribute to eliminate the messengers of bad news, as cited on "a", and always ends-up surrounded by a crowd of "Yes-Man". Look at the number of partners and principals in Search. It is almost an inverted pyramid. Who is really doing the manual work? Google has lot of manual adjustments to the search results, while Microsoft’s Search approach is still to find this Holy Grail that will suddenly make its results better than Google.
At least for MBS Satya managed to be a worse leader than Doug Burgum, and that is a hell of an achievement!
minimsft india has reached critical mass....gone public
Ways often used to manage people out at Microsoft:
1. SCRUM with 15-min time-tracking intervals and managers requesting hourly status updates, as well as urgent answers to the page of semi-related questions sent based on your daily scrum summary.
2. Automation (if tester), unit tests (if dev) with extremely unrealistic goals - like a deadline to automate 75% of testing, the week before the first code is due.
3. Having to document absolutely everything in great detail, present it in meetings, and revise it endlessly based on scenarios that get more and more outrageous.
4. People reporting to you despite you not being a manager - especially new people who need a ton of training, really annoying people nobody wants to work with, slow people who require the same explanation three times, and people working in other time zones that require you to video-conference at 4am for status meetings.
All this on top of your normal duties, plus you better also have at least one special highly-visible project that improves the efficiency of your greater team - have fun!
Another great thing to do if you are a manager and trying to "manage out" someone is to say in in-team reviews that code/docs are wonderful/perfect, then in greater-team reviews beat them down and ask how they could have missed such obvious errors/scenarios in front of as many people as possible.
And as both Sony's and Nintendo's examples show success or failure during one hardware cycle is no indication of what will happen in the following cycle.Both Nintendo and Sony were incredibly successful for all the previous generations.
Gamecube was hardly a flop (over 21 million consoles sold), and Nintendo has been an insanely successful company over several years with its consoles (even though the industry is cyclic, the leaders have stayed practically the same for a long time)
MBA 101, the money that Xbox lost is GONE. If you shutdown the Xbox division or keep it going that money is GONE, so do not cry over it.
The business logic is the following, if you kill Xbox right now, will you lose or make money? Xbox is profitable right now, so killing it is the wrong decision since it is making money. Sony is playing catch up with their online services for consoles, Microsoft has positioned itself as a leader in the industry, the Xbox is one of the few Microsoft products that has competed and succeeded in the marketplace. Something weird and bizarre to lots of MS employees.
Regarding being "managed out", I mostly disagree with @7:54 PM. Warning, lots to say here, maybe it's time to get a coffee?
The comment regarding reading your manager's vibes is dead-on, although it doesn't point out that this alone may likely be sufficient to save you. I was one of those stereotypical multi-award-winning engineers who had enough people skills and world-savvy to recognize a problem with my new manager as soon as a departmental reorganization was announced. In my situation, it was fairly obvious and others in the dept recognized the pattern of a C student being named to head the dept, likely to use their position to take revenge on the A students who'd shown them up over the past couple years, as soon as it happened.
I consulted with current and former senior MS managers in my network and my network's network, and took many actions to try to blunt the impact, starting even before my manager-to-be moved into his new job, to no avail.
When a manager dedicates 6 hours of their 8 hour day to nit picking at everything you do, down to complaining about the tone of voice you used one time in talking to a coworker, it's quite difficult to get one's work done AND answer all the complaints. And leaving either undone creates problems. It was all I could do to not exclaim at some points, "With all due respect, would you please start contributing positively to our department's results instead of focusing on making a key contributor's life miserable, reducing the department's output?".
Quitting before you have a job elsewhere may not be the best of several undesirable choices. Long timers may be comfortable with forgoing $600/wk unemployment, but someone newer to the industry might have less savings.
You may be able to fight for unemployment, alleging constructive dismissal tactics against you, but that's not assured. I know one "Kim" who succeeded in claiming constructive dismissal, whose unemployment eligibility was challenged at a hearing, and the unemployment bureaucracy sided with him. I don't know how common it is for them to do so, and would err on the side of caution.
Regarding MS Cares, as an alternative, go find someone on your own, OUTSIDE that program, if you feel that you are being wrongfully targeted. There are several counselors with pasts inside MS, but who haven't been associated with MS for years, who can advise people in "being managed out" situations. A couple are former MS PM's who know the engineering culture. MS Cares only helps hide and perpetuate the problematic situation of abusive managers; there are less biased resources in the area.
Keep your wits about you, as others have noted make sure you have copies of everything on your computer that has personal significance (contacts list, etc), don't keep too much personal stuff at the office, and one thing no one else has mentioned -- remember that it's often those with the least to lose, who are willing to take risks that can lead to big wins. It's almost a foregone conclusion that you're going out, and what's left as a choice for you is how.
Think not? A career involving a half dozen recent performance awards and a world-class professional network within MS ultimately didn't save me, due to the conveniently scheduled layoff. You don't know what unpredictable event could mean your demise. In previous years, the most common unpredictable event was a reorg that eliminated certain positions, giving the affected people a handful of weeks to find a new team before they were out.
Others have pointed out the resign/wait it out choice. But there's more than one "wait it out" option.
And I'm going to put forth one I don't think has been mentioned yet on mini explicitly, but others have implied it. It was suggested by my counselor a couple months before I seriously considered it as a workable option for a level-60 underling. (Note to lifers: people coming into MS are often notably underlevelled due to working in low-compensated geographical areas previously).
Take stock of all of your qualifications, knowledge and "who you know". Figure out what you can do with it at MS, for the benefit of MS, while still employed.. that's worth doing.. and that you might not do under more secure, reasonable circumstances. It might be in your department. It might not be. It might not even be in your specific discipline. And consider going for it just to see if you can create change that matters, for no reason other than the personal satisfaction of doing so. Remember, one of Microsoft's recruiting mantras is big impact. A level 60 with a well-researched, well-placed idea can do that; a level 60 with a well-placed idea and some execution if you have time for it is even better. In my counselor's lingo, "Look at the whole company as a huge lab, and use this as an opportunity to start experimenting. Sorry if it's a hard truth to hear, but you have little to lose."
One former GM I won't name, because he hasn't posted here for a while (but if you're still reading, feel free to post and cite the benefits of what you did!), comes to mind, although I have no idea if he thought he was on his way out. But he went for BIG change, and did actually create some small change that matters. THAT was an exit with class, and he gets extra points for having done something he can cite today to improve his cred in what he's doing now outside the company.
That is the path I eventually chose to take, more than a year into my personal experience of hell on the job - although I didn't do it with nearly the high profile the aforementioned GM did. I will never get the credit if the idea is a success. But I have the email trail that shows a somewhat major organizational change that improves the income/expense ratio was suggested by me. I'm not saying it's easy to do. I had to approach a parallel org in my network after my org shrugged off the idea as unworkable. The parallel org slowly (as big orgs do) moved forward on it. It was put into effect just days/weeks after I was tossed out in one of the layoffs.
And you know what? Here's the real bonus. My work on researching, developing and socializing that business idea was some of the most fun, challenging and professionally rewarding work I did in over a year. And because it was a sound idea, it didn't even really take that much work, just smart work, to get the right people to take it seriously. Of course, I had to recognize the right people (smart, biased toward rather than away from trying new ideas) some years ago and do the groundwork all along to maintain them as part of my network.
My gut feel is that if not for the economy, I would have lasted long enough to get the credit for the success of this idea and my reputation would have been restored by this parallel team citing positive results for the business. However, the scheduled layoffs provided a too-convenient opportunity for my management chain to get rid of me without proof of non-existent underperformance.
So, for those not yet in this position, who are new to MS and want to try to innoculate themselves against it: As others have pointed out, just doing your job well isn't enough if your management chain is determined to show that you're not. And even deliberately cultivating a good relationship with your manager may not be enough either; some managers are bad apples and your efforts won't necessarily make a difference if they don't like green-eyed people because of a bad childhood experience and you're the only green-eyed guy on your team. That's a blatant example, but it shows how ridiculous and non-employee-controllable the factors involved may be.
From my experience, it doesn't hurt to have networks in other orgs. It also seems to help to have a network that spans several levels of another org: people who get work done, managers who decide what work gets done, and GM's/PUM's with go/no-go on major initiatives. If you're really the rock star you might think you are, it won't be difficult to cultivate them. I do believe that if not for the hiring freeze, my network would have saved my MS career, because people around the company knew what I did for the teams I'd worked for and wanted me to contribute to their teams.
And now a challenge to you who think you're rockstars or wanna-be-rockstars, who are on the manage-out track due to what you consider a "bad manager". Think outside the box, and work to make a difference. Who knows, you may even meet with success if you're as good as you think you are and your present difficulties really are related to a managerial outlier. At the end, you may have nothing more to show for it than, "They used my great idea and kicked my butt out anyway," but it's probably a better result for your career than, "they kicked my butt out". And best case, you could find yourself moved from the dog track in your current org to the fast track in another one.
Lesson? Resign now -- why wait for the final humiliation? Leave with your head held high. You won't get unemployment or severance anyway -- so take the dignity route.
NO. This is factually incorrect.
If you are terminated, you ARE eligible for unemployment. No severance package, but unemployment, yes.
Perhaps you should do a quick check before spewing falsehoods, hmmm?
http://www.esd.wa.gov/uibenefits/apply/eligibility/am-i-eligible.php
If you are fired, you are NOT automatically eligible for unemployment, you have to make a case in order to even be considered.
About leaving with dignity, we were asked for opinions, and I gave mine --being fired at the last minute and escorted out of the building by security guards is not my idea of dignity. You clearly don't like differing opinions, you must be msft senior management.
I have no freakin respect for BillG. He knew MS was a sinking ship and he bailed out using philantrophy as an excuse. He could have done it staying as the CTO and even better, showing that he has the balls to show Balmer the door for bringing the company he LOVED (emphasize past tense) to its knees. Stupid Mofo Balmer, I seriously hope you choke on your own freakin spit if you jump like an AHole during MGX or the stupid company meeting. Thanks for ruining 2600 families - I hope you experience the suffering of all the folks who were laid off but still loved the company more than you. I sincerely pray that yur family feels the pain like those of the 2600 families. You SOB... all you needed is a middle name starting with 'O'
Can someone from HR comment on how many people are typically managed out every year? Has the frequency increased since 1/22?
wow, one message above is pretty eye-opening. literally there are double digit number of geem under the umbrella, more fascinating is only one of those has more than 9 heads.
My gut feel is that if not for the economy, I would have lasted long enough to get the credit for the success of this idea and my reputation would have been restored by this parallel team citing positive results for the business..
I admire, and to some extent envy, your ability to channel your energy to a productive end. I hate be cynical or burst your bubble, but odds are that some undeserving hack job is taking full credit for your contribution right now and will reap the rewards.
>>Then Bach lied. Because he gave several public interviews between 2001-2003 where he stated it would be profitable within a few years<<
If these statements are public, at least bolster your argument by providing links. Otherwise you're the one lying
Seems that most of the managers take the same approach during managing out people. Do they get any kind of training about how to manage out people?
1. Is life better / different working for Microsoft as a- or v- contingent staff?I can't answer the rest and I've been in Test & PM, not marketing, but I have been blue badge (from 1990-2002) and orange badge (from 2003-present)as both a- and v-. I like contracting A LOT better than full time. But that's probably at least partially because I am married to a blue badge and get covered under his insurance. If I had to pay insurance on top of what I'm making, I might not be so enthused. But I do love the freedom that comes with orange badge as well as never having to deal with BS political Reviews ever again. And I had been a blue-badge manager who did reviews, too, and I've hated the Microsoft review model from every angle. In fact, I think I hated it more as a manager than I did as an IC. It's wonderful to be free of that. On the flip side, as an orange badge, you'll likely not get quite the ownership/responsibility you get as an FTE. But you can still find cool things. It varies VERY widely how different groups/teams treat Contractors/Vendors. Some treat them just like FTEs and some treat them like serfs and vassals. If you can be picky, interview the group as much as they interview you.
I quit MSFT as a burnout after 12 years. I was sick-to-death of it and enjoyed pulling back and taking the stress/pressure off. It wasn't hard to go back as an orange badge (stressed or no, I got bored fast) at the time and my contacts and experience have proved themselves very useful. Times are VERY tough right now, though, and there really is very little available. But not nothing. Use your contacts/network over trusting Volt or Excell or Comsys or whoever to find you something. One of my relatives who had been FTE here for 5 years got cut on Cinco-de-Fire'O and I do feel that he was at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong manager. That doesn't make it easier for him to find a new job, though. Best of luck to all of you who got cut.
a) That backfired quickly. If you ever brought up during such meetings any problems happening in your team then Satya would send after the meeting an email message to whoever was in charge of the issue, copying you, your manager, and several other high-level people in the management chain. The end-result: a committee would be created to deny that the problem ever existed, and you would be toasted! The result is that people soon learned about this, and Satya would only get rosy reports during the meetings.Right on. And people think that giving negative feedback in the MS Poll will make things better for them. Ha! "You damn well better fill out your MS Poll and you damn well better fill it out positively or else." I wonder how much money Microsoft wastes on the MS Poll each year...
I admire, and to some extent envy, your ability to channel your energy to a productive end. I hate be cynical or burst your bubble, but odds are that some undeserving hack job is taking full credit for your contribution right now and will reap the rewards.Oh you know he or she is taking credit for my contribution and will reap the rewards! But if not for Cinqo de Fireo, I would have survived long enough to get to claim them for myself. Yes, I really believe that, because it was CLOSE. The timing just barely didn't work.
And the way I see it, spite alone is not a reason for not trying. Don't let my words kid you. It sickens me to see folks succeed on my efforts after trashing me and my work and my business idea(s). But there are benefits that accrue to me beyond an internal MS win that make it worthwhile.
I had a choice of not meeting stated expectations on entry-type junk work better befitting an intern than a 12-year industry person, and being bored and demoralized, or enduring that while also endeavoring to change a corner of the world. Either way, it was likely preordained I'd get nothing out of my efforts. But... which efforts might serve me better in the future? I contend it's the ones that involved work-to-true-level, which could be cited on a resume, along with the results of those endeavors.
Sure, some asshole wins from my efforts, but I'm still in a better position than I would have been if I hadn't tried because there are people on my reference list who can and will back up my work in that area.
And see, my thinking was similar to yours when the idea was first suggested to me. Why on earth help people out to destroy me? The final realization was, they're going to destroy me regardless because they've got their hearts, balls, whatever set on it, so how much can I get out of being here, FOR ME, for as long as it lasts? That it ended up helping someone else is, to me, unfortunate, but unavoidable.
It always amazes me when I see people -- including Mini -- advocating for how important it is to fill out the MSPOLL because hey, groups really do comb through the responses and try to address the feedback.
OK, if that's so, riddle me this riddler: why does our culture continue to degenerate year after year after year? Seems to me that all of the "effort" groups put into wringing their hands over the poll hasn't done a lick to fix what's broken at Microsoft.
