Re:not that uncommon (Score 1)

You're right about the escort at many places now. I work for Amex and it is company policy that you be escorted off the premises immediately after you give notice that you are working for a direct competitor. Microsoft's behavior has nothing to do with "fear", as the person in the article alludes; rather it is so that the person leaving the company for the competition doesn't learn any more about the company that could be used by the competition. It would be the same if a Google employee left for Microsoft, or a Visa employee left for Discover. Even though you sign a non-disclosure agreement, it's human to inadvertently pass information to the competition through simple conversation, so companies choose to minimize their risk. And I've seen the "perp walk" handled very well, unlike your experience with qwest. She knew how upset we were to lose her and were sorry that company policy mandated that she be escorted out immediately. We couldn't even throw her a party. Our VP, who escorted her out, was really sorry to lose here, too.