Microsoft: The Layoffs Are Coming

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The Mini-Microsoft blog is getting lot of feedback from Microsoft employees who are being told that layoffs are headed their way on January 15, 2009.

Some of the comments are just rumors, while others are from people specifically told in conferences that they have about four weeks left. Happy Holidays!

The blog seems to be written by a Microsoft employee and most of the comments certainly seem to be posted by company employees. If the rumors are true, Microsoft would be following in the footsteps of Yahoo, Google, Adobe, Ebay, and other companies who are cutting back now that the economy has hit a rough spot.

The Yahoo layoffs prompted Jerry Yang to make a strange post on the Yahoo blog and inspired on unhappy former Yahoo employee to blast the company in her now-famous "Screw You Yahoo" video on YouTube.

It all starts with...

Just heard on the finance grapevine. MSFT layoffs are coming on January 15th.

They are substantial.

And then some curious meetings:

they lost 12 people in STB [...] looks like "feedback" reviews are underway to get the a-10's out of the picture as well.

What kind of meeting? Perhaps like:

I got invited into one of those special "manager" meetings on thursday which resolved to absolutely zero activity other than asking opaque questions for which the answer was already known.

"fact" finding in order to dismiss an argument OR dismiss me :)

shall find out 1/15

In Live Meeting:

Live Meeting is one of the worst places to be right now - and it has gotten downright hostile and strange in recent times. People are pulled into meetings with management where they get interrogated about what they are working on ("We want to hear what you think you know about XYZ, this is not a knowledge-sharing session..."), people are given impossible tasks like coding things not yet designed, automating things not get coded, documenting unfinished ideas (all subject to being cut next week too). On top of that they must account for their time by the hour. Live Meeting is in its death throes.

Again, Happy Holidays! Looks like good times are on the horizon.

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