So, I say screw the poll. It's a waste of time, even moreso because many groups apparently attempt to do something about the feedback but obviously don't really ever accomplish anything meaningful.
Save your energy for something that won't drive you crazy or threaten your job.
Can someone from HR comment on how many people are typically managed out every year? Has the frequency increased since 1/22?
Not from HR. But I think yes. Managing out is more convenient. They have cause of underperformance and they dont need to pay any kind of severance.
Listened inb on the MCS quarterly meeting. Mostly positive espescially for us in the federal sector. Showed slides from the MS poll. Positive numbers on employee feelings for MS were in the 90+ level for MCS, slightly higher than company as a whole. Negative's were less than 5%. Significantly different than the comments posted here. Maybe people are lying on the poll or this is site is way over representative of those 5%. Something to consider.
About leaving with dignity, we were asked for opinions, and I gave mine --being fired at the last minute and escorted out of the building by security guards is not my idea of dignity. You clearly don't like differing opinions, you must be msft senior management.
I am not the op of the comment that you are contesting with. But I am one of the people who were let go 2 weeks ago and I have to differ with you. Lay-off - i agree is not a pretty thing. But when a good chunk of your team is getting fired (more than 25%) - there is no shame too. Additionally in this economy, I think the severance package will cushion some of the financial blow. I had been sensing this for sometime and had accumulated maximum possible vacation too, which I will encash now.
We might have differening views on what entails 'leaving with dignity' , but my advice to people who are left in teams that are in danger of getting axe (Windows, most teams in office) is to brace yourself up for upcoming layoffs in those teams after win7/office14 releases. Do NOT resign, even if you fully know that you will be shown the door. Collect severance from MS and unemployment benefits thereafter. There is no indignity in it, and believe me, you will need all that money, until you land back on your feet.
On the other hand, there is no harm in looking for job outside, even if you are currently employed; but if I were in same situation as you (working on projects like win7 - which are about to face axe after release), I would not resign. Even if i get the next job offer, I would delay joining date until layoffs happen.
Now that's what I call awesome!!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124269038041932531.html
Concerned a brain drain could hurt its long-term ability to compete, Google Inc. is tackling the problem with its typical tool: an algorithm.
The Internet search giant recently began crunching data from employee reviews and promotion and pay histories in a mathematical formula Google says can identify which of its 20,000 employees are most likely to quit.
Re: The Internet search giant recently began crunching data from employee reviews and promotion and pay histories in a mathematical formula Google says can identify which of its 20,000 employees are most likely to quit.Our HR department probably does it too: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_12/b4124046224092.htm
To the anon who wrote, "Listened inb on the MCS quarterly meeting. Mostly positive espescially for us in the federal sector.":
MCS morale stinks in my org but I'm not surprised federal is feeling good. Gov spending is going thru the roof and that means more consulting work. Federal is probably the place to be, too bad I'm in the wrong geo for that, then again, I did one gov job and I couldn't stand the nonsense :-)
If you are fired, you are NOT automatically eligible for unemployment, you have to make a case in order to even be considered.
.
Nope, not quite.
I was "terminated" recently (just 2 weeks after being put of a performance management plan, and with zero subsequent feedback or guidance or any indication of how things were going from my manager).
So, yeah, I was escorted to the door. No severance, no nothing, after more than a decade there.
Formally, I was terminated for performance reasons. I applied for unemployment, and it's true that I didn't get it automatically. But Microsoft did not contest my claim, and after just 2 weeks, I started receiving the unemployment checks.
However, if I had quit voluntarily, I would definitely NOT have been eligible for unemployment.
FWIW, I've spoken to two other employees who went through something similar ("managed out" and fired) and they both got their unemployment benefits just like I did, after 2-3 weeks delay (in their cases, MS did not contest their claim either).
Bottom line: if you resign (quit, leave voluntarily), you are guaranteed to NOT get unemployment. If you are terminated, you probably will.
Not sure how much your dignity is worth, but in this economy 600 bucks a week can help you survive while your finding your next dignity-fulfilling gig.
I am one of the MS3000 laid off two weeks back and I have been with Microsoft for 9 years. Started applying for jobs and wrote an email to a hiring manager expressing my interest in the position. The hiring manager replies, when applying for a Microsoft job you should really rethink sending it from a gmail account. I wrote back to him that if you are determining my candidature based on the email account that I am using than my experience and credentials, I will like to withdraw my application.
This is the sad state of affairs at how the candidates are being scrutinized at the campus these days.
I don’t know if managing out has become more common statistically across MS but I hope so...
In this economy, even my average performers are under increased scrutiny. Doesnt mean they will lose their job or that my goal is to get rid of them, just that there is no "under the radar" any longer. The fact of the matter is that if I am confident that I can get more bang for the buck with your FTE position in the market hiring a new person then I see potential to get with you, you are at and should be at risk.
The economic downturn is hard on alot of people but one bright side is that healthy pressure is FINALLY being put on average performers to demonstrate continuous improvement. We all hear and see employees resting and vesting along with average performers that coast under the radar for years at a time. Neither set of employees is good for MS and deserve to get some attention which is starting to happen more and more. All employees should be very aware that every VP I engage with supports this approach 100% and HR is there to help make it happen and even encouraging it when managers are on the fence whether an employee is really low-average or below average. If you are a perennial Achieve/70% without any clear potential for delivering improved results, you should be concerned. This is how the performance management system was supposed to work all along but as a company we got lazy because managing performance is HARD WORK and we have too many managers that don’t like hard work… funny how losing all your open NTE suddenly provides the right motivation to manage performance as we should have been all along.
Do NOT resign, even if you fully know that you will be shown the door. Collect severance from MS and unemployment benefits thereafter.Being Terminated is not the same as being let go in a Lay-Off:
There's no severance if you are terminated.
Re: The Internet search giant recently began crunching data from employee reviews and promotion and pay histories in a mathematical formula Google says can identify which of its 20,000 employees are most likely to quit.Our HR department probably does it too: Oh, for cryin' out loud, this isn't magic. Any decent manager knows what creates flight risk and knows how to evaluate his or her team. MSFT even teaches this in manager training courses (which are suprisingly good considering the results - the company has people who know what good management looks like, they're just not the ones who make promotion decisions).
The problem is that the company is not structured to make good management decisions and does not have a culture that rewards competent management.
In all my years as a manager (at MSFT and elsewhere) I've only ever been surprised by one departure, and that turned out to be a guy who moved to another state so his wife could live near her terminally-ill father.
For the most part, it's easy to know who will be thinking about leaving and it's easy to retain people you want to retain, if your own management will support you. But MSFT, for all it's focus on retaining superstars, really doesn't give a rip at the higher levels. There's a mentality (fostered by the review system since Comp2000 went into effect) that almost anyone can be replaced. It's a necessary response to a review system that manages to severely dissapoint almost everyone sooner or later. You have to have the mental outlook that everyone is replacable when you know you'll eventually piss everyone off.
With Comp2000 (i.e. once the stock option bonanza ran out of rocket fuel), the company made a deliberate choice to sacrifice retention rates of non-Partners in order to keep Partners on the gravy train. Doing fancy number crunching about flight risks doesn't matter as long as that decision remains in effect.
I'm an outsider; I never worked for Microsoft.
But, I'm curious how exactly does a manager "manage out" an employee. Is it something beyond just nit-picking and fault-finding and making an employee's life miserable? Is it something more than just managing somebody in a petty, horrible way?
Whilst Microsoft India has fired over 500 employees in India, it is going and hiring from business schools
Congrats on achieving parity with Redmond hiring practices!
If you are terminated, you ARE eligible for unemployment.Regarding the managed out postings, can someone who has been managed out confirm you are eligible for unemployment? What is the separation status that Microsoft uses for managed out? Would you fall under the category "were fired or suspended by your employer,"?
The following is from the web site.
http://www.esd.wa.gov/uibenefits/apply/eligibility/am-i-eligible.php
Requirements
*You are probably eligible if your employer laid you off for lack of work.
*We have to make a decision about your eligibility if you voluntarily quit your job, were fired or suspended by your employer, or are on a leave of absence.
*We will get information about your separation from both you and your employer. Both you and your employer have an opportunity to respond to each other's version of the separation. We will then issue a written decision based on the information we gathered.
If
Seems that most of the managers take the same approach during managing out people. Do they get any kind of training about how to manage out people? I would guess that there is a script HR provides to the manager to follow that has been approved by Legal to protect both the company and the manager.
Re: "Ha! "You damn well better fill out your MS Poll and you damn well better fill it out positively or else." I wonder how much money Microsoft wastes on the MS Poll each year..."
I had assumed that MS Poll is confidential so I said what i had in mind. When they let me go i wonder whether they had access to the Poll and used this against me. Are you saying it's true?
I've created a LinkedIn group for the people (or anyone else) affected by the layoffs:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1967811
On what was written by Monday, May 18, 2009 6:16:00 PM
Managers saying sentences like I don't like your tone of voice or I don't like your body language definitely happen. If your manager starts to bring up such issues, involve your HR Generalist immediately. Your manager is trying to document a pattern of behavior, and you have to immediately protect yourself. You should talk with your manager about diversity, possibility of style differences, and use this as a reason to seek another position within the company. It is definitely possible.
New people at Microsoft need to understand that several high level managers of this company are nothing more than C or D level professionals. Mainly if you are dealing with one of those 15+ year managers, then you are definitely dealing with a loser. The A or B level professionals with 15+ years of Microsoft got rich and left, and stayed out. But C and below either didn’t get rich by doing bad deals during the boom years or, worse, got rich and somehow lost their money and got back. They literally lost the life already, and are nobody with their Microsoft title.
A lot of unwritten rules are there in the mind of several employees with 15+ years, and most of those are just stupid rules, like promotions should only happen every 3 years or you should be doing your job at next level for a year before promotion or even things like you should target someone within your peers and prove you are better than that person. These are all sentences that I really heard during my career at Microsoft. All those are lies. Believe on those and you will be working like a slave, creating artificial issues with your peers, and perpetuating this pattern of behavior yourself.
Now with the layoffs, it is hard to believe that the company is getting rid of this bad weed. Otherwise, we would see a lot of people at high level beyond escorted out of buildings, including several VPs.
"The hiring manager replies, when applying for a Microsoft job you should really rethink sending it from a gmail account. I wrote back to him that if you are determining my candidature based on the email account that I am using than my experience and credentials, I will like to withdraw my application.
This is the sad state of affairs at how the candidates are being scrutinized at the campus these days."
My god, you're NOT serious? Are you absolutely daft?
Who in their RIGHT MIND would apply for a job at a company using a free e-mail address FROM THAT COMPANY'S TOP COMPETITOR, when said company has its own free e-mail service and it takes roughly 90 seconds to secure an address?
Jesus, I would never, ever hire you. Wouldn't even give you an interview, because I would assume you were either trouble or an idiot.
Look dude, friendly advice: when you're trying to get a job, no matter where you applly, you DO NOT -- under any damn circumstances -- do anything that appears to show a preference for the competition. You don't dress like shit, you don't talk about how much you hated your last boss, and you don't show up flaunting the competition's products. You sure as shit don't show-up at Apple sporting a goddamn Zune.
My god in heaven, people never cease to amaze me.
There is time enough to show you're a rebel when you are a full-time employee and have proven your value. When you interview, you do whatever it takes to show the company that you are JAZZED about the shit they're doing and that you're a fanboy.
Jesus friggin' Christ. Thank GOD Microsoft didn't hire you.
someone I know is one of the Tue layoffs, and he has already been offered.
But, I'm curious how exactly does a manager "manage out" an employee. Is it something beyond just nit-picking and fault-finding and making an employee's life miserable? Is it something more than just managing somebody in a petty, horrible way?
Microsoft grades performance on a curve. A certain percentage of people are going to always get put in the bottom bucket.
If the company wants to get rid of you, your manager isn't going to go to bat for you when they are doing the rankings.
Your manager just has to give you enough work that puts you at the bottom of the rankings relative to your peers.
That could be giving you a feature to implement requiring cooperation from another group where the feature in the other group has a lower priority. The other groups side of the feature doesn't get done (because they had more important things to do) and you get hit for not completing the feature even though your side of the work is done.
Another one is giving you more bug fixes than new development work. Even though you're fixing other people's code, the story goes at the end of the year "He has more bugs per lines of code written than other developers.".
It is not too difficult to come up with ways of fitting the result they want to your work since they're the ones giving you the work and evaluating it.
If it is being done for a legitimate reason and they want to speed up the process, they just have to give you more challenging work exceeding your abilities for you to do a substandard job.
When done illegally, it is called "constructive discharge". Since it is easy enough to manipulate "performance reasons", they usually don't have to resort to anything that can be proved to be illegal.
If you are a perennial Achieve/70% without any clear potential for delivering improved results, you should be concerned. This is how the performance management system was supposed to work all along but as a company we got lazy because managing performance is HARD WORK and we have too many managers that don’t like hard work… funny how losing all your open NTE suddenly provides the right motivation to manage performance as we should have been all along.
I think the above post is from a HR person. In one word - Wow. MS seems to be enforcing the GE model more rigorously now. Question - if a person is "achieving" - why fire him? I know , I know you're gonna scream "We only want superstars, and constantly growing people only at MS" - but still, do you really think it is possible - that 100% of people in every team are constantly growing and all are superstars. And think about the churn and burn it will cause to teams - all this when a person is achieving his tasks, although not growing for the next level.
I was one of the perennial Achieve/70% at MS and was shown the door on 5th. After reading the depressing comment by hr person above, I am so glad that MS fired me along with 3000 others. I would never want to come back to MS again. You can live with all your "superstars" and continue to make products like vista, Search, zune, windows mobile. (OT - Interestingly with all the hype that about search internally, and all the emails from VP - Satya and president Qi, I read in a news article that MS' search share is 8.4% as opposed to Google's ~64%. Good going. Let's see if next release from search which is happening this week/next week - will bump that number).
But, I'm curious how exactly does a manager "manage out" an employee. Is it something beyond just nit-picking and fault-finding and making an employee's life miserable? Is it something more than just managing somebody in a petty, horrible way?
I think i can answer that - since i've seen a colleague let go. Generally it is the colleague's manager and his manager - they meet and decide that a person does not have "potential" to grow beyond his level. Employee is given some feedback and given hints to improve, but there is not much, if his manager is not an aggressive fighter at the stack rank meetings.
Once it is decided that an employee has to be let go, then all the nit-picking starts in earnest. Manager spends quite some time doing that. When the employee is served performance improvement plan notice/email, it is a clear message to him that he will be fired in 2-3 weeks. My colleague told me that he used to fulfil all the duties that his manager listed out in weekly tasks, but then manager told him that he didnt do work as efficiently or as effectively as someone else in our team would have done. He was terminated after 3 weeks of performance improvement notice.
"You have to have the mental outlook that everyone is replacable when you know you'll eventually piss everyone off. "
I've to admit, i have been anguished by this review system at MS as well. but at the same time, I do not know what system can satisfy both MS' needs as a large co. and yet not piss off people. I always wonder how do other big co. like google, yahoo etc. do it. Is their workforce too pissed off like us? Does anyone know their review system?
