141–150 of 251 posts
Never good news to hear about layoffs, but for those that are affected I can say there is life beyond Microsoft. (it might even be better!)
Microsoft employee here. My main concern is the fact that I'm the US on an H-1B visa. I really, really, really don't want to go back to my country, but that will be the case if I'm laid off and unable to find another H-1B sponsor in a very short time. :(
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I work in silicon valley and it seems like there is a huge shortage of people with software development skills. I am not talking about geniuses, just people with skills. I work at a company that isn't the sexiest (but a good stable employer) and man, it is hard to find people.
Honest question as a developer looking eventually to move to the Valley in a year or so: is it really that hard to find good people? Is software development really that hard? I taught myself 99% of what I know and found it to be pretty easy, and currently do iOS dev work. Just wondering.
As someone starting at Microsoft in the near future, should this make me worried?
No, MS isn't in dire straits that they need to start letting the lowest guys on the totem pole go. For the first couple years focus on being the best employee possible and making your manager's life easier. Don't shy away from doing the boring, ugly grunt work that no one else wants to do. You need to establish yourself as a reliable performer.
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Its good in theory, but in practice it doesn't work. Those guys who mastered the political process. They don't get fired. Not getting fired is what they do. Thats the thing they're really good at.
Exactly. And it's not just tech. Most large companies have mid-level workers whose sole job is to not to get laid off (fired). I pity anyone under them cause they are usually the hardest working and first to go. Companies should be looking top-down instead of the usual bottom-up. And man, it gets cut-throat. You know, when I traded, I used to think that was the most cut-throat work environment. Then the firm I was tr…
It also applies to countries. Look at the increasing resources that go to people who produce little or nothing of value to others eg lawyers, lobbyists, politicians, financial engineers, LBO operators etc. Not to mention many of the people on welfare.
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What does it mean that they would have been bankrupt? I thought (wrongly perhaps) that you were only bankrupt if you couldn't pay your bills. So no matter their true debt back then, doesn't GE's current existence prove they weren't bankrupt?
If your assets are worth less than your liabilities, you're technically insolvent. If you can still pay your bills from cashflows, you don't need to claim bankruptcy, but on a long enough timeline without a significant change, you will go bankrupt. There was a long stretch of time post-GFC where this was the case with GE. Banks have to 'mark-to-market' their debt periodically, but since GE wasn't a bank, they didn't…
No you aren't. It just means you have a negative net worth.
insolvent - unable to pay debts owed.
Think of people instead of companies. I suspect a majority of people in America have a negative net worth. That doesn't make them insolvent. It just means they have lots of college loans and they are working to pay them back.
Any company that has been around for as long as Microsoft, has a huge amount of dead weight in its mid-level management. I mean people whose main skill is mastery of the internal political process. Lest people think I'm singling out Microsoft specifically, this same problem is present at Google as well, but is less of a problem because Google has not been around long enough to pick up the same amount of dead weight p…
As someone currently with the company, this description of some mid-level management really resonates with me. I am incredibly skeptical, however, that any round of layoffs attempting to get rid of these people will have a good hit rate. Plenty of really talented engineers and engineering managers will end up losing their jobs too. I a lot of my older peers from university went to work for IBM for a couple years righ…
In those kind of schemes, you must ask who wants to leave, give them a package, avoid those with children, the older ones go last, etc. So I doubt they'd let go of the worst people first.
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Exactly. Every layoff i have seen personally or through close friends at other company's the ass kissers survive and those t hat threaten them get laid off. Those that threaten them (the competent ones) are always painted as non team players because generally the competent ones are unhappy when the teams gain so many slick talking ass kissers but few doers.
Competent people need to know the political basics, it's like defensive driving. http://www.manager-tools.com/2013/04/politics-101-chapter-3-... http://www.manager-tools.com/2013/05/politics-101-chapter-3-...
The second one was "You need to observe people's actions and understand why they do things" repeated for 20 minutes.
Those are both very helpful points but I think people would be better served with some advice or techniques.
For example: Discuss your plans with each person one by one before a big meeting so that everyone will be more likely to see it your way in the big meeting.
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As someone currently with the company, this description of some mid-level management really resonates with me. I am incredibly skeptical, however, that any round of layoffs attempting to get rid of these people will have a good hit rate. Plenty of really talented engineers and engineering managers will end up losing their jobs too. I a lot of my older peers from university went to work for IBM for a couple years righ…
I wonder how they'll apply this plan in France, where the spirit of the law is, you may massively fire people only if it's part of "plan social", and the only argument is ofthen it's-this-or-we-go-bankrupt. Especially: In those kind of schemes, you must ask who wants to leave, give them a package, avoid those with children, the older ones go last, etc. So I doubt they'd let go of the worst people first.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone currently with the company, this description of some mid-level management really resonates with me. I am incredibly skeptical, however, that any round of layoffs attempting to get rid of these people will have a good hit rate. Plenty of really talented engineers and engineering managers will end up losing their jobs too. I a lot of my older peers from university went to work for IBM for a couple years righ…
I wonder how they'll apply this plan in France, where the spirit of the law is, you may massively fire people only if it's part of "plan social", and the only argument is ofthen it's-this-or-we-go-bankrupt. Especially: In those kind of schemes, you must ask who wants to leave, give them a package, avoid those with children, the older ones go last, etc. So I doubt they'd let go of the worst people first.
Context: I was at Microsoft during the first and only round of layoffs in company history (2009). My job was not impacted at all by the layoffs so I speaking from my memory of what was happening around me. In fact, I was working on an incubation project that was one of the few ideas that was green-lighted with a pretty sizable team that year. My perspective: From a company perspective, eliminating 5000 people in 2009…
I don't think the company ever recovered from the drag out of the cuts, and many people stopped taking risks and instead kept their heads low and looked over their shoulders to ensure they wouldn't be let go.