Talk about adding insult to injury. Apparently Microsoft has inadvertently overpaid severance to some of its recently laid off employees, and is now asking for some of the money back. It’s unclear how many of the 1,400 employees laid off last month were affected, but we’ve confirmed that it wasn’t a single isolated incident (we’ve contacted Microsoft for a response). We’re also hearing that some employees may have been underpaid as well.
While the payroll error must be irritating in and of itself to these laid off workers (severance is a sensitive subject), it appears that Microsoft HR isn’t even bothering to explain how it happened (employees are instructed to call the office, which is closed for the weekend, if they want to know the details). Given that it was Microsoft HR that screwed this up in the first place, you’d think they’d at least include the calculations they made and point out where the error took place.
Update: CNET reports that Microsoft has decided to allow any workers who were overcompensated to keep the money. The story also notes that around 25 workers were overpaid, and around 20 underpaid. See full coverage here.
Do they have to pay this back?
I wouldn’t! What are they gonna do – fire me?
Yes, Microsoft should not ask the money back…. Shame on Microsoft
It’s just a bad PR move. It will just lead to angry employees posting sensitive data on places like http://www.anonboard.com – think Milton from Office Space.
It was never theirs to begin with, clerical errors happen all the time, bad timing for sure, but people are acting like the money that was given to them was part of the deal, which is doesn’t sound like it was.
And YOU would know this how????
What an stupid comment. If you give me money in severance who does it belong to? You are probably the one that gave it away!
Looks like the person above works for Microsoft HR
Neither is firing part of a deal, especially if the company has USD 21 billion in cash!!
Shows you how much HR values have been eroded. This HR community is now real scum!
Honestly, how greedy the world has become. Next time your bank makes a clerical error and withdraws too much money to pay a bill remember this thread. Severance packages are very detailed. The employee knows exactly what they are going to receive (continued pay, vacation payoff, etc…). It is so easy to scream and yell about how terriable the “giant” is; be it your big nasty employer who laid you off or your bank who made a mistake with your funds. Honestly, sometimes I can’t wait for God to sort out all of you people. How pathetic.
A better idea:
Microsoft says it supports open source, it uses jQuery and a whole load of things from open source codebases – and they’ve ripped off so many things from Java in .Net
Now, you guys whom m$ just sacked so unceremoniously could openly donate say $100 – $500 to a popular opensource project – the best are the ones that Microsoft uses and endorses – Apache, jQuery, LDAP/AD, PHP.
Let us see whether they really support opensource and want to help developers, developers, developers make some money without a job at m$.
If they try to sue you, just publish the name of the project, your name, the amount donated by you the project and details of how m$ uses code from that project to make money by using them in their products.
If they sue you, donating opensource supporters, they are not quite very supportive of the community.
If they dont sue you, you keep the rest of the money – which I believe is in the tens of thousands – think of the donation as a publicity-based insurance premium for the rest of the cash.
Call me a dirty politician, but then I’m still much cleaner than m$ sales and marketing managers – they’ve destroyed entire IT industries in BRIC. And have reduced us to being labeled code monkeys and “outsourcing villains”.
Microsoft killed about 5-6 really good software companies in each of BRIC by giving pirated copies of software for free.
http://en.wikip...es_v._Microsoft
http://en.wikip..._antitrust_case
http://www.yout...h?v=b9SlW1dxM70
http://www.goog...how+us+the+code
http://www.enga...e-his-mouth-is/
http://yro.slas...7/07/02/2351231
Google these for more enlightenment:
“microsoft admits piracy helped them -vista”
“Embrace, extend, extinguish”
“halloween documents”
hehen you got to be kidding. if my credit is going to be screwed anyway.. with this economy.. whatever.. I would not give that back NEVER!!!
What’s it called when you take money that doesn’t belong to you? I understand these people accepted the money in good faith, but once they learn it doesn’t rightfully belong to them, what’s the rationale for keeping it?
The right thing to do is give it back after verifying overpayment.