"The hiring manager replies, when applying for a Microsoft job you should really rethink sending it from a gmail account. I wrote back to him that if you are determining my candidature based on the email account that I am using than my experience and credentials, I will like to withdraw my application."
You need to do many things right to get hired. Only one to not get hired. I'd lose the arrogance and take advice whereever it comes from.
"Seems that most of the managers take the same approach during managing out people. Do they get any kind of training about how to manage out people? I would guess that there is a script HR provides to the manager to follow that has been approved by Legal to protect both the company and the manager."
Fom the famous shrimp and weanies memo "At the Exec Retreat (Feb 93) a recommendation was made that we carefully evaluate
the effectiveness of our lowest performing employees. Microsoft managers
are responsible for weeding out the non-performers, and HR is responsible for providing
managers with the competence to know how to do this.
We need to work in partnership with this. If you feel that you need specific training from
HR, please contact your HR representative immediately.
A current popular "trick" is to give an employee a 3.0 rating (when they truly deserve a 2.0 rating). The manager then gives the employee the private message that they should look for a new job in another group at MS. The manager is avoiding the painful task of getting the person out the door and thus "hands off" their problem to an unsuspecting group.
This is crazy garbage. HR is committed to helping you build strong teams and to weed out the non-performers. If we identify our weak performers
early on, we can move quickly to either a recovery strategy or an exit strategy.
To Wednesday, May 20, 2009 9:40:00 AM...
It is not about your email account or even about using a competitor but a reflection of your judgement and potentially even your attitude and overall awareness. Obviously in this economy you are in line with 100 other candidates so doing something that clearly could make you stand out negatively is an easy screening criteria and I move on to the next resume...
According to a friend of mine in HR, it seems that it is possible to get unemployment insurance even if you resign. You have to make the case to the government that this resignation was actually a "termination" of sorts, and then the government will contact Microsoft to verify if this is indeed the case.
From what my friend says it is at the discretion of HR as to how to respond to the state when they ask as to the circumstances of your exit. Most HR managers (according to my friend) will always confirm that there was (in fact) a termination, despite your "resignation". However, there is nothing written in stone as to how HR needs to respond to the state when queried, and there is a chance your ex-HR manager might deny that you were fired.
This would be malicious, since you'd already left the company by this point and this wouldn't cost the firm a penny more, but they have that prerogative.
I wonder if it is possible to at least negotiate this with HR on your termination exit (i.e. get their commitment to tell the state you were "fired")?
Who in their RIGHT MIND would apply for a job at a company using a free e-mail address FROM THAT COMPANY'S TOP COMPETITOR, when said company has its own free e-mail service and it takes roughly 90 seconds to secure an address?Not the OP, but:
I value experience outside Microsoft. When I've managed teams of people who only have Microsoft on their resume, I typically get the same feedback from all of them. A different perspective is not only refreshing, it helps you lower the amount of knee-jerk reactions from people who don't even consider alternatives to problems.
So, I would not care if someone I was interviewing was using a gmail account in the slightest.
I will say that any interviewee who receives such a response should recognize that they're dealing with someone potentially intolerant of dissent.
I wrote back to him that if you are determining my candidature based on the email account that I am using than my experience and credentials, I will like to withdraw my application.Hahahaha, funny . . .
Maybe ms should go a step further and let all people go who use Google search, docs, gmail, etc. I bet they would save billions - Kevin me, me, me, are you listening?
Has anyone had any experience acquiring health insurance through the microsoft alumni thing that becomes accessible (for $150/yr) once you leave the commpany?
Any insight into whether it's a good plan, competitive, etc. Issues with pre-existing conditions? Thanks.
"If these statements are public, at least bolster your argument by providing links. Otherwise you're the one lying"
Here's one of the most important ones from 2001, where Bach attempts to counter the widespread external criticism that Xbox is too risky and will not be profitable. In it, he disputes Blodget's assertion that Xbox will take five years to breakeven (which, as it turned out, was actually too optimistic). He also says that "Microsoft does not go into businesses that make losses for five years. I have my own profit-and-loss account," he insists".
Profile Microsoft iBoxIf you do your own search, instead of expecting me to do it for you, you will find similar references, including numerous responses of "consoles typically reach profitability in 3-4 years" when asked about the timing of Xbox profitability.
So he clearly set the expectation that Xbox would be profitable in the first generation. And since you claim he knew it wouldn't be all along, the remaining conclusion is that he lied.
Question - if a person is "achieving" - why fire him? I know, I know you're gonna scream "We only want superstars, and constantly growing people only at MS" - but still, do you really think it is possible - that 100% of people in every team are constantly growing and all are superstars. And think about the churn and burn it will cause to teams - all this when a person is achieving his tasks, although not growing for the next level.
Not the kind of company I want to work for.
Not the kind of company I want to invest in.
Not the kind of company I want to do business with.
I suspect I am not alone.
Who in their RIGHT MIND would apply for a job at a company using a free e-mail address FROM THAT COMPANY'S TOP COMPETITOR, when said company has its own free e-mail service and it takes roughly 90 seconds to secure an address?.
When hiring for a technical job, I would expect candidates to show a certain level of technical sophistication. Using a Hotmail address does the opposite.
There are a ton of passive "manage them out" techniques not mentioned.
You will be marginalized, given demeaning busy-work tasks, work below your level, basically guaranteeing your place in the 10% bucket. You get so bored and frustrated, you have crap on your experience for transfers, you quit in disgust.
Managed out.
Managers saying sentences like I don't like your tone of voice or I don't like your body language definitely happen. If your manager starts to bring up such issues, involve your HR Generalist immediately. WHAT !?!! You never involve your HR generalist -- let me repeat: Never ! . HR exists to defend the company's interests , and not the employee's. If you dare to talk to anyone in HR about 'personal issues with your manager' you are doomed. You will have a few weeks/months left.
Thankfully, I was never put on a performance plan, but I can say it's really easy for a manager to do that to you if they don't like you
Managers can make your life hell. Write a spec? That's something that can be nitpicked _forever_ if they want to. I've seen people do it. Dev, test, PM, UX, Content, all happy, but some as*** complains and requires more and more reviews.
My father always used to say, if they want you, they'll get you, and at MS, it's true.
On a more positive note, I am taking the workshops at DBM and I highly recommend them. They really take a specific rigorous approach to finding a job that seems to take a lot of the voodoo out of it. Plus, it's motivational.
RE:The manager is avoiding the painful task of getting the person out the door and thus "hands off" their problem to an unsuspecting group. This is crazy garbage.That attitude is "crazy garbage" because it presumes that if someone doesn't workout in one group under one manager, they aren't any good to any group in any position. This site (in fact, this thread) has many stories of how someone succeeded in one group only to fail miserably in another, and vice versa. So on that, admittedly purely anecdotal, evidence, I'd conclude that it isn't a forgone conclusion that if someone is weak in one area they'll be a problem elsewhere. They might, but you just can't conclude that without knowing the details (and maybe not even then).
"A current popular "trick" is to give an employee a 3.0 rating (when they truly deserve a 2.0 rating). The manager then gives the employee the private message that they should look for a new job in another group at MS. The manager is avoiding the painful task of getting the person out the door and thus "hands off" their problem to an unsuspecting group."
This isn't only nonsense, it's ancient nonsense -- we haven't used numerical ratings for years.
And any long-time Microsoft manager knows that 3.0s were never high on your list of internal people to interview -- 3.0s looking to move internally were usually people who were struggling for whatever reason in their current role and therefore looking to run from their troubles. From the hiring manager perspective these people weren't very sexy and subject to highly intense vetting to determine if they were bad apples or just great people in a bad-fit position.
In AdCenter, Sachind is most clueless GM we have ever seen at microsoft.
Funny enough, he has been allowed to nurture a heavy band of employees from his own country.
Adcenter == IDC redmond
"Once it is decided that an employee has to be let go, then all the nit-picking starts in earnest. Manager spends quite some time doing that. When the employee is served performance improvement plan notice/email, it is a clear message to him that he will be fired in 2-3 weeks. My colleague told me that he used to fulfil all the duties that his manager listed out in weekly tasks, but then manager told him that he didnt do work as efficiently or as effectively as someone else in our team would have done. He was terminated after 3 weeks of performance improvement notice."
This is a naive comment from the perspective of someone who obviously was never on the management side of the fence.
I've put a number of employees on performance improvement plans over the years, and never once did I have any agenda other than doing everything I could to give the employee maximum opportunity to improve -- my success rate is probably around 50%.
I decide an employee should be let go when all reasonable avenues for correction have been exhausted and when it's a detriment to the organization to keep the person on. In cases where the employee is a strong performer in the wrong role I'll do everything I can to make sure he/she finds a better fit, but in cases where the employee needs to be fired I try to do it with as much compassion as possible.
I'm sure in a company this size there are plenty of managers who handle terminations poorly, but almost everyone I've worked with has truly done their best to do the right thing for both the individual and the company.
Who in their RIGHT MIND would apply for a job at a company using a free e-mail address FROM THAT COMPANY'S TOP COMPETITOR, when said company has its own free e-mail service and it takes roughly 90 seconds to secure an address?I'm pretty sure that was either specifically only that hiring manager's recommendation or something else localized.
I got hired by MS twice with a Gmail account. MS has lots of competitors in many areas. None I know of are generally seen as disrespectfully threatening.
Generally, MS hires for need+capability. Little things like an email account matter not.
I did, however, have two external hiring consultants recommend that I shave a beard as "statistically" people are hiring more clean-shaven types :)
Internally, I've heard many times that MS doesn't care about that either.
To the people (person?) stubbornly insisting that XBox is now "profitable" - no it is not. Not until it pays back the more than $8 billion it's burned through. How long is that likely to take, based on the current trends? (There's a reason the phrase "cutting your losses" exists.)
To the people criticizing the applicant who was using his GMail account - is Microsoft really so parochial that they will ignore a candidate's qualifications based on whose *email* service they use? The "arrogance" is all on Microsoft's side here - stop pretending you're the center of the universe, while chasing away talented candidates based on such superficial criteria.
I think the above post is from a HR person. In one word - Wow. MS seems to be enforcing the GE model more rigorously now.
Well, not really. The GE model applies to everyone, and applies even more rigorously at the executive level. Jack Welch fired 12 out of 14 VPs before he started firing the bottom 10% of the workforce.I just noticed a particular VP (let's call him "Joe") who is still with MSFT after botching the last two major projects he ran. Totally botching them. But he's still there, even after the layoffs.
Welch's Vitality Curve is a dubious concept to begin with, but MSFT makes it even worse by totally misunderstanding it.
After 7 years at MS back from 99 to 05, I feel both deeply grateful and deeply nostalgic as I read these posts.
I'm on the east coast now in academe, a total change of life. The culture here is slow and bureacratic;many people aren't very good at their jobs and no one gets fired. These days, I don't get to enjoy the thrill of sitting in meetings watching brilliant people discuss ideas and strategis that would change the world. However, life here is simpler and there's no competition and no stack rank. My recent annual performance review was 5 out of 5. Incredible.
WHen you guys talk about the "managing out" process, I agree with the person who advised to take care of yourself on all levels.
In my last role at MS, I was managed out. However, at the time, I was so naive and eager-to-please I didn't know that that's what was happening. I sensed I didn't fit into the culture and my manager just didn't think I was smart. I endured a year of the manage-out head game but didn't know that's what it was. Believe me, if you're getting negative vibes and ceaseless criticism, your manager knows he's gonna get rid of you, no matter what you do. You could split the atom and it won't matter. Once you are stamped as "not a keeper" and "no potential" you're done.
I wish I'd known that; I gave up a precious year of my life ignoring the cues my subconsious was sending me that something was very wrong. Stupidly in hindsight, my dysfunctional response was to work harder and harder, put in more hours, give up everything outside of work and travel til finally I got my first 3.0 and the feedback "I don't think you are effective in this role" and "I've given this a lot of thought and I'm torn whether or not I want to keep you."
I was devastated: my first failure. My body was wrecked after months of cortisol poisoning and sleep deprivation. My long romance with MS had turned into a nightmare. I walked out of that review to my car and found myself in the parking garage gasping for air in what I guess was what people call a panic attack. I checked into urgent care and took a 3-month medical leave of absence.
After processing buckets of rage and shame about my failure, I moved back east and have never regretted it. These days, I'm healthy, look and feel fantastic, and make a point to carefully ration out the time and energy I give to work. If there's a decision about work vs life, I choose life. Having just turned 40, I'm keenly aware how little time I have left, and that those years of sacrifices I made in my 30s during my MS years will never be returned to me. Why the heck didn't I spend more time in the Northwest's incredible outdoors hiking and skiing? Why wasn't I in a book club or learning judo or how to salsa dance?
Enjoy the glory of MS: the "college on crack," the smart people, the opportunity to advance quickly and the addictive high of drinking from the campus firehose of brain power. But be careful about putting in the hours and making the sacrifices unless you are ONLY DOING IT FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR LEARNING. Do not skimp on family time, exercise, rest and hobbies because you think MS needs you or will make it worth your while.
I still think of that time sometimes. The memory fades and now that the tech party is over and it's lay-off time, I am so grateful I'm here in my safe academic niche enjoying a life that's like a good dream come true. That last manager became a GM and I think is still with the company, in, of all places, MSN. Last I heard he had big plans to "de-position Google" -- guess he's been doing some brilliant work for the past two years! It took me a long time so stop flinching when I remember his lantern-jawed head and laser-focused contempt of me and my abilities. May life teach him the lessons he needs...
I've to admit, i have been anguished by this review system at MS as well. but at the same time, I do not know what system can satisfy both MS' needs as a large co. and yet not piss off people. I always wonder how do other big co. like google, yahoo etc. do it. Is their workforce too pissed off like us? Does anyone know their review system?
Any review system will occasionally dissapoint people. The problem with MSFTs is that it systematically pisses people off. There are several ways it does this.
First, it forces managers to deliver a message about absolute performance that is based on relative performance (or some subjective evaluation of it anyway). In theory your review is about how well you met your objectives, but in reality it is about where you ranked compared to your peers. So managers have to warp their message, telling someone who quite clearly accomplished his objectives that he didn't really accomplish them. This comes across as dishonest, and pisses people off.
Second, the Curve, by forcing a relative distribution, fails to account for the actual capability of the team. No matter how good the team is, only 20% are tagged as As, and 10% officially suck as Cs. If your team is better than that (say, 30% As and only 5% Cs), you're going to piss off good people by labelling them as less then they really are. Of course, if your team is less competent than the official curve, you're fine. So the Curve punishes good teams by pissing them off at a higher rate and rewards bad teams by pissing them off at a lower rate. Great thinking there.
Third, since the stack rank drives the final score and the employee has little ability to directly impact the stack rank, reviews seems like lottery games. Once you've gone through a few, and once you find out about "velocity" and how it's tracked, you realize you're gambling with your career, and you're not sure if the dice are rigged or not. That pisses people off because most people don't like gambling with their careers, especially after they roll the inevitable craps. They're likely to think some place else is a better bet.
