Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?
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Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?
#2Naturally, he is very disappointed but he should keep things in perspective. It's not that bad of situation to be in. You have 15 years of software development experience at Microsoft and there are going to be a lot of open doors. This could really be blessing in disguise.
Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?
#3Naturally, he is very disappointed but he should keep things in perspective. It's not that bad of situation to be in. You have 15 years of software development experience at Microsoft and there are going to be a lot of open doors. This could really be blessing in disguise.
hmm, he is however up against every one of his ex-collegues who are in the same boat.
Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?
#4Honest question as a Canadian - what do you do about health insurance when you're 50 and get fired from your lifer job? Should you really have been paying for your own policy in parallel with your employer's so that you can continue with the low premiums post-employment?
Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?
#5It's really sad to hear him talk about his son. What department was he in, and what could the new direction be?
Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?
#6Honest question as a Canadian - what do you do about health insurance when you're 50 and get fired from your lifer job? Should you really have been paying for your own policy in parallel with your employer's so that you can continue with the low premiums post-employment?
These days you go to your state exchange (for the putative ex-MS person, that's likely to be https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org/), search for a plan, click on it and sign up.
It used to be worse, of course. But even then it wasn't a disaster for the case at hand: the COBRA act allowed you to continue to buy your existing plan at the same premiums for a year and a half until you found a new job.
Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?
#7Honest question as a Canadian - what do you do about health insurance when you're 50 and get fired from your lifer job? Should you really have been paying for your own policy in parallel with your employer's so that you can continue with the low premiums post-employment?
A very reasonable thing to do is ask for a higher salary and no company insurance. You end up paying a premium (because the extra salary gets hit by income tax, while if the company had used it to buy insurance it would not have been subject to income tax), but you get to choose your own insurance and it doesn't stop when you leave.
Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?
#8Honest question as a Canadian - what do you do about health insurance when you're 50 and get fired from your lifer job? Should you really have been paying for your own policy in parallel with your employer's so that you can continue with the low premiums post-employment?
These days you go to your state exchange (for the putative ex-MS person, that's likely to be https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org/ ), search for a plan, click on it and sign up. It used to be worse, of course. But even then it wasn't a disaster for the case at hand: the COBRA act allowed you to continue to buy your existing plan at the same premiums for a year and a half until you found a new job.
COBRA is impossibly expensive for many people. When you simultaneously have your salary drop to $0 and your portions of your insurance premiums triple (say, if you have a spouse and kids covered by the plan), that's a rough situation to be in.
About the only good thing about COBRA is that it covers preexisting conditions.
Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?
#9Honest question as a Canadian - what do you do about health insurance when you're 50 and get fired from your lifer job? Should you really have been paying for your own policy in parallel with your employer's so that you can continue with the low premiums post-employment?
These days you go to your state exchange (for the putative ex-MS person, that's likely to be https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org/ ), search for a plan, click on it and sign up. It used to be worse, of course. But even then it wasn't a disaster for the case at hand: the COBRA act allowed you to continue to buy your existing plan at the same premiums for a year and a half until you found a new job.
Should be noted that in most cases your employer would cover most of that premium. My insurance went from $10/month (with my employer covering $580) to $590/month on COBRA when I was laid off.
Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?
#10It's really sad to hear him talk about his son. What department was he in, and what could the new direction be?
SDET in Windows.