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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?

#61

Post by akg_67 »

chiph wrote: post #15
nanidin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm about to start a job search pretty soon. Not so nice that the market is being flooded with ex-MS people at the moment.

Be willing to move. The hard part about this is convincing the HR department that you can self-relocate and don't want relo money.

The most common objection I have heard in past six months during my job search. Another two objections that I have heard are "too much experience" and "your past salary was too much, we don't want to offer less but can't afford to pay you what you deserve."

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

#62

Post by nilkn »

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.

Being laid off is different from being fired. It doesn't necessarily imply anything about you. I think anybody who really wonders that probably hasn't witnessed a large-scale corporate layoff before.

It can still be devastating, though. It depends heavily on how general your skills are. Being laid off is much worse for someone whose knowledge and skills were mostly institutional.

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

#63

Post by dfxm12 »

mistermann wrote: post #35
throwaway1dh9 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Europe (Germany). Worried about insurance for your kid? Can't happen here, the government will deal with that. Losing your job? Get paid for one or two years by your work insurance. After that you fall back to a free basic income (for as long as you need). And still this system is generally not exploited: People work hard here. And it's not just unemployment. There are people begging for money on HN regularl…

> But it seems US citizens want to live like that. Why? Only "god" knows for sure, but I have a strong suspicion you answered your own question, at least in part: > And still this system is generally not exploited: People work hard here.

According to Forbes, Americans' GDP per hour worked is better than that of the Germans, and the Americans are happier while doing it: http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/10/30/the-pursui...

This also shows Americans work more than the Germans and this doesn't say anything about how hard people are working, but don't forget the old adage: Don't work harder, don't smarter!

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

#64

Post by wopwopwah »

I was also sent off from Microsoft last Thursday. What a day. My observations:

- This was the best kept secret ever at Microsoft. Many VPs and directors were not knowing until the day of.

- It's clear the layoff decisions were not personal or based on talent or seniority, but just rather the high executives each doing a large pruning of their own branches. Whole branches of the company being lopped off because they had no role in the future picture. Especially after the Nokia buyout the total headcount was too high so this was also to get headcount under control.

- Severance terms were good.

Overall I can't blame Microsoft. Their competitors are making much more hay with much less people.

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

#65

Post by pgeorgi »

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'd answer that with "0", and send them an updated form as soon as things change. Filling out that form is not the time for heroism.

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

#66

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

I feel bad for the guy, but Microsoft really does need to reinvent itself, and the deadweight of a huge Windows-focused testing-QA bureaucracy wasn't going to help that mission.

After 15 years at MS, this guy is probably unemployable anywhere else unless he is open to learning new things and retraining.

Big company people often just learn how to operate in a big company environment, and forget how to do real work.

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

#67

Post by SheepSlapper »

omnibrain wrote: post #33
huhtenberg wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think that's the case if he is one of 17k others.

Not to mention the fact that he worked there for 15 years. Successful companies don't make a habit of holding onto bad employees for that long :)

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

#68

Post by Mc_Big_G »

I'm not against H1B visas or green cards for skilled immigrants and, in fact, have great friends who fit that profile. However, considering this massive layoff, what reason could Microsoft and Bill Gates have to lobby so aggressively for H1B high-skilled tech talent, besides wanting cheap labor?

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

#69

Post by grecy »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #38
throwaway1dh9 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Europe (Germany). Worried about insurance for your kid? Can't happen here, the government will deal with that. Losing your job? Get paid for one or two years by your work insurance. After that you fall back to a free basic income (for as long as you need). And still this system is generally not exploited: People work hard here. And it's not just unemployment. There are people begging for money on HN regularl…

German here who lived in the US for a year. I lived there during the time when obamacare was presented and I had a lot of discussions about this. The main reason which I heard over and over again (and sometimes word for word) "The German system is communism. We don't want that here!". I am not even kidding, there are people who truly believe that a german insurance system would be the beginning of communism in the US…

I'm an Aussie that's lived and worked in quite a few countries, including the US, and I share this experience.

I was in Mexico partying with a bunch of US college kids when Obamacare was on the table, and we talked about it for a while. All of them said "We don't want it because it's Socialism!".

When I inquired as to what that meant, or why that is undesirable to them, the entire room of 30 of them went silent. Not a single one even know what Socialism meant, or why they had distaste for it, but they sure were certain they didn't want it!

IMHO, people in the US have been lied to for multiple generations, to the point where they don't even know why something is good or bad for them personally, they just know what they're supposed to think about something.

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

#70

Post by buckbova »

spartango wrote: post #44
badman_ting wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not unlike Steve Jobs thoughts on hiring Big Blue types in the early years. They were not the right culture fit.

I don't think it's a perception of incompetence, but more of inflexibility. The thinking that a microsoft employee of 15 years is set in their ways.

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