Finally, by creating internal competition between team members, the review system fosters a back-stabbling environment and one where "visibility" is more important that actual performance. That pisses off people who want to focus on accomplishing business objectives, because they're constantly distracted by personal objectives, either their own or those of some bozo gunning for a promo.
Oh, and finally++, Microsoft makes you go through a whole bunch of obnoxious paperwork as part of the review process, but that paperwork isn't relevant to the actual rewview scores, the stack rank meeting having already happened.
Yes, review systems are hard, and everyone thinks they deserve more than they get, but MSFT's review system is particularly broken.
"The hiring manager replies, when applying for a Microsoft job you should really rethink sending it from a gmail account. I wrote back to him that if you are determining my candidature based on the email account that I am using than my experience and credentials, I will like to withdraw my application."
Ha Ha..
Q: How to kill a good deal with Fedex?
A: Send your proposal to Fedex using UPS. *grin*
At 12:01am, Anonymous wrote:
Managers saying sentences like I don't like your tone of voice or I don't like your body language definitely happen. If your manager starts to bring up such issues, involve your HR Generalist immediately. Your manager is trying to document a pattern of behavior, and you have to immediately protect yourself. You should talk with your manager about diversity, possibility of style differences, and use this as a reason to seek another position within the company. It is definitely possible.
New people at Microsoft need to understand that several high level managers of this company are nothing more than C or D level professionals. Mainly if you are dealing with one of those 15+ year managers, then you are definitely dealing with a loser.He's definitely a "C" manager, maybe a "D". I involved my HR Generalist, and it was a fatal mistake, as involving HR almost always is unless you're dealing with a clear case of a sexual remark or someone viewing porn in their office. Same with my manager's manager. I approached it as a style difference, an issue of tolerance of diversity, which it legitimately was.
Unfortunately, this approach didn't work. My tone of voice was viewed as not sufficiently PC and I was dinged yet again for being unprofessional and clueless about interpersonal matters for not knowing this and bringing to the attention of HR and a higher-level manager something that was my deficiency, not my manager's.
Pattern-building can all too easily be a self-fulfilling prophecy when you complain about it. They're clever. Watch your back. I eventually caught him and called him on it in front of HR and his manager in real-time. This was somewhat effectively to the point that it never happened again (guess: he got quietly warned that he was crossing a line), but this only increased his vendetta against me in different ways.
Another data point, though: I did customer negotiations successfully despite this, that helped make the company $$. In that situation, I worked all night to craft a proposal. Later that day, I was a bit impatient with a "slow" colleague asking the same question for a 4th time, and that was made to be my problem rather than my colleague's. The "D" employee wasn't a threat to my manager, whereas I was.
Transfer? Where do YOU work? Where I worked, the "C" and "D" level managers won't let a true "A" or "B" level employee they're biased against out of their team. Yes, company rules allow this, and they just have to creatively write a performance complaint to justify it. It's a technique they use to cover their own asses. They know that a top performer they're mistreating will go to another group with more reasonable management and resume winning awards, and that they might eventually look like the asses that they are for giving you a hard time.
A current popular "trick" is to give an employee a 3.0 rating (when they truly deserve a 2.0 rating). The manager then gives the employee the private message that they should look for a new job in another group at MS.
Opposite trick is to give a strong performaer underperform rating. The manager have some personal disliking for him. He can not change the team at Microsoft in that case. And the poor guy is fired at the end.
Epic:
Ballmer is causing brain damage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_vcy7I0zIM
@8:02 - I agree there must be a script and probably templates for the "documentation" e-mails as well. It is the only explanation for how my normally less than articulate manager could fashion such carefully diplomatic comments to me.
I hope that when managing out someone, managers also do some self-evaluation. Part of managing people is recognizing the strengths as well as the weaknesses of your team members and motivating them to work in the ways that suit them and the team best. The manager should be evaluating and balancing the team so that everyone has an opportunity to do their best work. If there is a poor fit, then try to find a better fit. It might mean redistributing assignments, moving to a different area, leaving the team or even leaving the company , but eliminating someone without trying very much is bad management.
James Whittaker is leaving...
If you are fired, you are NOT automatically eligible for unemployment, you have to make a case in order to even be considered.
.
Nope, not quite.
That's interesting, and probably good information for others to know. I only had the information on the unemployment site. I will tell you that even though I quit, I am claiming unemployment benefits because of emotional distress forcing me to quit (i.e. managed out). Unemployment didn't reject my claim, they are still considering it, so who knows.
I also want to agree with others that mentioned that if you are being "managed out", you need to take care of yourself first. After many months/years of truly evil and harsh treatment, and mental abuse, it takes some time to heal.
It's shocking to me how many people seem to be "managed-out", besides myself. I know half a dozen other hard working and smart people that were down that road before me on my team alone. In my case, all you need is one sociopath power obsessed marketing director to make everyone's life a living hell (except for her friends that work for her).
I've found a much better life after Microsoft, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
The dude that freaked out about someone using a gmail account to apply for a job...
Wow.
Really?
We had ALL better have gmail accounts and understand what is good about them.
You either know the fight... or you don't.
Yes, dogfood when you can (member of ntdev and exchange dogfood here and unfortunate v1 user of Zune) but dont put on blinders like the rest of the world doesn't even exist.
Oh wait. I got laid off after 12 years... So YOU better have the accounts and use them every damn day... Seeya after this summer.
I don’t know if managing out has become more common statistically across MS but I hope so...
You are a perfect example of the Microsoft Machiavellian culture and short term thinking that is dragging Microsoft down. Yes, when you manage someone out, you get to feel powerful and smart. But how much does it cost to replace that person? Add up the cost of searching, interviewing, hiring, training and then the Microsoft ramp up period. Don't forget the cost of business down-time while searching for the new employee and ramping them up. How about the employee morale of others on the team that see what happens to their perfectly capable and hard working teammates? And how often is the new hire truly so much better than then the one you managed out? In my opinion, this is poor business strategy.
Sorry to say, I think that your thinking is coming more from your own ego than true business knowledge, wisdom or acumen. You my friend, are the perfect example of why I breathe a sigh of relief that I'm not longer at Microsoft.
"To the people criticizing the applicant who was using his GMail account - is Microsoft really so parochial that they will ignore a candidate's qualifications based on whose *email* service they use? The "arrogance" is all on Microsoft's side here - stop pretending you're the center of the universe, while chasing away talented candidates based on such superficial criteria."I abso-fucking-lutely guarantee you that if you apply at Google with a Hotmail e-mail address, you will never, ever get hired.
Look people -- the way you conduct yourself when trying to get a job is NOT the way you conduct yourself when you're an employee. I work at Microsoft and happily parade my iPhone in the halls, would never consider a Zune and use Google as my preferred search engine. Would I do any of this if I was trying to get a job? Hell no, because it would make me appear retarded.
This is NOT a Microsoft strategy for getting hired, it's common fucking sense -- DO NOT SHOW UP FOR YOUR INTERVIEW WAVING THE FLAG OF THE COMPETITION WHEN YOU'RE TRYING TO GET HIRED. Good lord.
"I wish I'd known that; I gave up a precious year of my life ignoring the cues my subconsious was sending me that something was very wrong. Stupidly in hindsight, my dysfunctional response was to work harder and harder, put in more hours, give up everything outside of work and travel til finally I got my first 3.0 and the feedback "I don't think you are effective in this role" and "I've given this a lot of thought and I'm torn whether or not I want to keep you."
I was devastated: my first failure. My body was wrecked after months of cortisol poisoning and sleep deprivation. My long romance with MS had turned into a nightmare. I walked out of that review to my car and found myself in the parking garage gasping for air in what I guess was what people call a panic attack. I checked into urgent care and took a 3-month medical leave of absence."I hate to break it to you, but you're the nightmare employee scenario: you get a single mediocre review and you go on a 3-month medical leave -- this is not an appropriate response and signals a much deeper set of psychological problems.
This wasn't Microsoft's fault, this was you not being able to handle the very basic shit life throws at all of us at one time or another.
Cry me a river.
Anonymous @ 5/21 2:29PM
Was it hard finding an academic job after "sitting out" (according to them) for ~6 years? I'm thinking of doing the same (don't know when), grad school was more fun than this and I don't really need the extra $. Thanks.
>>Profile Microsoft iBoxIf you do your own search, instead of expecting me to do it for you, you will find similar references, including numerous responses of "consoles typically reach profitability in 3-4 years" when asked about the timing of Xbox profitability.
<<
Erm, you're the one that made the claim so it's common courtesy for you to back it up, otherwise this forum becomes slashdot.
In any case, thanks for providing evidence that you are indeed correct.
>James Whittaker is leaving...
Ouch, a great loss to Microsoft. He was one of the most well respected voices of the MS test discipline.
Any details on his departure? Whittaker's post suggests that he might have left involuntarily.
After the most recent execs retreat, one story that was widely shared across the company is that the execs got their hands on an iphone during one of the session and were pretty impressed and finally realized how behind in the game Microsoft was.
Is this story true? I don’t know, personally I don’t believe it, I think our leadership team isn’t the sharpest when it comes to mobile, online or UI, etc but still the iphone was launched more than two years ago, they can’t “discover” it now and finally understand the whole ecosystem.
But that’s not the point; the point is that the vast majority of people at MS that were told that story believed it to be true!
Clearly if it’s true we are doomed, but if it’s not true and all your employees believe it to be true then it shows how little faith your own people have in your capability to adapt, innovate and capture new opportunities…
In AdCenter, Sachind is most clueless GM we have ever seen at microsoft.
Funny enough, he has been allowed to nurture a heavy band of employees from his own country.
Adcenter == IDC redmond
.
This happens all across Microsoft. I have seen cliques of people from Russia, India, China, and so on.
People from a different background are unwelcome in these teams. This will spell trouble for the company in the long run.
"To the people (person?) stubbornly insisting that XBox is now "profitable" - no it is not. Not until it pays back the more than $8 billion it's burned through"
Not according to GAAP rules. The $8 billion is a sunk cost and has no baring on if a product is currently profitable.
For the record that $8 billion figure is probably bogus. You should show your numbers. You are claiming Microsoft lost $1 billion every year on the XBox so far.
> James Whittaker is leaving...
So what?
Just google "unemployment rate in wa".
click the first link that comes up. Google has come up with an innovative interactive interface where you can track unemployment by state, counties and national level.
Wondering if live search can beat that?
"I hate to break it to you, but you're the nightmare employee scenario: you get a single mediocre review and you go on a 3-month medical leave -- this is not an appropriate response and signals a much deeper set of psychological problems."
I second that. 3.0 was "Achieve". Didnt mean that you're about to be fired. 30% of the folks had to be given that score in each review cycle under old system.
Also this guy's story of plummeting from 5.0 to 3.0 sounds suspicious. Have seen people plummet from 4.0 to 3.0 score after a promotion, but not from 5.0 to 3.0.
"Erm, you're the one that made the claim so it's common courtesy for you to back it up, otherwise this forum becomes slashdot."
Common courtesy would be "I can't find it, would you provide a link?". Not "If these statements are public, at least bolster your argument by providing links. Otherwise you're the one lying".
"In any case, thanks for providing evidence that you are indeed correct."
You're welcome. Happy to oblige.
Finally, by creating internal competition between team members, the review system fosters a back-stabbling environment and one where "visibility" is more important that actual performance. That pisses off people who want to focus on accomplishing business objectives, because they're constantly distracted by personal objectives, either their own or those of some bozo gunning for a promo.
Couldn't agree with your post more. In services, it's even better. They tell us the most important thing is our customer and bringing in revenue. No it isn't, that's a line of crap. I busted by arse for my customer last year, helped them finish multiple projects on time or early, recieved numerous kudos from multiple contacts there, AND brought in almost half a mil in new revenue by helping to sell them on a new head. Guess what I got come review time? "Well, you did good work, but you need to be more visible to upper management". Achieved/70%, low numbers.
So wait, because I focused on my customer (and brought in new revenue) and didn't bury my head in some useless internal project, I'm being punished? Screw that. Guess all I need to do is kick off some lame, waste of time internal project and devote less time to my customer. That's what people who got promo'd in my org did last year.
The system is broken...
To 5/21 at 2:29
It was not at all hard finding an academic job. It's unrealistic to assume you could just walk in and be faculty unless you'are a very senior, well respected scientist or researcher in your field. Like Ray Ozzie, for example. He would probably be snapped up as a professor somewhere. Billg would probably be taken on too. ;)
The jobs you can more easily walk into are the academic professional jobs. Universities are complex organizations that like companies, have marketing roles, tech support roles, industry relations roles and so on.
I found I could pitch my industry experience and it was well received. Now that I've been on board for a while now and have taken on a broad range of projects, I am continually pleasantly surprised how many good skills I managed to pick up during my time at MS. That place is really a great teacher and honed my analytical and project management skills which are always in demand in any sector -- private, non-profit or academic.
Take heart: many people have said this here already but after MS, in almost any work environment, you'll be very well qualified, valued, have a great work ethic and know how to get things done. You will likely have to learn to tone it down if you have an aggressive style and get comfortable with things taking a loooot longer that you're used to to get done...
Good luck!
i have heard couple sources talk about a third round coming probably before end of this fiscal. Has anyone else heard something similar?
I was happy on not being laid off in last 2 rounds. After seeing these reports of performance management because of bad managers, think severance package would have been better. I am strong performer, not getting along with manager who never liked me (inherited through re-org). She gives hardest work to me, immediately manages up and tells upper management it is the easiest work. This company is good as far as benefits but very dishonest when it comes to managing out people. In past have seen companies which were not making any profit but laid off employees in proper way with severance package. Here we have a company which is making tons of profit and laying off IC's using backdoor. Wasted so many years here.
On the other hand, there is no harm in looking for job outside, even if you are currently employedI agree... always keep networking and seeing what you're worth. From a career management perspective, there's nothing like having the security of a backup gig to empower you at your current role. You may think it's defeatist, but when I was working at MS, and had a manager I just didn't see eye to eye with, after one particular spat, I quite on the spot and slid right into my backup plan.
Well, I guess being wealthy is a nice backup plan too. For the old time Microsofties, remember the FOIFV buttons?
Can anyone think of a reason not to insist that exit interviews for terminations be recorded? If they refuse to allow the meeting to be recorded and would rather just walk you directly to the door then at least you don't have to put up with their self-serving talk about why they are justified in firing you. They can send you the Cobra insurance forms in the mail. On the other hand, if they consent to the recording then you could have a lot of fun really making them explain their justifications for firing you. If nothing else it could make a pretty amusing podcast.
Certainly, insisting that the exit interview is recorded would burn bridges with your manager, and possibly Microsoft, but what is the likelihood the company would ever hire you back after firing you anyway?
It's not as if they can withhold benefits or anything if they are firing you for performance (i.e. since they don't give you anything anyway), so why shouldn't someone who is being fired have fun playing hard ball?
