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Microsoft's Treatment of Google Defectors
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Sunday November 11, @10:09AM
from the well-that's-just-not-cool dept.
from the well-that's-just-not-cool dept.
Miguel de Icaza (Note, this Miguel is not the Ximian developer, just someone whose small life is fulfilled by trolling under someone else's name) writes "Here is a story revealing just how threatened Microsoft is by Google. While senior partners can expect the full chair experience, some lowly staffers who are putting in their notice are being escorted off campus immediately. Why? Because they've put in their notice to join Google. In Microsoft's eyes, Google is Enemy No. 1. Anyone leaving Redmond for the search leader is a threat. Not because they'll scurry around collecting company secrets — as if Google's interested in Microsoft's '90s-era technologies. Departing employees, however, might tell other 'Softies how much better Google is. If an employee is leaving for Amazon.com or another second-tier employer which doesn't make Microsoft so paranoid, they'll probably serve out the traditional two weeks of unproductive wrapping up. So if you're planning on leaving Microsoft for Google, pack up your belongings and say goodbye to friends ahead of time. There'll be no cake and two weeks of paid slacking for you."
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Microsoft's Treatment of Google Defectors
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not that uncommon (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Friday November 16, @09:48AM)
If you're leaving these days it's not uncommon to get escorted to the door... and it's not uncommon to be a perp walk, which sucks. It undermines the fabric of trust in the workforce generally and damages individual psyche specifically. Microsoft isn't unique in this regard, though the article does seem to indicate it is Google-specific.
If it is Google-specific it underscores Microsoft's pettiness, and maybe a little stupidity. They should enforce a consistent policy. Unless an employee has shown himself to be a bad seed, treat him (or her) with respect.
I experienced the perp walk (layoff) after 21 years with qwest. It has garnered nothing but ill will since. The net balance of this kind of treatment is surely negative. You can handle this kind of policy with dignity. Most don't.
While I doubt too many Google employees are leaving for the crumbling Monarchy that is Microsoft, I wouldn't be surprised if Google has similar policies and procedures.
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:4, Interesting)
In the typical over-simplification of slashdot, in only ten posts this issue has become either total trust by employers (your point of view) or an insulting perp-walk (OP and other's view). In reality it IS standard procedure in many companies to pay resigning emplyees through their notification period, but to ask them not to report to work during that time. It isn't insulting - I've had it happen to me, and I prefer it.
I've also had an employer who tried to wring every last drop of work out of me by making me work to 5:00 PM on the last day of notice. I found the second approach much more demeaning - as if I were some sort of rental human. To show how insulting that can be, they docked me two hours of pay when I left early at 3pm on my last day of work even though I was a salaried professional.
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://web.lemuria.org/)
Everyone who intends to take anything with them is probably smart enough to make copies before telling you they're leaving. Likewise, any damage they might do can already be set up.
The only situation where being escorted off is when the company fires someone, or when he resigns surprisingly (including to himself) in a fit of anger. In any other situation, anything you're trying to protect yourself from has either already happened, or won't happen even if you just let him go peacefully.
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
So you really don't want to leave them alone with their PC or phone.
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://jbhj.co.nz/)
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Tuesday January 30 2007, @08:29PM)
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
By escorting someone out, it could be an intentional signal to the other employees that you take this rivalry seriously. Or by letting them work the two weeks, it could be a signal that you are employee-friendly and there are no hard feelings. But the main concern really needs to be about how the remaining employees feel. There should be little concern about how the departing employee feels - except that it's often not a good idea to make enemies.
Company burning bridges (Score:4, Interesting)
The management didn't quite see it that way. He was asked to wait in a conference room while they conferred. They had security put his personal possessions into a box, turned off his access, had HR come review all his NDAs and threaten him, and then made a public announcement (over the paging system) that he was no longer an employee and was being escorted out. And then gave a 2 security guard escort to the parking lot, and followed him until he drove off the lot.
He tried to keep it all in perspective -- he was a bit shocked at how he was treated since he thought he had a good relationship with the company, and had wanted to leave on good terms. His new employer was happy to let him start early.
Funny enough two weeks later the old company called him. Could he help fix a problem a very important customer was running into? They said if he came in and helped he could pick up his final paycheck at the same time (nice veiled threat). He was cool about it. He said that his new job was taking up all this time and he didn't have any time currently, but that he might be able to offer some advice to the current staff over the phone. Oh, and they could mail him his check. Yeah, that went over like a lead balloon. Lots of threats, cursing, and such. Wish he'd recorded that. His new company gave him Group Legal as part of his benefits, so last I heard he was using that to attempt to get his final paycheck. And he's incredibly happy at his new company.
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://projectdream.org/)
And most of the time, you'll spend this time wrapping up your work. It's HIGHLY unusual to be suspended immediately - usually only if you stole company goods or something like that.
When i've switched jobs, i always spent the time productively, completing documentation, instructing my follow-up, etc. pp.
American working culture always looks very strange to me
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://sitetheory.com/ | Last Journal: Friday October 24 2003, @10:59AM)
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.edgeio.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday March 09 2005, @10:42AM)
Note that in all countries I'm aware of that have longer notice periods a) it can be waived by mutual agreement, b) you can usually remove it from contracts as long as you provide sufficient consideration - typically that consideration must be greater to the employee as it's assumed the employee negotiates from a position of weakness unless it's a very high level position, c) it's mutual - that is, you have legal protection to ensure you at the very least get paid for the full notice period even if you get fired, and often to guarantee you actually is guaranteed the right to go to work during that period (though it's getting more common for workplaces to negotiate for some types of employees to leave immediately while still paying them).
