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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?

#71

Post by seanc »

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 in my experience, no. There's no stigma when you are part of a mass layoff that was national news. People understand the ax swings wildly at times like this.

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

#72

Post by greggman »

SnacksOnAPlane wrote: post #57
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…

We don't actually want to live like that. We just have such distrust in our government that we don't want them running the health care system. Witness, for example, the recent VA Hospital scandals. Our government is dysfunctional. And it's already incredibly intrusive, too, and some of us don't want the feds knowing all of our health problems (even though they probably already do). I would love government health care…

I agree with you that the german system sounds nice. But I couldn't let this slide

> The free market doesn't work for health care.

Where is there a free market for health care that would could test this idea? Certainly not the USA.

I believe Singapore is the closest to free market healthcare and they seem pretty healthy. Though even that is not "free market" healthcare

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

#73

Post by guelo »

ausjke wrote: post #52

Don't we have Obamacare these days? why COBRA is still mentioned here? is it still relevant as it used to be? I thought OBAMACARE is beneficial for those who got laid-off, as low income got a huge discount, is it?

COBRA is an extension of your ex-employer's healthcare program that you pay out of pocket.

You have always had the option to either buy COBRA or buy individual coverage on your own. Often it is cheaper to buy individual coverage through private insurers than to buy COBRA, especially if you're willing to settle for catastrophic-only insurance.

Obamacare is a new Marketplace for buying individual coverage that includes regulations on the types of coverage offered and includes subsidies if you make less than $46k over a tax year. Since Obamacare doesn't offer bare-bones catastrophic insurance it will often be cheaper to buy outside the Obamacare marketplace if you're not getting a subsidy.

Obamacare also has the awful anti-consumer feature called "Open Enrollment Period" which means you can only buy Obamacare insurance between November and February of every year, which makes it useless if you get laid off now.

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

#74

Post by _random_ »

I guess, maybe it's OK to live in a socialistic country and pay a lot of tax. That insurance thing is a horrible situation to be in.

I wonder how many staff will be replaced by cheap(er) fresh immigrants in the end (I am not against immigration BTW).

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

#76

Post by kken »

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.

I doubt that relo money plays any role in a decision for or against any candidate.

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

#77

Post by sjg007 »

throwaway1dh9 wrote: post #28
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?

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…

It is the health insurance lobby that doesn't want it. Also corporations don't want the flexibility because it encourages people to stay and keeps salaries down.

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

#79

Post by alrs »

grecy wrote: post #69
yoodenvranx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Oh, they know what they think about it.

What they are thinking, but not saying, is:

"We don't want our tax money going to black people and Mexicans."

"Socialism" is a dog-whistle term that usually indicates racism when used in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics

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