So the Curve punishes good teams by pissing them off at a higher rate and rewards bad teams by pissing them off at a lower rate.Well said. You have eloquently put into words the same sentiment I have been struggling to express for years.
Everyone please read: Thursday, May 21, 2009 2:55:00 PM again. Then read it again.
He essentially hit on the two roots of all evil at MS. The two core items that if fixed/adjusted/moderated would in time allow us to end the stupidity spiral we're on.
To summarize:
1. The forced curve
2. Awarding the individual ahead of the product/business/profit or whatever else.
Does anyone realize how many superstars we have who are rewarded unbelievably well in businesses and teams that routingly underdeliver?
How does our system possibly translate to other industries?
Would you want to send your kids to a school who's teachers had our review/reward system?
Would you want your family to fly in a plane built by buy a company where everyone could share in the award for a solid product or know that 10% of the folks fastening shit together were getting fired or pushed out soon and know it?
Do you want your police force, or your burger maker or your mechanic or your contractor to come from that enviroment where only 2 in 10 have 'velocity'?
Do you want your next surgeon to demonstrate to you his velocity by naming how they change specialties every two years and she's only 4 months into whatever she's cutting you open for. Or, would you like someone who's been in the game for a while and been there, done that?
Yes, individual excellence and drive should be reward - but should it be to the near exclusion of others and does greatness of one individual actually preclude others from being good, ok and worthy?
>" Sanjay didn't give JohnFre/XD a chance to show that Response Point could be a solid business for Microsoft."
I heard Sanjay actually cut most of Response Point's marketing budget after he took over from MSR's Rick Rashid. After that, Sanjay accused the team failed to deliver the revenue. SanjayP seems great at destroying values delivered by Microsoft doers. Craig Mundie probably liked that one of the most interesting incubation projects Rick Rashid sponsored eventually failed :-) We all know that Rick never got along with Craig.
"i have heard couple sources talk about a third round coming probably before end of this fiscal. Has anyone else heard something similar?"
I heard that that SLT is thinking to dramatically reduce marketing and PM folks, with 10 (engineers) to 1 (PM) ratio to be enforced. All these PMs who are not technical should look externally now.
"In AdCenter, Sachind is most clueless GM we have ever seen at microsoft."
AlexGo is more clueless than his GPM and Dev directs. What is Qi doing? Why didn't Qi take action to fix the problem after 6 months into this job? Qi needs to get more PhDs.
Certainly, insisting that the exit interview is recorded would burn bridges with your manager, and possibly Microsoft, but what is the likelihood the company would ever hire you back after firing you anyway? .
.
This may be bad advice. First, I would assume that the "firing conversation" (not "exit interview") would be MS confidential and you might get into hot water for podcasting it. Second, I know a couple of people who have been fired and then rehired almost immediately into other groups. Granted, this was during the "good old days" several years ago when hiring was more aggressive and managers understood that being fired from one team doesn't necessarily make you a bad employee. Times may have changed, but then again, why bet on it?
Re: XBox profitability. It would be ridiculous to cut XBox now as long as it's making a profit on a month-by-month basis. Whether or not it's a smart market to be in or has been well-executed is an academic issue at this point--it exists and it's bringing in money. The concern is that the division may want to sink another $2B+ into launching and subsidizing a new console, which should be avoided at all costs, but we should condemn that bridge when we come to it.
" I was a bit impatient with a "slow" colleague asking the same question for a 4th time, and that was made to be my problem rather than my colleague's. The "D" employee wasn't a threat to my manager, whereas I was."
Reality check time: it was your problem, even if your colleague was a "D" employee.
I can tell by your tone that you're likely a jerk and unaware of the impact you have on other people -- I've seen dozens of you at Microsoft, people who treat others badly and truly don't have any clue that they're being asshats.
And always, always, always it's "OMG I was called-out for being unprofessional when I'm really just being assertive!"
No, you're unprofessional. When one person tells you that you have a tail ignore it, when two people tell you? Turn around and take a look.
"So wait, because I focused on my customer (and brought in new revenue) and didn't bury my head in some useless internal project, I'm being punished? Screw that. Guess all I need to do is kick off some lame, waste of time internal project and devote less time to my customer. That's what people who got promo'd in my org did last year."
Or maybe you should find a job at the competitor. If you're as good as you describe, MS is not the place to be.
i have heard couple sources talk about a third round coming probably before end of this fiscal. Has anyone else heard something similar?
I'm not in upper management, so dont know for sure. But it seems logical that the 3rd round will come right after Win7 release. The morale is down, and SLT knows that. Why not cut all/everywhere they wanted to cut and then start the morale boosting campaign.
BTW - I think Win7 is the main reason why they opted for this protracted layoff schedule, rather than industry accepted 'Cut once and cut deep'. GL to all folks in orgs which havent been impacted so far. The axe is coming, as far as I see.
Can anyone think of a reason not to insist that exit interviews for terminations be recorded?
You wont get the time to insist. The axe comes fast and furiously.
The way it happens is - there would a morning meeting with GM early morning. After that 1:1 meeting requests go out - basically for people who will be fired. All this firing business is generally finished by 3:00 pm. You wont get time to insist on anything. Also in meeting, they dont give reasons why they are firing you. They simply say, 'your position is being eliminated'.
BTW - why would you want to insist on that? If your name is on list, you will be fired no matter what. Are you gunning for some 'misstep' on part of HR or your GM in the firing meeting, that you can later use in court to extort some money out of Microsoft?
How much money will MS save by firing 5000? Assuming $120,000 average expense per employee per year (including benefits), it comes to 600 million a year. About 6-7 cents per share. Was it worth it??
All this when some genius in slt wanted to pay about 50 billion for bloated yahoo. The outgoing president (I think Kevin Johnson) was even paid his full targetted bonus of 600K, when he left, although he "geniously" had devised the yahoo takeover plan.
Question to 1400. How long does it take for severance money to come to your account, once they receive your signed severance acceptance document. I know the official line is 30 days, but can anyone tell how long exactly it took back then?
"A current popular "trick" is to give an employee a 3.0 rating (when they truly deserve a 2.0 rating). "
That may have happened years ago but Micorosoft no longer uses that kind of rating systems. Current ratings are made up of 2 scores ...
20 - 70 - 10 (10 is in 2 parts)
Exceeded - Acchieved - Needs improvement.
If you see a message about 3.0 rating you should be aware that information is not current.
I heard round #3 coming first week of July, anybody else here this?
I think this is going to be a new MSFT tradition from now on :)
After the SBA layoffs is going to be interesting to see how easy it will be for the group to attract or even keep talent.
How long before the ones left there get cold feet and leave the group? And who in their right mind will ever want to work for any startup within Microsoft anymore?
Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of bullshit peddled around as great new initiatives in SBA. But firing the worker bees and keeping the great bullshiters around Sanjay is a sure way that Microsoft will never again do grass root innovation from within.
At this point the only question is how long before all Sanjay's groups collapse because people that actually ship things leave in droves. Perhaps right around the time the economy starts to recover, or other more stable groups start hiring again. Until then some scarred people will hang on to their jobs while their bosses compile great looking unshippable powerpoints.
Craig Mundie would do SBA a favour by replacing Sanjay with somebody more adept at smelling vaporware and more able to use the great resources to actually do something that is trully innovative.
"I hate to break it to you, but you're the nightmare employee scenario: you get a single mediocre review and you go on a 3-month medical leave -- this is not an appropriate response and signals a much deeper set of psychological problems."
I second that. 3.0 was "Achieve". Didnt mean that you're about to be fired. 30% of the folks had to be given that score in each review cycle under old system.
I'm with the OP. I've been on teams where nearly everyone has broken their backs to get the job done, where people weren't allowed to leave while the team was in death march mode. At review time, the people the manager didn't like got screwed, which made it difficult for them to switch teams later.
These people sacrificed health, in multiple cases relationships, etc. to deliver in good faith which was not rewarded.
There's unfair: I did the same 45 hour weeks he did and produced the same output he did, why'd he get an additional 10 grand over what I got? And then there's unfair: I postponed my honeymoon because my manager said I couldn't take leave at the time, I did 80-90 hour weeks for most of the fiscal year to get done a huge quantity of work, I produced in the top 20% of the team this year per metrics I cited in my self-review, and you put me in Achieved and 70%, and George is talking about a bonus 5 times the size of mine?
If managers are going to push you to an unhealthy extent, and when you ask for a work/life balance workload so that you can spend time on your marriage they just overload you more, then you have every right to need a couple months of disability leave to adjust to the shock of finding out such insanity is chocked up as just "the world ain't fair, some win and some lose, guess you're just the loser this time, sorry if it was a big loss."
The brokenness here is that anyone who reacted as the OP did is automatically considered a "nightmare" employee. There could be other facts not mentioned. People, the problem is not necessarily with the OP, and as long as the company itself holds that view and doesn't fully accept that poor review practices have consequences, it will never change.
This should not even be a topic of debate. It's like complaining about someone having a panic attack when a knife is pulled on them. Maybe it's not the most helpful reaction for sure, but they never should have been put into that position in the first place. In legal parlance, it's related to the concept of the "but for" doctrine, which holds liable the entity who did the original action that resulted in the subsequent undesirable action by another entity.
You wont get the time to insist. The axe comes fast and furiously.
The way it happens is - there would a morning meeting with GM early morning. After that 1:1 meeting requests go out - basically for people who will be fired. All this firing business is generally finished by 3:00 pm. You wont get time to insist on anything. Also in meeting, they dont give reasons why they are firing you. They simply say, 'your position is being eliminated'.I think you are getting terminations for poor performance mixed up with lay-offs. Those who are under performance improvement plans KNOW that the axe is coming at some point. Further, the exit interview for those fired with poor performance are always private (i.e. with the individual being fired, the hiring manager, and HR).
Also, the hiring manager quite often re-iterates their justifications for terminating your employment at these meetings.
So, you DO have a pretty good idea as to when these exit meetings are going to occur, and you certainly could insist on recording the meeting if you wanted to. The only question is whether it would be worth it. As some people have mentioned, it is likely safer not to turn the exit into anything more hostile than it already is.
And then there's unfair: I postponed my honeymoon because my manager said I couldn't take leave at the time, I did 80-90 hour weeks for most of the fiscal year .
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We're not in the industrial revolution anymore or meat packing plants in 1900s Chicago. If you have a job at Microsoft, that means you're pretty smart and well-educated relative to the rest of our society. Up until very recently you could almost certainly get another job with another company with just a couple weeks notice. What is your motivation for accepting this mistreatment? I can think of a few possibilities:
1) You actually really love the work and the environment. You should recognize this and stop complaining.
2) You think there's going to be a big reward at the end. Unless you're promised something explicitly and in writing, I think this is naive. And really, if you're a "regular" IC then what's the most you can expect? If you max out your promo, merit, etc. and get a gold star, you're barely talking about making 50% more *that year*. Is it really worth ruining your health and postponing important events in your life for an extra $50,000?
"I heard Sanjay actually cut most of Response Point's marketing budget after he took over from MSR's Rick Rashid."
Actually SanjayP was tasked to shut down all of Rick Rashid's incubations. Eric Lang, Tandy Trower and XD Huang all got pushed aside one after another. This was probably part of Craig Mundie's grand revenge against Rick Rashid after Craig took over MSR.
"People, the problem is not necessarily with the OP, and as long as the company itself holds that view and doesn't fully accept that poor review practices have consequences, it will never change."
What do you propose - how do we change the review system such that it will work for a big org. like MS, while ensuring top performers are not lured away by competitors?
"Craig Mundie would do SBA a favour by replacing Sanjay with somebody more adept at smelling vaporware and more able to use the great resources to actually do something that is trully innovative."
This was by design. Craig Mundie hired Sanjay to shut down Rick Rashid's MSR incubation efforts while beefing up Craig's own pet projects. Craig cut all of Rick's incubation efforts and added more to his full-fledged money losing businesses such as Health/Education... Craig is telling Rick Rashid who is the real boss now! Sanjay is clueless. He can't even function without the help of his central teams. Poor Sanjay is brainless and is only Craig's hit man.
"How much money will MS save by firing 5000? Assuming $120,000 average expense per employee per year (including benefits), it comes to 600 million a year. About 6-7 cents per share. Was it worth it??"
Your $120K average for the fully loaded cost is low, and that's $600m per year in savings. But what was the alternative? Keep employees at 110% with business at 80% (and years of slower growth expected once the recession ends)? What effect would that have on MS's already flagging competitiveness? The already decimated stock? SLT and the board's continued autonomy? Would that put remaining employees at less or more risk? People who want to condemn the current plan need to provide their more workable alternative. Frankly, under the circumstances, the cuts should have been 10-15%, not 5%. And yes, it's a tragedy for those affected.
"This should not even be a topic of debate. It's like complaining about someone having a panic attack when a knife is pulled on them."
No, it's *nothing* like that. You have a personal responsibility to separate yourself from your work sufficiently that you are able to take some ups and downs in stride, and you have a personal responsibility to ensure that you're not sacrificing your health for your employer.
Going on medical leave for 3 months because you received a less-than-stellar review? Shameful.
"Maybe it's not the most helpful reaction for sure, but they never should have been put into that position in the first place."
Who exactly put him in that position in the first place? Answer: Himself. The OP's comment is littered with red flags, like "This was the first time in my life I'd experienced failure and it gave me a panic attack" -- does this strike you as the statement of a healthy individual? Someone who has a panic attack the first time they're not showered with praise and success?
I'm telling you, this isn't a statement about Microsoft the pressure cooker, it's a statement about an unhealthy individual who lacked fundamental life skills.
>I heard that that SLT is thinking to dramatically reduce marketing and PM folks, with 10 (engineers) to 1 (PM) ratio to be enforced
Ain't gonna happen. US core competency is PMs. We will have 10 talking heads for every engineer soon.
Adcenter == IDC redmondSearch is another IDC. Some core teams are full of people from the home country of the partners(ex. rohit wad, gaurav sareen etc).
Can anyone confirm... There won't be any raises this year but has anyone heard whether there will there be bonuses or stock awards?
Your $120K average for the fully loaded cost is low, and that's $600m per year in savings. But what was the alternative? Keep employees at 110% with business at 80%
I am the op. Your reasoning is ok. But From all the posts here, partners/GMs are not getting the cut. Even most of the L62 and up "managers" are not getting cut. Will cutting only the bottom feeder ICs be good enough? I would be in favor of MS cutting more and becoming lean & mean, if it is done in a right way. Without the managers getting cut, the mindset/thinking would remain the same.
