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Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

businessinsider.com

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Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#381

Post by wkat4242 »

jimbob45 wrote: post #291
slaw wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economy will not recover to hire people. Tech companies will not be begging as all jobs will be in India and China.

Trump will outright win 2026 if he bans H-1Bs after this RTO charade and neither party would be able to oppose such a ban without fatal public outcry. With India choosing Russia over the US, there would be very little political backlash to wrecking their economy too. Huge unemployed force in the US to fill the gap too. That is to say, if H-1Bs aren’t banned now, in what seem to be the most favorable possible conditio…

Banning H1Bs and RTO does not stop companies from simply opening an office in Bangalore and hiring thousands of people there. That's what my employer did.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#382

Post by bluGill »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #252
fzeroracer wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offshoring always ends in disaster, companies have tried this time and time again but the end result is an awful product that requires more money to fix than they needed to make it in the first place. And that also doesn't solve the problem of dealing with institutional knowledge loss if you decide to aggressively cull employees trying to unionize. In either scenario the solution is for union workers to become even m…

Offshoring might frequently be a disaster. On the other hand, Microsoft and the rest of FAANG and other large tech companies have had overseas development centers staffed by full fledged FTEs for many years now with, as far as anyone can tell, success. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any reason they couldn't expand those.

when most of the people offshore are employees it can work. The biggest thing is you need to start with good managers there who hire good people. In india good engineers are paid more than their peers in germany, but that is the price you pay for the quality you need for good people. If you don't hire good people you can get plenty of terrible people for really cheap, but the results will be poor quality. Take your pick.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#383

Post by wkat4242 »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #252
fzeroracer wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offshoring always ends in disaster, companies have tried this time and time again but the end result is an awful product that requires more money to fix than they needed to make it in the first place. And that also doesn't solve the problem of dealing with institutional knowledge loss if you decide to aggressively cull employees trying to unionize. In either scenario the solution is for union workers to become even m…

Offshoring might frequently be a disaster. On the other hand, Microsoft and the rest of FAANG and other large tech companies have had overseas development centers staffed by full fledged FTEs for many years now with, as far as anyone can tell, success. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any reason they couldn't expand those.

Yeah that's why it's called a multinational. Offices everywhere. And yes it's a success.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#384

Post by losteric »

ghostpepper wrote: post #335
al_borland wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several years before the pandemic I was forced to move several states away after my local office was shutdown and the company was looking to force everyone to a few larger offices. It didn’t make any sense. Within my little 10 person team, we had people in 5 states and at least 2 counties, spanning multiple time zones. I was on the phone, tethered to my desk, all-day every-day. I saw very little point to being in the…

> If they are going to push for office collaboration, at least organize the teams so all the team members are actually in the same office. As far as I can tell this is what apple does, and it actually makes a lot more sense than "you must be in some office but we don't care where".

I’m sure geographic consolidation is the end state, we’re just taking incremental steps.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#385

Post by bluGill »

renewiltord wrote: post #317
neilv wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For better or worse, neither of us is a lawyer, but I'm comfortable in saying that the affected people should: Talk. To. A. Lawyer. Isn't that better than us random Internet people telling them -- although we think something shitty is going on -- they definitely don't have a case, and they definitely shouldn't talk to a lawyer? (For all we know, an actual lawyer might tell them that they actually do have a case.)

Why do people say this? “Talk to a lawyer”. It’s the most useless advice. Okay, you don’t know. That’s fine. Don’t waste everyone’s time. Why just give this content free advice?

Because if you suspect the law does apply to you then you need a lawyer to vet the details. For most this probably doesn't apply, but you have to decide based on the specifics of your situation and those should include details you wouldn't post publically.

also if you are a lawyer or come off as a lawyer giving legal advice and you miss one rare detail that matters for one person you are liable for bad advice. So saying talk to a lawyer is a way to get around that. Talk to a lawyer if you want to know more detail.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#386

Post by pm90 »

bluGill wrote: post #372
closeparen wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A West Coast software engineering career is barely worth the land underneath a house from which you could reasonably commute to it. We're getting there.

I'm glad I live in the midwest. Every story I hear about working in the bay area makes me wonder why anyone would.

It’s extremely pretty, there’s great food, lots of tech jobs, you meet diverse and interesting people, great public transit (for the US). There are many reasons for living in the Bay Area.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#387

Post by ajryan »

dymk wrote: post #297
Aurornis wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. When a company uses RTO to reduce headcount they usually include all employees , with the expectation that those who live far away from the office will resign instead of relocate. If I'm reading this right, it only applies to people who already live within 50 miles of the office. Remote-remote employees are exempt.

How many employees do you think msft has that don’t live within that 50 mile radius? I’d bet it’s an incredibly small percentage. They chose 50 miles because it’s big enough to cover almost everyone. I’m within that but my commute is two hours one direction.

Redmond only

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#388

Post by NewJazz »

pm90 wrote: post #386
bluGill wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad I live in the midwest. Every story I hear about working in the bay area makes me wonder why anyone would.

It’s extremely pretty, there’s great food, lots of tech jobs, you meet diverse and interesting people, great public transit (for the US). There are many reasons for living in the Bay Area.

Lol you missed the weather... Bay area weather is much more moderate than in the Midwest.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#389

Post by Teever »

ivape wrote: post #351
hibikir wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of a certain large company I will not name that is sending people back to office while also having a huge percentage of staff augmentation consultants living outside of the US. So you can find teams that have two people in the office, working side by side with another 10 people in the team that are remote, and interacting with teams that might be a 7, 8 timezones away. You can imagine how well those people fee…

They are going lose everyone soon as hiring picks up. Short sighted.

Are they though?

Do you see any legitimate opposition to the big tech companies forming from recently laid off employees?

If there's no alternative for people to work for then if the job market improves people are just going to go back to the same companies.

So, are these people who feel spurned by the big tech companies getting together and starting competitors to bring them down?

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#390

Post by bluGill »

dymk wrote: post #297
Aurornis wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. When a company uses RTO to reduce headcount they usually include all employees , with the expectation that those who live far away from the office will resign instead of relocate. If I'm reading this right, it only applies to people who already live within 50 miles of the office. Remote-remote employees are exempt.

How many employees do you think msft has that don’t live within that 50 mile radius? I’d bet it’s an incredibly small percentage. They chose 50 miles because it’s big enough to cover almost everyone. I’m within that but my commute is two hours one direction.

If it is really two hours by a reasonable route then you likely have a case that the commute is unreasonable and you would not have taken the job without them paying moving expenses if it offered that way. Therefore they need to offer moving expenses. I'd ask the boss first as they may have contacts in hr that can handle this.

If they won't offer moving expenses odds are you can convince an unemployment judge this is an unreasonable change in working conditions and so you can collect unemployment. (A lawyer can give more detail)

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