In Norway the typical notice period is 3 months, and an employment contract that says elsewhere needs a LOT of care to be valid unless it's part time/fixed term contract or seasonal work. Basically, the employer would need to offer to compensate you for it, and just offering to pay for it regardless likely wouldn't be enough, as you have right to work during the notice period, not just to get paid.
And while certainly some of the motivation is gone while serving out your notice period, I've personally never seen someone be unprofessional about it - people do stick around and do their jobs properly, because it's what they were contracted to do. As the other poster I find US working practices completely bizarre.
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://cairnarvon.rotahall.org/)
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.spinningatom.com/)
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:what's the big deal? (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Tuesday December 19 2006, @05:12PM)
The job I'm in now, I should get "perp-walked" when I put in my notice (I have way too much systems access), but I doubt I will be, because they'll be desperate for me to train someone, and catch up my documentation. It's a trust position, though a number of people over me probably don't trust me...If I were them I wouldn't trust anyone, due to the amount of backstabbing they've been dealing in.
They're not always rational...It'll be interesting to see.
Why give notice, then?Resign effective immediately (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Tuesday August 28, @07:41PM)
>>If you're leaving these days it's not uncommon to get escorted to the door...
Then, if this is standard practice at your company, do not provide notice. Just quit, walk out, and never look back.
Clean out your office over the preceeding week, then simply say to your manager on the last hour of your last day "I quit, effective immediately. I'm not coming back tomorrow, and I did not give notice because of the poor way this company responds to those who resign (e.g. "perp walk"). Goodbye and good luck." Or just send them an email over the weekend. It might sound harsh but if they truly respond this poorly to resignations, you have nothing to lose anyway.
The funny part is, I'll bet the clueless executives have had at least one profanely expensive "retreat" this year where they listened to expensive consultants's opinions on boosting employee morale and/or commitment.
Agreed, but still a violation of trust (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Agreed, but still a violation of trust (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.usermode.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday April 17 2007, @09:13PM)
A sense of trust and loyalty between company and employer used to be common. It was a recognition that the relationship was mutually beneficial and voluntary. But that has been lost with many large companies recently. The relationship now is closer to that of master and servant.
A couple years ago I left the Siemens leviathan, for a small fifty man company. I've never been happier. Better pay, better respect, interesting work. My work takes me inside lots of other companies, and I see the same thing there. Smaller companies have happier employees doing more interesting work, while large companies are full of melancholy drones.
Re:not that uncommon (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft is simply bland.. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.ckwop.me.uk/)
I have never worked for Microsoft and to be honest, I'd probably never want to. I think the key problem for Microsoft is that nothing they do is exciting anymore.
I think Vista has really damaged Microsoft. Not in terms of revenue, since a sale of Windows XP is still a sale for Microsoft. No, the damage is in morale. Vista was an absolute disaster for morale. They worked for a couple of years only to ditch it and start again from the Windows 2003 Server source-code. Nothing they put in to Vista was in anyway something you can get developers energised about. Every feature had nightmarish committees which destroyed any hope of motivation. They even developed anti-features like SecurePath that nobody cares about.
I read somewhere that Microsoft developers write something like 1,000 lines of code a year. Last-year, I contributed around forty times that to our source control at work. When you're paid so much to do so little - that has to destroy morale too. Most developers I know like to work.
Vista is a symptom of a much deeper problem. Microsoft doesn't know how to be sexy. it doesn't now how to to be secure and it doesn't know how to please it's users. Worst of all, it doesn't know how to make it's huge base of developers happy!
All of this makes Google a very attractive place. If all your talent walks right of your door, it isn't too long until there is no way whatsoever to fix any of the problems I've just mentioned.
Put more succinctly, Microsoft sucks and Google rocks.
Simon.
Re:Microsoft is simply bland.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I forget if it was here on
I would love to find that article again. It was very interesting reading.
Re:Microsoft is simply bland.. (Score:5, Informative)
The Initiating Story: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html [joelonsoftware.com]
The Inside Story: http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-crapfest.html [blogspot.com]
Slashdot Coverage: http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/27/1728231 [slashdot.org]
Microsoft do more than that (Score:4, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Tuesday November 20, @08:25AM)
Take a look at this for instance - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECPOXUQB5k0 [youtube.com]
Re:Microsoft is simply bland.. (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Thursday April 29 2004, @03:34PM)
Anyway, I'm no Microsoft apologist but if you want to work on technology, they can offer that. As for endless meetings without getting much done. Here's some news - LOTS of places are like that. My first job at a government contractor, I think I wrote one PERL script of about 20 lines in a year. There are pros and cons, you career shouldn't just be a "Microsoft sucks" knee-jerk reaction.
Re:Microsoft is simply bland.. (Score:4, Insightful)
But even then you can drill down. I said I was impressed that the Office division completely re-designed their UI-- then again, look at Office Live. They're putting out a product that virtually nobody wants, and selling it in a crummy way. And I'm sure you could go down another level and find a group within Office Live that's really kicking ass if you did the research.
Point is, Microsoft has 70,000 employees in the Redmond/Seattle area alone. They're freakin' huge. If you read an article saying IBM printer sales were down, you wouldn't assume that iSeries midrange computers are going to tank also. Remember the same applies to Microsoft.
If you were working at Microsoft Games, you wouldn't think your job sucked based on how Windows was received.