Also what about the responsibility at higher levels. Why was Kevin Johnson/Ballmer allowed to bid 50billion for yahoo. (Thanks God for the stupidity of Yang to refuse that bid). What about leaders in 'Search/Advertising' team who were touting that search would be 80 billion business soon when they bid for yahoo, but have now put all the advertising products either on sustained engineering mode or reduced funding mode, while eliminating 30%+ of the teams in this round of layoffs. Can you imagine the numbers that had to be eliminated if yahoo had become a part of MS? If search marketshare does not improve in 1-2 years, why should'nt slt in search go? Same for entertainment devices. And for heaven's sake, either can the entire windows mobile division, or layoff all the management there - who have been slumbering through all the past years, while Rimm and apple stole the show. To add salt to the wound, they keep churning out same crap (what was new/cool in windows mobile 6.5 vs iphone??). Does SLT realize that keeping sub-par products (like the ones mentioned above) have a negative halo effect on other products of co. and in general detrimental to the morale.
Where is the accountability for leadership/managers? I'm sorry, but MS looks more and more like IBM of the nineties. Always late to party, trying to be in all spaces - believing it's sheer size and past glory would be enough to crush the newer/nimble player.
Search is another IDC. Some core teams are full of people from the home country of the partners(ex. rohit wad, gaurav sareen etc).Much of Live Search hiring happened since 2004. In a competitive job market for C++ programmers, immigrants from several countries (not just the home countries of the hiring mgrs) had to fill the gap between head count and available qualified natives. This is legal. Moreover, this is how America grew in the last 500 years -- with hardworking immigrants participating in the American dream. Shame on you for forgetting that history and resorting to xenophobia.
The problem with Live Search and the extended Online Services division is that this division is losing money heavily in an industry where many large players are quite profitable. Microsoft was in the online services space since 1995 and had a search service well before Google came onto the scene. Yet, 14 years after the company embraced the Internet, it manages to throw away billions of dollars.
The problem is with the senior management in online services division. They aren't performing and for some strange reason, the SLT doesn't seem to care. Online Services division is in a constant state of motion (a new brand every couple of years; regular large reorgs; new execs and senior people added every few months etc). As a result it is very hard to figure out why the division continues to bleed red ink. The cynic in me thinks that this constant state of motion in this division is by design -- designed by execs to sell hope and buy time. If SLT doesn't treat this division as a real business, assuming the SLT is capable of doing that, these games will continue indefinitely.
What do you propose - how do we change the review system such that it will work for a big org. like MS, while ensuring top performers are not lured away by competitors?First, what makes you think "top performers" aren't being lured away right now? Every stack rank meeting I ever came out of shoved at least one excellent engineer into the 3.5/70 bucket because of the need to meet The Model (or The Curve if you prefer - "The Model" is what it was always called in the stack rank meetings). Every time you do that, you risk that engineer leaving.
Second, you should be at least as worried about the 70 so-called B's as you are about the 20 As because, let's pop the ego balloon a little hiere - there was never as much difference between the As and Bs at MSFT as proponents of The Curve claim. In fact, towards the end of my time there, often the As contributed less to productivity than the Bs because they were so damn busy with special projects designed to keep them in the A club while the B's quietly got their work done and shipped the product.
Don't believe me? Let's rewind the tape. MSFT had no problem keeping people when it was generous with stock options and the stock was steadily climbing. When the stock stopped doubling every two years and the option gravy train ended, the company was faced with a choice and decided to keep rewarding high profile folks (your "top performers"). To pay for that, it had to cut rewards to everyone else. How has that worked out? How does the post-Comp2000 company that has a two-tiered rewards system compare in overall competence to the pre-Comp2000 company that rewarded everyone?
There's no comparison. The MSFT that focuses on rewarding "Top Performers" sucks. It can't compete any longer. It hasn't produced a winning product since Comp2000 went into effect. A company that pretty much wrote the book on out-delivering the competition barely knows how to get a new version of Windows out the door. Markets (like search) that are identified as critical to the future of the company fail year after year after year.
How did a company that won almost every market it went into turn into a company that can't even defend it's own market share any more? Answer, it stopped rewarding everyone who shipped the products and started rewarding only a handful. Oh sure, there were always 4.0s and they always got bigger raises and bonuses and additional grants than the 3.5s, but those initial grants people got at hire more than made up for it. Those initial grants at low strike prices meant everyone benefited financially when the company succeeeded, and guess what? The company succeeeded.
Now that only the top 20% benefit, the company no longer succeeds. It's not a coincidence.
Stop worrying about your "top performers" and start worrying about the people who ship the #$@%!&# products.
What do you propose - how do we change the review system such that it will work for a big org. like MS, while ensuring top performers are not lured away by competitors? .
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IMO we have to get away from the mentality that you need a lot of "top performers" to ship quality software.
If you're designing a building, you don't want to rely on super-genius bricklayers to keep your building from collapsing. Why should software be any different?
Each software product should have an architect who comes up with the overall design and implementation and divides the work into small, independent modules that the average programmer can accomplish.
Personally I would rather have a software product designed by Steve Jobs and engineered by a bunch of average guys rather than a product designed and built by a Microsoft committee of "superstars."
It's obvious by now that MS is circling the drain. I suspected as much when I left 2+ years ago but by now the signs are clear.
What really did it for me, more than the sociopathic corporate culture or the broken review system was the string of missed opportunities I witnessed year after year. You wouldn't believe how many promising projects I've seen run into the ground while their promise was eventually fulfilled by a competitor. Every single time MS was the logical leader. The race was theirs to lose and lose they did.
I am now on the other side of that fence, working for a company that ships what MS can't with many times our budget and manpower. My colleagues and management are constantly on their toes, waiting for the big bad wolf to release something that will blow us right out of the water and so far... NOTHING... except maybe a couple of white papers and power point slides.
There are going to be more waves of folks before September and also after september.
If your noticing any additional "micro-mgmt" or "perf-mgmt" starting up, your probably on the watch and move list.
good luck.
thanks dylan ..
Much of Live Search hiring happened since 2004. In a competitive job market for C++ programmers, immigrants from several countries (not just the home countries of the hiring mgrs) had to fill the gap between head count and available qualified natives.
In my opinion many indian manager in search deliberately promoted hiring from their home country. I heard from one of my friend that during 2007 winter many indian managers went to india to interview candidates from indian colleges. And 50-100 indian freshers joined search during the middle of last year. If there were no hiring freeze at microsoft we would see search would be bloated with more indian 2009 freshers this time.
Another point is that there has been crazy hiring in Live Search for the last couple of years. But does Microsoft need to be so aggressive with Search? If Search was not bloated to 300 percent Microsoft could avoid layoffs in other orgs.
"I abso-fucking-lutely guarantee you that if you apply at Google with a Hotmail e-mail address, you will never, ever get hired."
As someone who is working at Google and directly involved in hiring I can assure you that this is total bull-fucking-shit. You will be using Gmail for your google.com address when inside but nobody gives a crap about your personal address.
Is it really worth ruining your health and postponing important events in your life for an extra $50,000?I suggest you look up the highest possible stock award for level 64. Multiply it by two (two years) and then consider walking away. It's not as simple a decision as it may appear.
In fact, towards the end of my time there, often the As contributed less to productivity than the Bs because they were so damn busy with special projects designed to keep them in the A club while the B's quietly got their work done and shipped the product.Shhh! You're not supposed to tell that secret! Many people aren't aware of it yet!
But as long as you let it out, there it is. In many or even most groups at Microsoft, you're not rewarded as much for what you contribute to a shipping product as much as for the other things you do. Contributing to a shipping product means you met expectations, often regardless of the scale of your contribution. Sitting on committees, proofing everyone's powerpoints, participating in exec reviews... those are the activities that differentiate A's from B's, and frequently the manager has total or near total control over which team members are given those opportunities. They can even request volunteers out of one side of their mouth while telling you out of the other that they can't cut your Kim workload so that you'd have the kind of time the "A"'s are given for those activities.
I almost agree with your statement that there's not as much difference between the top 20% and the 70% as some want everyone to believe. I do know some true standouts, but they're "top 5 or 10%" material. The 10-20% bucket isn't three times as productive or useful to the company as are those in the rest of the top 50%.
The idea is fine in theory, but in practice there are issues with it. Most of the people hired by MS aren't distributed along the capability/motivation curve in a normal distribution. The company is skewed to the high end of those curves. You won't find many people in the bottom 10% of the IT industry at MS. You'll find some, including several with whom I've worked, but it's not 1 out of every 10 FTEs. Mostly, FTEs come out of the top 40 or 50%. Those who consider that too generous to MS staff, you don't know the small mom and pop shops out there. MS, Oracle and related large companies do have a higher bar. If you take a small sample at the high end of a normal distribution and then look at the top 20% of that, you just won't see a 3 times (or N times) difference in productivity or contribution. It's simple college stats.
And yet another data point that shows that the review model needs work.
""A current popular "trick" is to give an employee a 3.0 rating (when they truly deserve a 2.0 rating). The manager then gives the employee the private message that they should look for a new job in another group at MS. The manager is avoiding the painful task of getting the person out the door and thus "hands off" their problem to an unsuspecting group."
This isn't only nonsense, it's ancient nonsense -- we haven't used numerical ratings for years."
Never said it was recent. Hence the Feb 93 memo date. Just an example that the golden years mini and others quote was not quite as golden as remembered
"I am the op. Your reasoning is ok. But From all the posts here, partners/GMs are not getting the cut. Even most of the L62 and up "managers" are not getting cut. "
In my org in CSS we have lost 2 managers that left went to other roles and one director that was RIF'ed. We haven't lost any IC's but we are not able to replace those that leave. The point is that this is affecting managers too. Even if they just leave they are not replaced.
"Also what about the responsibility at higher levels. Why was Kevin Johnson/Ballmer allowed to bid 50billion for yahoo. (Thanks God for the stupidity of Yang to refuse that bid)."
$33/share was the highest offer (but informal) Worst case that would work out to $42 billion. Far short of your $50 billion claim. (This also disreguards parts of Yahoo! could be sold and Yahoo! holdings. When to distort facts it tends to taint everything you say.
Moreover, this is how America grew in the last 500 years -- with hardworking immigrants participating in the American dream. Shame on you for forgetting that history and resorting to xenophobia.
Gah, whatever. Happy ACLU day. Sure, they were hired to backfill and I don't think anyone is denying they're talented. However, there's been no control to prevent clique formation in groups over the past three years I've been around and we currently have a significant problem. I actually don't have a problem with Ms. Brummel, so I think she'd be inclined to do something, but they'll favor income over rocking the boat. Don't worry, China is the new India and we'll have something new to complain about. We'll see Brazil after that, especially since there's less impact on our management culturally and hell even wrt time zones.
WRT the other recent posts: I think the only reason people are so amazed about these layoffs is that the company has been trying to support a family-friendly work/life balance. That was to prevent talent loss. Now we have this nasty thing called the Economy which has crumbled and is re-balancing, and we couple it with some really super products which are kicking butt and -gasp- aren't MS owned or even loosely coupled to MS at all. Panic in the streets!
I think most of us are burdened with a lean toward logical analysis. This is why we're perplexed if not just totally disgusted. I think we see two different approaches -reproduction time and the economic booty call- totally clashing with each other and causing chaos. SB is obviously more concerned with the latter. That's his job. Duh. He's allowed to change the rules, you're allowed to hate his guts and spew anonymously. Right?
For SB, I think this is a poor move. People in this industry have long memories and multiple, short term goals -average of 3yrs per job or position-. I remember a much different Apple in the early to mid 90's. This Apple had talented people and potential but kept killing dev lines/products/support, abandoning developers. They really suffered for it. We're talking over ten years and a ton of missed opportunities. It took some smashing products to bring people over/back.
Let's see how much talent is unloaded from MS in the next three years, as in MS->Apple/Google/etc. Regardless of what anyone thinks -re good designers argument- the loss will hurt, especially on legacy products.
"You wouldn't believe how many promising projects I've seen run into the ground while their promise was eventually fulfilled by a competitor. Every single time MS was the logical leader. The race was theirs to lose and lose they did."
So true! As readers of this comment thread know, Response Point was one of the teams eliminated on May 5th. It now appears that a formidable opponent is indeed moving into the vacuum created as a result: Welcome Cisco!
Yikes!!
@8:15 PM
I was in a meeting this past week where the review model was shown and yes, there are bonuses and stock awards as well as (lower than usual) promo budget. Just no merit awards. In my division, the numbers for bonuses and stock awards were the same as last year, percentage-wise.
>> If you're designing a building,
>> you don't want to rely on super-genius
>> bricklayers to keep your building from collapsing.
>> Why should software be any different?
Because it's not a building, maybe? Because it's a heck of a lot more complicated than a building? Because you're often doing it for the first time, so you need all the mental bandwidth you've got? Because it's poorly documented? Because requirements change all the time until (and sometimes even after) code freeze?
I could continue the list, or you could do it yourself. I'm not saying everyone needs to be a superstar, but for the project to be successful you need at least a few "to boldly go where no man has gone before" and clean up the crap after their less capable peers.
Some core teams are full of people from the home country of the partnersOne thing to keep in mind - there is not necessarily any cultural discrimination going on. Coming from a different culture (even british vs american!) will give you a different set of reactions and behaviors. So your management might just not get along with you (in the sense that you do not behave according to expectations, which means you're labelled untrustworthy). That's natural and cannot be avoided. Just move around until you find managers you're comfortable around and who are comfortable with you - both you and they will have a happier and more productive group for it.
One of the (many) problems with the review curve is how it is applied by lazy managers counter to how it is supposed to be applied. According to HR the curve is only supposed to apply to groups of 100 or more. The problem is too many GMs "push the model" down to line managers and expect them to apply the curve to groups of 8, 10, or 25 employees. I've experienced it both ways as a L67 manager of over 100 employees. It sure made it easy for me when all of my directs "hit the curve" or when we only debated their couple of people "on the bubble" between ratings, but that isn't the way it should be. I also had a few years where our VP said "group X hit more home runs this year, so they get more exceptions to the curve". Much as his GMs didn't like it when they were the group giving up rewards to the group that performed better, it felt more honest.
Too few managers have the integrity to stand up in front of the groups they manage and say "we failed as an organization on X, Y, and Z, and so we are getting less rewards than our sister org that had more success"...begs too many questions as to why the org failed, which usually has a lot more to do with management/leadership failures than it does with IC contributions.
If your manager or director manages less than 100 employees, challenge them on why they are being forced to hit "the curve" when that is against HR policy. But be careful what you ask for...you might come up worse off!
"We only want superstars, and constantly growing people only at MS"
Hmmm ,if MS only wants superstars in the company why does it pay at 66th percentile (the stated MS pay policy)? If only superstars work at MS, why isnt the pay commensurate with pays for superstars?
One of improvements SLT can make is to remove partner status from most of GM's and make their compensation more dependent on results of their groups(accountability).
Currently they are move motivated to build their own empires rather than create successful products.
GM's are often called business owners but their intensives and inclinations are different and would've bankrupt any real business.
I was the person that wrote about talking to your HR generalist if your manager starts to frame you. My comment was not a recommendation for people to rush to talk to HR for no reason. I agree with everyone that later cited another golden rule to preserve your career: if can avoid HR, do it. What I wrote about was the situation when your manager is definitely attempting to frame you, trying to portray your 9,600 minutes of work per month as being summarized by 2 or 3 minutes of behavior that he or she doesn’t like. That is not the same of getting similar feedback from 5 different people during a month, which is when you definitely have to look at your tail as in the good comment written afterwards: When one person tells you that you have a tail ignore it. When two people tell you? Turn around and take a look..
