Microsoft to lay off 18,000 people over the next year

[SteveRiley]

I'm looking back at the records. I got one week's pay for each six month period I was there. After adding in a level bonus, unused vacation, some required stock sale, and a tax gross-up, the total was 2/3 of my salary. Looks like folks are getting the same package as before.

News reports indicate 1,350 people laid off in Redmond. Meanwhile, microsoft.com/careers show 500 open positions -- in Redmond. WTFF? And who in their right mind would apply for those now?

[SteveRiley]

Now I'm really pissed. This kind of crap should be illegal.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...er_2.8B_richer

The bastards who destroyed Microsoft are getting richer because the stock price is going up! This truly sucks ass. 18,000 people's lives get thrown into misery, while a few people who already have more money than god sit on their fat asses and watch their bank accounts balloon. I'm going to go throw up now. I hope I can hold it until the bus reaches the front steps of 1 Microsoft Way.

[MoonRise]

That is what we are all about. The Rich gets richer and the Poor gets poorer. That is our MO while also shipping out our jobs over seas. I wouldn't doubt MS will start moving more off shores too.

[GreyGeek]

... News reports indicate 1,350 people laid off in Redmond. Meanwhile, microsoft.com/careers show 500 open positions -- in Redmond. WTFF? And who in their right mind would apply for those now?

I checked that site and did some specific searchers. They are, for example, posting jobs for 25 Windows software engineers, exactly like the job Barnaclus lost. That leaves only one reason why he was let go.

I've seen this before. It's a classic "RIF" to get rid of high salary employees and replace them with people at half the salary and even less benefits, except that the work force isn't really reduced, just re-arranged. The first step is a job "reclassification". A person's job description is modified in such a way the current job holders are "over qualified". Since no other job description exists which matches their qualifications (deliberately) they are told that their job has been eliminated and they "have to be let go". The ones with the best qualifications are told privately to reapply for "other" positions, unfortunately at a lower salary and benefits. Those that do find themselves doing essentially the same, or exactly the same job before they were RIF'd.

A few years ago the exact same plan was used to lay off American workers and replace them with H1B, green card holders, and other non-native Americans, or to AVOID hiring qualified and interesting US workers. All during this fiasco corporations and Congress kept shouting about the "shortage of skilled US workers". Several law firms had "seminars" to teach corporations how to hire cheap foreign workers and avoid hiring qualified US workers.

[GreyGeek]

That is what we are all about. The Rich gets richer and the Poor gets poorer. That is our MO while also shipping out our jobs over seas. I wouldn't doubt MS will start moving more off shores too.

A wise sage once predicted that "The poor will be with you always. To those who have much more will be given. To those that have little, even what they have will be taken away." That is the nature of evil in this world, regardless of the political system or culture.

[SteveRiley]

A wise sage once predicted that "The poor will be with you always. To those who have much more will be given. To those that have little, even what they have will be taken away."

Which bible are you using? You're mixing centuries, audiences, and metahpors there...


"The poor will be with you always."

• Moses (attrib.), instructing the Israelites never to ignore those among them who are poor, especially if the time happens to be close to Shimta, the sabbatical (seventh) yearly release of all debts.
• Jesus Christ, answering unnamed critics of the woman who poured expensive oil on his head. The critics would have prefered selling the oil and giving the money to the poor. Jesus, acting rather, uh, self-righteous, dismisses this concern -- "for you will always have the poor with you" -- and then pivots to an approximation of "I'll be gone soon, so serve me instead." This is someone we're supposed to look up to?
• Or, again, Jesus Christ in the same story, but with a twist: Judas Iscariot is the critic, and the writer accuses him of wanting to steal the money from the oil's sale. Way to follow Moses's example there, dude.

I don't think these instances should be read as predictions. The first is a warning against an excuse. The second is just selfishness, and the third is selfishness plus greed.


"To those who have much more will be given. To those that have little, even what they have will be taken away."

• Jesus Christ, in the Parable of the Talents (money). As with so many bible stories, there are competing interpretations. I like the "social critique" best. The slave owner in the story does acknowledge, after all, "that [he] harvest[ed] where [he] didn’t sow and gather[ed] where [he] didn’t scatter." Lazy bum. The slave given the smallest amount of money called him on it, and got punished.

Again, not a prediction, but an observation of reality: those who are unprofitable will be discarded. Sounds a lot like the presumed motivations behind many layoffs. Definitely on-topic here.

[GreyGeek]

Wow, Steve, I didn't know you were a Bible scholar! Nice analysis!


Prediction or Observation, what I had in mind was from Matthew 13, the parable of the Sower in which Jesus explained why he spoke in parables.

"Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.

It is, IMO, a good analogy to possession of material abundance, having seen it in action so many times in the lives of so many people, including my own, even though Jesus applied it to the "knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven"

[SteveRiley]

Wow, Steve, I didn't know you were a Bible scholar! Nice analysis!

Thanks! Even though it's all iron age fairy tales, it's still one of the most influentual books in the history of the world. Therefore, I want to know what's in it. What drives people to get so passionate about it. And why people seem to ignore the really good parts, like:

• the Lord mooning Moses
• rules prohibiting temple entry to those with a certain disfiguration
• a recognition of that one thing every 12 year old boy eventually discovers
• stories that would shock the Penthouse writers
• the entire book of Song of Solomon!

Prediction or Observation, what I had in mind was from Matthew 13, the parable of the Sower in which Jesus explained why he spoke in parables.

I've always had a problem with that story. Here, the context of more for more, less for less refers to knowledge -- as you pointed out. Specifically, knowledge about and the ability to understand the goofy stories that Jesus liked to tell. It's exclusionary and self-aggrandizing. It eludes me why anyone would view this person as a role model.

[GreyGeek]

.... It eludes me why anyone would view this person as a role model.

Oh, I can think of several reasons ... turn the other cheek ... forgive them, better to give than to receive, do not return evil for evil but good for evil ... etc... Examples that lots of people who profess to be his followers ignore or act exactly opposite.

Either Jesus is exactly what he said he was, or he is crazy, or he is a liar. One makes a choice and lives with it.