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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?

#41

Post by krschultz »

bmelton wrote: post #22
dataminded wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can cosign this. Cobra for my wife and I was ~$1000/month.

Not to contribute to the ACA vs. non-ACA arguments further, but ACA plans for my wife, daughter and myself are more than double that in Maryland. I don't know what the differences would be if I were earning $0 per year, especially as the relevant question (on the form I filled out) was something like "How much do you anticipate earning this year?" which is a question I have no idea how I would answer if I were curren…

Then that sounds about on par, because a family plan is usually 2x the cost of a couple's plan.

Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?

#42

Post by akg_67 »

fencepost wrote: post #19
acchow wrote: post #4

Honest 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?

Prior to the Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, you had up to 18 months of COBRA eligibility, meaning you could stay on your employer's plan but paid all premiums (expensive). During that time you frantically look for a job that includes healthcare coverage. Failing either of those, you might find junk insurance, or you simply go without and hope for good health. If your income is / remains low enough you might qualify…

I went through layoff six months ago. ACA definitely has helped with health insurance. If you are unemployed (no income), you are most likely to get subsidy as it is income based. Our premiums after subsidy is little bit higher than what we were paying when I was employed.

I wish there was something similar to ACA for dental insurance. Most dental insurance plans on open market are expensive and with ridiculous terms, like 18-month waiting period! We had to take dental insurance plan through COBRA (almost 6 times as expensive as regular employee). Not sure what we will do with dental insurance after 18 months of coverage through COBRA.

Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?

#43

Post by gabriel34 »

huhtenberg wrote: post #20
badmadrad wrote: post #2

Naturally, 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.

Except every interviewer will be wondering why did Microsoft let go someone with so much experience. What did Microsoft know that's not on the resume.

not at this moment, not after such a massive layoff

Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?

#44

Post by spartango »

badman_ting wrote: post #24
badmadrad wrote: post #2

Naturally, 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.

I hope this person is OK but that strikes me as unrealistic. Ageism is a real problem for software developers, but also that 15 years at MS could just as easily be viewed as a negative than a positive.

That 15 years of experience at one of the world's top software companies is seen is a negative disgusts me.

It seems disrespectful to judge an employee based on the negative perception of an entire company. For all the broken things within a company like Microsoft, I think it would be foolish to mark the company's talent pool as tainted.

Perhaps this reflects a subtler form of the fanboy-ism that exists in technology culture today. The sentiment is that companies we dislike must have incompetent employees. Competent employees would surely build a better product, right? Obviously this is naive.

Absolutely right, ageism plays into this as well. If you're hiring, keep in mind that, while fashionable, it is illegal to discriminate based on age. I wish this law was slightly easier to enforce.

Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?

#45

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

acchow wrote: post #4

Honest 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?

You get sick and die.

Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?

#46

Post by nknighthb »

bmelton wrote: post #22
dataminded wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can cosign this. Cobra for my wife and I was ~$1000/month.

Not to contribute to the ACA vs. non-ACA arguments further, but ACA plans for my wife, daughter and myself are more than double that in Maryland. I don't know what the differences would be if I were earning $0 per year, especially as the relevant question (on the form I filled out) was something like "How much do you anticipate earning this year?" which is a question I have no idea how I would answer if I were curren…

> I don't know what the differences would be if I were earning $0 per year

Your premiums would be $0. You would be immediately enrolled in medicaid.

Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?

#48

Post by Scuds »

badmadrad wrote: post #2

Naturally, 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.

yup. you're not hurting for .net / sql dev roles in the Puget sound area. Starbucks, Expedia, Nordstrom, and any number of other consulting firms and smaller dev shops.

Of course - Node, Rails, Django, Spring etc wouldn't be bad to learn.

Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?

#49

Post by billmalarky »

socrates1998 wrote: post #47

It sounds rough, but if you are not invaluable to your company, then you are always at risk. And almost no one is invaluable at such a large company. There is no more "lifer" jobs.

On the flip side, being "irreplaceable" isn't necessarily a good thing either because it generally means you are needed for one specific task that will stagnate your professional growth.

Re: Microsoft laid me off after 15 years of service. Life after Microsoft?

#50

Post by kyllo »

kstrauser wrote: post #8
ajross wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And that within 60 days, you only pay the premium if you use it, because that's how long they give you to enroll in it. So if you get sick/injured within 60 days after being laid off, you can apply for COBRA, pay the premium, and you will be covered retroactively.
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