For example, I had a manager who had the habit of storming into my office at odd times, frequently in the middle of my 1:1 meetings with my direct reports, and request some irrelevant piece of information. While some other peers would stop whatever they were doing to satisfy the anxiety of that manager, I would politely inform him that his request would be performed as soon as my current meeting was over, and so I proceeded. It was easy to see the frustration in the face of this person that suddenly realized that he wasn’t the center of the universe. After a while, this manager brought up during 1:1 meetings the issue that I was producing results but not being respectful of his authority. In his own words, I was doing good work for Microsoft but not good work for him. After giving him chances of providing meaningful examples, and having him hiding behind statement like I would like to avoid documenting examples, to preserve you, I got HR involved.
Maybe I was just fortunate to have a designated HR generalist with the vision to at least hear what I had to say, look at my past record, and give me the benefit of doubt. I was then allowed to move on quite quickly. That was a project that I liked to work on, and a project that would benefit from my experience. Yet, I didn’t want to risk my career under someone with such poor managing habits, and who got a high level only due to his dozen years at Microsoft. Better yet, at that time I had a well-documented opportunity outside Microsoft, and HR was put clearly in the position of being the reason for Microsoft to lose a high performer or letting me move away. Being the lazy people that they are, they couldn’t care less about the project needs. This is the kind of scenario in which I recommend talking to HR: you have a good record, your manager is really bringing up something that doesn’t match reality, and you have a good backup plan for the case when things don’t go well. In any other case, avoid HR as much as possible.
"$33/share was the highest offer (but informal) Worst case that would work out to $42 billion. Far short of your $50 billion claim. (This also disreguards parts of Yahoo! could be sold and Yahoo! holdings. When to distort facts it tends to taint everything you say."
Well check this official press release of MS - http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/feb08/02-01corpnewspr.mspx
It says MS originally proposed $31 per share i.e. 44.6 billion. $33 per share amounts to $47.5 billion. $1.5 billion were the official retention bonuses for the yahoo employees (it was there in one of Ballmer's internal mails). Adding up it comes to $49 billion. So it appears my $50 billion is much closer than the $42 billion that you are quoting.
Regardless of price-tag whether $42 billion or $50 billion, the point was - now a days company is culling it's workforce to save few hundred million dollars every year, while the geniuses in search wanted to pay billions for the bloated yahoo. Icing on the cake is $1.5 billion retention bonuses for yahoo employees, while firing folks in MS redmond. It seems to make AIG retention bonus fiasco a walk in the park - isnt it.
"Yet to cut 150 more people in this week,those who are 20% Exceeded you are also not excluded as MS IT itself is a cost center."
I know this sounds rude but I can't help it: in all of my years at Microsoft I have yet to meet ANYONE in MS IT who I'd put in the 20% bucket.
Our IT department is largely bottom 10%, the occasional 70%er is a breath of fresh air.
Harsh yes, but true. It's one of our biggest problems, IMO.
"Never said it was recent. Hence the Feb 93 memo date. Just an example that the golden years mini and others quote was not quite as golden as remembered"
What part of "a current trick..." in your original post would lead someone to believe that you weren't implying a recent activity?
FAIL.
"So wait, because I focused on my customer (and brought in new revenue) and didn't bury my head in some useless internal project, I'm being punished? Screw that. Guess all I need to do is kick off some lame, waste of time internal project and devote less time to my customer. That's what people who got promo'd in my org did last year."
You got it, dude. That is the name of the game in services and has been ever since I joined (2001), at least in my region. I have watched consultants on billable time driving internal boondoggles which result in "management visibility" and promotion while the most productive and effective amongst us get squat.
I don't claim to be a supertar but at least I do the job I was hired to do and do the right thing for the customers who are paying for my time.
if can avoid HR, do it. What I wrote about was the situation when your manager is definitely attempting to frame you, trying to portray your 9,600 minutes of work per month as being summarized by 2 or 3 minutes of behavior that he or she doesn’t like. That is not the same of getting similar feedback from 5 different people during a month, which is when you definitely have to look at your tail as in the good comment written afterwards: When one person tells you that you have a tail ignore it. When two people tell you? Turn around and take a look..I'm the one who expressed disagreement with "go to HR". For the record, I still advocate avoiding HR even in the scenario mentioned above, where your manager is actively working on framing you unless you think there's a legal angle that HR might care about. Otherwise, there's not much incentive for them to help you. Depending on circumstances, HR may have an organizational reason for backing the manager regardless of how great your contributions and how screwed up the manager is. He's Armenian and your org is trying to work on the "diversity" of level-65-and-up staff? Toast. (And I don't mean your manager.) You won't necessarily know your org's HR priorities, and a wrong guess can be fatal.
And regarding the loss of a top performer? Your manager's ready with reams of documentation about those 2-3 minutes a month out of 9600 where you wouldn't put a call on hold to get him a statistic, or the time you rolled your eyes at an impossible deadline in a team meeting showing poor leadership, etc. The most experienced framers can convince the company they ought to be GLAD to lose this person who'd snowed their four previous managers. That's from personal experience.
One exception to "no HR" though. If you know of similar situations in which your HR generalist has been involved, and they've been resolved to the employee's satisfaction, then it's a safer risk. Beware large departments that have multiple generalists identified by a generic email address. A teammate might say "Yeah, our generalist is great", but THEIR generalist is not the same as YOURS, so if you hear a comment like that, get a name! Plus, generalists seem to change jobs frequently, so the helpful person from 3 months ago might be long gone. Again, take names and talk to the proven-helpful one if at all possible. Some generalists are great and some are known for being useless or even harmful.
In my scenario, one person was complaining that I had a tail. While multiple others were remarking at my fine human form. "You have a tail" was the minority opinion of my manager and those in the management chain and HR who didn't work directly with me, who decided to back him for reasons unknown. Peers and former managers vehemently disagreed to the point that some even attempted to intervene to stop the craziness, without success.
My situation was similar to the poster's: good record, nitpicky complaints not matching reality and so on. Even, manager with a record of problems of this type.
It looks like the takeaway from this is HR is unpredictable, and you're playing the odds if you talk to them. It could resolve your sitaution, it could do nothing, or it could worsen things. Nothing is for sure in life except death and taxes. Strategize accordingly. I cannot state strongly enough: have a backup plan.
"Because it's not a building, maybe? Because it's a heck of a lot more complicated than a building? Because you're often doing it for the first time, so you need all the mental bandwidth you've got? Because it's poorly documented? Because requirements change all the time until (and sometimes even after) code freeze?"Wow, that's a recipe for a bloated, overdue and unmaintainable product and burned-out developers!
Software development should be *exactly* like building, if not a house, then a bridge. However even a house can have surprisingly complex requirements and the construction of a "great house" (such as the one featured in Gosford Park) is just as complex as a software project.
But because software deveopment does not involve physical materials, and no-one sees the failed projects that in the physical world would be crumbling ruins, we are all complicit in the fundamental failures of inadequate specification, poor design, and pathetic documentation.
Many times a software project can be rescued from doom by a few heroic developers - BUT it would be better for all concerned if we grew up and stopped making things up as we go along.
Death marches sap a developer's passion (BTDT) so even if it makes you feel heroic, don't do it - it will cripple your long-term productivity.
Because it's not a building, maybe? Because it's a heck of a lot more complicated than a building? Because you're often doing it for the first time, so you need all the mental bandwidth you've got? Because it's poorly documented? Because requirements change all the time until (and sometimes even after) code freeze? .
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You assume that's how things have to be because that's the way they are at Microsoft. You missed my point entirely. Well-architected software is small and simple and can be developed and maintained by people who aren't rock star genius types.
For almost every product Microsoft produces, I can name a competing product that's smaller, faster, simpler, more stable, easier to use, and often more functional. And these products are developed by relatively few people. How many man-hours go into Firefox vs. IE?
The archetype of a superstar developer at Microsoft is the guy who's always in his office, is always on e-mail answering other people's questions, is always fixing the build, knows all the really hard interview questions, and spends his time working on his cool pet project to add 3D effects to something that doesn't really need them.
I suspect this sort of person would be fairly worthless in a small group where everybody really had to focus on adding value to the product.
Just move around until you find managers you're comfortable around and who are comfortable with you - both you and they will have a happier and more productive group for it.
My experience at Microsoft is that you may find a manager you like working for but in short order there will be a reorg and you will wind up reporting to someone else.
" $33 per share amounts to $47.5 billion. "
$33 * 1.4 Billion shares = $42 Billion.
Learn to do some math yourself instead of trusting random press realeases.
"You assume that's how things have to be because that's the way they are at Microsoft. You missed my point entirely. Well-architected software is small and simple and can be developed and maintained by people who aren't rock star genius types."
Say what?
You're flat wrong -- "well architected software" is software that is elegant and efficient at its job -- for small, simple applications the code should be small and simple and it can be made by people who aren't rock stars, but this is certainly not the case for large, complex applications that push the envelope(think complex video games, for example, that have dynamic lighting, physics, AI and elaborate geometry). If you don't like video games as an example, there are hundreds of other applications that require developers who are brilliant working together.
Google's entire model is based on hiring a stable of superstars -- much moreso than Microsoft.
The problem you're hitting on is that the industry has a very difficult time understanding *where* it needs superstars and where it needs worker bees, and removing the expectation that all worker bees must be on the same career path as superstars in order to succeed. When genius needs to work alongside average it's just bad juju if you don't have a system in place to adequately respect and reward both groups for doing their best work.
"Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana
I'd LOVE to see the Microsoft product groups start sharing post-mortem feedback so we don't have to continually reinvent the wheel.
>> Software development should be *exactly*
>> like building, if not a house, then a bridge.
I've worked in a number of companies (including Microsoft) and without fail, ALWAYS, irrespective of the size of the team, the success or failure of a product depended on a small core of developers who REALLY knew what they were doing. If you want to call them "superstars" that's fine with me, although they rarely have that attitude. Mediocre developers build mediocre products, that's a simple, established fact. If anything, Microsoft needs more superstars, not less, and it needs to recognize them and pay them better.
Although having spent some time on the outside, I can tell you that compared to the "talent" the small companies out there attract, Microsoft devs by and large brutally kick ass. If I start my own business, I will be poaching MSFT talent within reach of my network pretty thoroughly.
"$33 * 1.4 Billion shares = $42 Billion.
Learn to do some math yourself instead of trusting random press realeases."
There is an app called calculator - which can be accessed by typing calc.exe in your run. Type in 33*1.4 in it. See for yourself if it comes to $42 that you're claiming.
Also you missed the bigger point. Billions were being talked about at that time as if it were nothing. Our VPs raised offer by $5 billion at that time in private talks with Yang. And yet after all these layoffs, they will save a few hundred millions.
You'd do better by focussing on bigger picture/point rather than the math - where you seem to be stuck for some strange reason.
Today I was reading a NY Times article of on impersonator that is going on trial for kidnapping his own daughter during a visit after a divorce. The defense will try to use the insanity strategy. An expert declared that the man has "indications of grandiose delusions, illogical thinking and misperceptions of reality". That describes my manager. Wait: it also describes my grand manager. Wait… I’m also a Microsoft manager. Does it describe me?
In about a decade at Microsoft I’ve managed about 3 dozen people. About 1/3 of them explicitly told me I’ve been their best manager. Some others may have had better managers and considered that I was average. None ever told me, or have I heard it indirectly, that I was a bad manager. I had only 2 people ever leaving my teams during 9 years, and both cases happened because they were already leaving when I arrived, and I didn’t really see the point of trying to change their decision, and instead went on to help them. As a manager, I don’t do anything special. I just try to apply common sense to every single work scenario. Why have I been so unlucky with my own managers during the same time? Over and over I’ve been dealing with managers who think that Microsoft cannot live without them (grandiose delusions). I had a manager who explicitly said that he had not taken a vacation in years, for fear of Microsoft failing “in his absence” (illogical thinking?). I’ve worked on a certain Microsoft product for two releases, and I have the ship-it awards to at least prove that “I was there”. Yet, I’ve met two managers that claim that they were responsible for the success of that project. They continued repeating that, even after knowing that I worked on that product, and that I knew they weren’t there, since I’ve told them this (misperceptions of reality?).
I’ve been able to help some of my direct reports with such symptoms over the years. There was one of my reports who would talk during the weekly status meeting as if he had done this and that work that everyone knew had been done by someone else, and the other person was in the room! I talked candidly with him during 1:1 meetings that such embellishments wouldn’t help his career, since people would start avoiding him or talking behind his back, diminishing his credibility. Surprisingly, the person took the feedback well, and fixed that trait. How to do this with your own manager? (without making a career limiting move)
"To the people (person?) stubbornly insisting that XBox is now "profitable" - no it is not. Not until it pays back the more than $8 billion it's burned through."
I'm right with you on the gmail factor -- hell, I applied and got in with a gmail account. But this statement showcases stunning economic ignorance.
Profitable has a very precise meaning, which precludes those 8 billion dollars from having anything to do with it. Those 8 billion dollars? History. Ancient history. Sunk costs. An effect on the balance sheet. Profitability is an Income Statement parameter. A memoryless signal.
You could argue that the past financial failures indicate that you expect the xbox to fall into unprofitability again. But you're just wrong if you claim that it makes xbox unprofitable now. Lacking a good reason to believe it will become unprofitable again (or less profitable than alternative investments), the xbox division should continue again, until you build a time machine and can warn everyone that the Xbox will take an unacceptable amount of time to become profitable.
While you're at it with the time machine, have Microsoft buy Google while it's still a fledgling operation, and bring back some modern NVidia drivers so Vista doesn't run like shit for a year after a release, sealing its reputation forever.
for small, simple applications the code should be small and simple and it can be made by people who aren't rock stars, but this is certainly not the case for large, complex applications that push the envelope .
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When you're doing software engineering you can take complex applications and break them down into simpler modules. My point is that if your software is so complex that you require a bunch of rock stars to maintain it, you have failed at engineering.
What about Alexander Stojanovic and "Arena" stuff? He was also moved, I heard, and his org was cut into several pieces?
Re: XBox profitability. It would be ridiculous to cut XBox now as long as it's making a profit on a month-by-month basis. Whether or not it's a smart market to be in or has been well-executed is an academic issue at this point--it exists and it's bringing in money. The concern is that the division may want to sink another $2B+ into launching and subsidizing a new console, which should be avoided at all costs, but we should condemn that bridge when we come to it.
100% true - there are a couple of extreme opinions here, both of which are wrong. One says that the sunk cost to date should decide whether we dump Xbox, the other says that current profits should make the decision.
The truth is, as you point out, neither past investment or current profitability is a valid measure. The sunk costs are gone - I for one am not disputing that. But future investment stands to sap all these current profits (and those profits haven't even managed to make the 360 as a whole profitable yet) unless we really are successful in extending the 360's lifecycle. So yeah, I'm not calling for MGS to get shuttered right now. I say run with what we have as long as we can.
But the second Bach and Allard show up with their hat in their hands asking for more R&D money to launch their next generation? Based on their performance to date, I'd have to say it's time to pull the plug. Remove one or both of those guys and actually put someone in who understands the business and I might sign off on round three.
"$33 * 1.4B = $42B"
The price for Yahoo! is more complex that that. One has to consider Yahoo! assets, debts and actions. Assets/debts would reduce the cost of Yahoo!, esp. if some the Asian properties were sold off. However, a hostel takeover would have been more expensive as some dilutive measures and absurd severage packages could have been paid out. That probably would push it to the $50B figure.
In the end, Yahoo! was hostil, Microsoft backed away and the deal was off. Took awhile, but it was never close to a done deal. Then Yang lost his job over his conduct in the deal. Then the recession got going so nothing has happened.
The amazing thing is that with the bond offering, Microsoft probably has enough funds to do a hostil takeover if they wanted too. That assumes the goverment would allow it. Also Yahoo! has gone from being completely against Microsoft to a possible partner. Stock price has suffered but besides that it is a net positive.
Oh and both companies have now suffered layoffs.
"Where is the accountability for leadership/managers? I'm sorry, but MS looks more and more like IBM of the nineties. Always late to party, trying to be in all spaces - believing it's sheer size and past glory would be enough to crush the newer/nimble player."
I am the responder. To answer your additional question, there isn't any. That doesn't mean the layoffs weren't necessary. And I fully agree that management, especially senior leadership, is largely getting spared even though they are primarily responsible for the problem. 5000 employees should correspond to at least 400 managers. I bet less than 100 were included, few of them senior.
"Profitable has a very precise meaning, which precludes those 8 billion dollars from having anything to do with it."
That's the accounting definition. The English definition is has it yielded a profit? The latter defined as an excess of returns over expenditures. Most companies evaluate projects using some variation of internal rate of return, which corresponds more closely with the English definition of profitable. Xbox is deeply unprofitable using that criteria and would boast a large negative IRR.
"Those 8 billion dollars? History. Ancient history. Sunk costs."
For accounting purposes, as well as a current continue/stop decision, that is correct.
"You could argue that the past financial failures indicate that you expect the xbox to fall into unprofitability again."
It's certainly worthwhile to understand management's specific business record (in MS's case, horrible) as well as the industry's dynamics broadly. For example, the large initial capital costs and therefore upfront losses normally (though not always) associated with each new generation of consoles. Also, where's your evidence that Xbox is actually profitable now?
"But you're just wrong if you claim that it makes xbox unprofitable now."
They're correct in saying that Xbox, as an investment, has been unprofitable to date and may or may not still be unprofitable on an annual accounting basis.
"Lacking a good reason to believe it will become unprofitable again (or less profitable than alternative investments), the xbox division should continue again, until you build a time machine and can warn everyone that the Xbox will take an unacceptable amount of time to become profitable."
Again you state that it's profitable currently without providing any evidence. And on the matter of less profitable than other investments, that's very very important. Because the best case scenario currently, based on the division's overall results and Xbox prominence in that, is that if it is profitable it is barely covering the cost of capital. Making it a terrible investment even nine years later.
The layoffs are costing more than they're saving, in some cases.
My team was laid off while we were in mid-swing doing work for our product team, which had been re-org'ed out from under us and moved into a different BG. Understandably, we were sitting ducks for riffing.
The product team has now had to hire vendors to finish the work, and they're hiring 2 vendors for each FTE head cut. (Didn't realize I was doing the work of two people!)
So, MS is paying my severance + 2 vendor salaries + agency fees to "save" money on one FTE position.
I would've felt better about this ground-level surrealism if there were some grand, overriding vision guiding the layoffs, but I'm not seeing it - nor is anyone else, from the sound of things.
"When you're doing software engineering you can take complex applications and break them down into simpler modules. My point is that if your software is so complex that you require a bunch of rock stars to maintain it, you have failed at engineering."I just think this is a very limited view of software engineering that covers just a small slice of the kinds of things people design.
As I mentioned, there are thousands of software projects that simply don't conform to "break everything down into simple modules that any code monkey can crank out" -- this might work for a browser or a word processor, but it frequently doesn't work for systems doing higher-level processing where every individual module requires a background in complex math or other specialty.
There is plenty of software that requires teams of rockstars to produce.
""Never said it was recent. Hence the Feb 93 memo date. Just an example that the golden years mini and others quote was not quite as golden as remembered"
What part of "a current trick..." in your original post would lead someone to believe that you weren't implying a recent activity?
FAIL."
Man are you dense.
What part of "from a Feb 1993 memo" would lead someone to not think it's from a 1993 memo.
But future investment stands to sap all these current profits (and those profits haven't even managed to make the 360 as a whole profitable yet) unless we really are successful in extending the 360's lifecycle.Amen. Spinoff Xbox and search. It is the medicine the doctor prescribed.
Here's a nice kick in the pants for all those laid off and those still working there trying to make things better. MS IT flew 350 people to Hong Kong for a offsite meeting (an OFFSITE MEETING!). A trip that was nothing more than a boon doogle. What could MS be thinking during times like this to let a group of IT people travel on such an expensive offsite? Where is the cost cutting and travel restrictions in this? What possible business impact could this meeting have except throwing away MS money? Who ever approved that should be the one laid off, not some of the very talented people that were. Very disturbing.
BING???
Seems like someone there somewhere needs to be insightful and productive.
BING???
In the words of Bruce Willis in Armageddon( OUR THERE ABOUTS):
"Your Microsoft and your telling me that this is the best you have, this is what is going to save Microsoft??? Your Microsoft for God's sake, don't you have a backup plan??? Your telling me that this is IT??? Out sourcing Office Live to those who don't live in the real world first, then don't listen to their "community advisors" first then BING???
Don't know what you people have been smokin there but The topic says it all.
If I were the boss I'd cinco-de-firo everyone that cannot Connect(thats another story) with the general public. Starting with anyone that even remotely resembles the pc guy in the Apple commercials.
Don't you people know you have a business to run??? and the customer is always right???
One PISSED OFF Partner THAT trys to sell this BS to your Customers!!!
Much has been said here about the short-sightedness of these layoffs. Experts are saying that the GFC will recover next year, and already we are seeing signs - US consumer confidence is at a high. Was the layoff effort really needed? So surely those financial leaders at MSFT would be in tune with expectations and this should not be news to them. My conclusion is that the GFC is being used largely as an excuse to implement changes, rather than the stated objectives of saving some $'s.
This means one of two things...1. The SLT at MSFT have no idea about money, and therefore MSFT is farked; or 2. MSFT is moving agressively to an online services/ad business, in which case most of the employees are farked because they won't be needed, and MSFT is farked because the competitors have/are/will continue to deliver this business model better than MSFT.
Lead on SteveB - take your lemmings over the cliff, not many will mourn the loss.
Experts are saying that the GFC will recover next year, and already we are seeing signs - US consumer confidence is at a high. Was the layoff effort really needed?.Para Break.
Wow, US consumer confidence is NOT at a high. On 5/27 the conference board consumer confidence printed a 54.9. Historically, a level 60 or below is associated with a recession. Even after a huge jump from last month, US consumer confidence is well below 60. Here is a 20 year old chart of consumer confidence and notice how it went below 60 only during recessions: http://bp0.blogger.com/_sy2qqBjcPIg/SGPP6OHHWGI/AAAAAAAAAlc/TimU_tS64-c/s1600-h/MartinCapitalConsumerConfidence.gif. And now notice how we printed a historic low (below 30) last Fall and are well below 60 since last fall: http://www.market-harmonics.com/free-charts/sentiment/consumer_confidence.htm.
Financial Press makes a effing big deal about such numbers to sell their crappy news/commentary products, but you should know what is really going on. Btw, there is also another consumer confidence number published by the U of Michigan. The charts I pointed you to above are from the Conference Board and that index below 60 is what's historically associated with recession territory. Pointing out so there is no confusion when U of Michigan confidence/sentiment numbers are published on 5/29. The U of Michigan sentiment index is currently around 68, so don't mix these two up.
Bing?!??
Out of all the brand names that are out there?
I have 2 questions
1)What happens if you get laid off while you are on vacation? Are you pretty much out of the door without your consent? Or MS has to wait for you to come back and sign all the legal papers? Please let me know if you can have some insights in this
2)Review time is almost around the corner. At the end of review cycle, we all have to sign the bottom of the review. What if you disagree with the review. Can you not sign it and request an reassessment?
As I mentioned, there are thousands of software projects that simply don't conform to "break everything down into simple modules that any code monkey can crank out" .
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I wonder what product you work on that you think it can't be modularized. You mentioned video games, with physics, lighting, geometry, etc. I have friends who work in that industry. They use libraries for physics now. I don't know about the other aspects but this is an ideal example of modularization.
"The layoffs are costing more than they're saving, in some cases."
Ditto. Our team was less than 6 weeks away from shipping and a good chunk of team was laid off. I think MS thinking was to layoff in one big batch, rather than piecemeal. So situation like these, where relatively insignificant product teams are close to shipping, MS must be thinking that there will a rough patch for these teams, and then they'll stablize. During this rough patch, they will hire vendors to deliver the goods, spend some additional money and get the product shipped, and send vendor backs. They obviously think it is better to fire in one batch and spend a little bit more money, rather than stagger this round of layoffs into series of small-small layoffs, after each team has shipped their current release. This does not sound like fun too - where you know after release, layoffs will follow :).
Why are shareholders putting with with this management team? I mean - what has this team done to increase their stock value in last decade (except for paying a small dividend)?
SB is acting like a salesman, who sells grandiose plans to them year after year and they keep obliging. Why didnt anyone have the balls to ask him to "deliver the goods you promised last time". How is he getting away with all this?
Speaking of future layoffs, there's been talk on this thread (and others) of teams like Office and Windows being hit once they ship.
If true, I feel very sorry for people on those teams. So here you are slogging your fanny off, whilst eyeing that guillotine that you're moving towards.
So the message is "Hey thanks for all the hard work, eh? Now, Bah Bye" Swish
Would MS seriously do something like that to these people??
"The layoffs are costing more than they're saving, in some cases."
No it isnt... not even close but it probably does feel that way in some cases. Honestly, not all layoffs were about cost though so this is probably an invalid assumption about what to measure post-layoff.
The better question some of you in this situation as described in this post should ask is why are you still shipping something that was obviously thought worthy enough to cut so deeply into the team with layoffs?!?!?!? That to me speaks of the poor leadership involved in some of these teams... if a group was cut that significantly, the implication is that the product is shelved if not cut completely so why is your leadership hiring vendors to complete the job? If I were you, I'd worry about my own job after you ship...
"What if you disagree with the review. Can you not sign it and request an reassessment?"
Technically signing your review doesnt mean anything... it is equivilent to a check box that basically says you had the discussion with your manager and are aware of the results. It doesnt mean you consent with the content or agree with the score and HR will confirm this if you ask them. You can certainly refuse to sign but it usually causes more problems than it is worth in the end and doesnt mean what most employees think it means.
"I wonder what product you work on that you think it can't be modularized. You mentioned video games, with physics, lighting, geometry, etc. I have friends who work in that industry. They use libraries for physics now. I don't know about the other aspects but this is an ideal example of modularization."
Dude, unless you've worked in the industry keep your yap shut, please. In video games, you can license a physics engine like Havok, but unless you're a second-rate shop there is considerable customization you'll do to integrate it into your game code, and the people who do this work are "rockstars", not monkeys.
Again, many productivity apps and "Web 2.0" widgets can be modularized and coded by monkeys. The Really Cool Shit that's exciting and pushing the boundaries of the possible cannot.
"You'd do better by focussing on bigger picture/point rather than the math - where you seem to be stuck for some strange reason."
The bigger picture is that Ballmer is trying to grow the company. The Yahoo! deal didn't work out but if you believe search is going to be bigger then it is wrong to fault him for trying. $40B or even $50B isn't that much to Mircosoft. Losing out on a $1 Trillion market is a much bigger deal over time. That is the big picture.
"After the SBA layoffs is going to be interesting to see how easy it will be for the group to attract or even keep talent. "
Are you kidding? After being kicked out of DPE, SanjayP is maximizing his randomization performance again. You should be working actively to find a job and get away from SBA as fast as possible. Only people who couldn't find a job would stay with SanjayP.
"The layoffs are costing more than they're saving, in some cases"
This was the worse process I have ever seen. If we want to exit a business, that is fine, but we could have done it much more thoughtfully. The May 5th layoff was so sudden and it generated lots of scars for people in the company. Our reputation for our partners was also severely damaged. Many people were very disappointed that our senior leaders didn't care much about MSFT employees, our customers and partners. Their arrogance is going to cost dearly for MSFT share holders.
Many excellent engineers in SajayP's SBA got laid off. When the decision was made to cut a group, the reason was either the BG didn't like the business or it is not financially attractive. SBA didn't invest enough with the needed determination to make the products financially successful.
Would MS seriously do something like that to these people??
Um...yeah. They would.
Signed,
All the People Laid Off from Teams With More Recent Ship Dates
I have 2 questions
1)What happens if you get laid off while you are on vacation?... The people I know who got the axe and were on vacation got called on their cell phones. Nice 'eh.
2)Review time is almost around the corner... Can you not sign it and request an reassessment? I have been told by a manager I trust that he has experienced this when it became the mandate to give a certain percentage of IC's the shaft starting beginning ~6 years ago. I considering this myself a when I got screwed over, but luckily the job I interviewed for came through and I just signed it and moved on. As for a reassesment there is nothing to be gained there, they will not change your rating and if they do you won't get any monetary benefit.
"Speaking of future layoffs, there's been talk on this thread (and others) of teams like Office and Windows being hit once they ship.
If true, I feel very sorry for people on those teams. So here you are slogging your fanny off, whilst eyeing that guillotine that you're moving towards."
Welcome to the depression? Hello, this is the standard daily reality for most of us on the planet.
" Losing out on a $1 Trillion market is a much bigger deal over time. That is the big picture."
Dude - where are you getting that no. from. Call me ignorant, but last time i checked the search market numbers' future projections (From Ballmer's and Satya's mails around the time of yahoo bid) it was $80 billion per annum in 2011. Also at that time, to allay the layoff fears, the email said 'we're still a growth company and hiring'. Well it might be true, since in search they are still hiring.
I am not faulting Ballmer for trying to increase marketshare, but i am faulting him for his shoddy leadership. Also some other people asked in the thread, what is his vision and why is the management not getting asked hard questions by shareholders or why are folks in slt not shown door if they do not deliver, what they promise to deliver.
Personally - i think MS is an ageing and bloated ship. It wont sink, but it wont be able to keep pace with newer, faster ships. I'd get out of this stock(espp) as soon as the market recovers somewhat, since i am convinced that SLT is not learning the lesson and will keep repeating the mistakes.
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