You’d think someone using the name John Galt would take the position that the money, having been freely handed to these folks, is now theirs. If the giver made an error costing them money, why should someone else be responsible for helping them correct it?
At the very least (and I mean VERY), some payment should be offered to these people for the service of helping Microsoft correct their “clerical error”. But if it were me I’d make a suggestion about rolling doughnuts.
I also know what money that is given to me is called – it’s called a ‘gift.’
Not one of these MS employees ‘took’ the money – that would be theft. This was a gift.
I was in a situation where I was overpaid by a company that I worked for. I made every attempt to give that money back to thema and bring it to their attention that they were overpaying me. After 3 months of receiving the overpayment in the form of them miscalculating my overtime they finally realized I was right. I subsequently agreed to pay the money back. I left the job later and they attempted to take the rest of what they said I owed them out of my last check. I went to their payroll department and told them first off that wasn’t what I agreed to and second that I didn’t think that I owed them the money bac at all and I expected a check not only for what they took out of my last check but also for what I paid back in the first place. That same day, after they consulted with their lawyers, I received a check for the full amount of what they overpaid me in the first place. This number was in the thousands…I don’t believe their attorney fees would’ve amounted to that much. You do the math!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I hope those layoffs were in the HR dept.
This happened to me when I returned from an Expat assignment after they terminated my division (thus me). The error was in a tax offset calculation payment error.
I told them that they can take it out of my next paycheck…
Are you kidding me , you fired me, now you want some of your money back, Screw you… What goes around comes around Microsoft…
Its really strange to know about. Best of luck dude.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Ha…Even Microsoft’s paychecks are buggy!
No, Amit. They are not kidding you.
You see, they did their pay check calculations with Microsoft Excel.
lol talked about a failblog.org moment
yeah, this would not a really nice letter to recieve.
Is it because it’s the first time MS is ever giving severance ?
this isnt a surprise, everything microsoft does is flawed by design.
Hah…
Tell them to shut down and re-start. It works for all the other MS errors.
HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAH
Excellent PJ!!!
The optics of this aren’t exactly terrific for M$. Let me guess – they were using 3rd party accounting software running on Linux boxes?
Actually, I believe their accounting package(s) run on AIX machines, or at least they used to.
They must have been running Vista on the machine that goofed up…LOL!
Good luck getting that money back.
Frank Rijkaard? Really? If that’s real, that’s awesome!
[PJ Warning]
“if that’s real” – must be “if that’s Barca”
LOL!!!
Take the $$ and run.
I wonder what US law says on the subject of over-payment of severance – or indeed any payment. Under Irish law at least if you overpay an employee and he/she doesn’t want to pay back the difference, you’re out of luck.
Lame.
Wow. One word: ridiculous.
That sucks. Hopefully Microsoft will just end up eating the cost of the extra severance and let the people keep it, but I doubt that will happen.
http://www.thew...r.com/microsoft
So , what will happen if they don’t return the money because it’s aready spent ? They’ve already been fired .
You can be charged of theft if you don’t return it.
Usually not paying overpayment can result in prison term. This happened to a man who had a bank error of about $12,000. He refused to give it back. He ended being arrested.
It’s unclear what will happen because most likely employees signed a release in exchange for the severance. If the release states that “you’ll receive $XYZ in exchange for not suing us”, and then later Microsoft wants to change the $XYZ amount… well this was the deal.
If the severance agreement had a different amount than the actual check (or no amount, just an explanation of calculations), then the employee has less ground to stand on, but still pretty good chance of keeping the change.
Can you imagine Microsoft suing a terminated employee to recover the difference? The publicity vs. the amount involved would make this a no-starter.
One would think that the publicity for asking for repayment would have made it a non-starter!
and would the legal costs be more than the costs recovered? Ignoring the PR costs.
ha… I would like to see that!!!!!
Don’t worry, MSFT will get it right by the 3rd round of layoffs… Ha!
LOL.
If I had received one of these letters. Here’s my response back Microsoft. Of course I would want to keep it short and professional.
Dear HR,
You have $25 Billion in cash and you are insulting me again. As a result I ask that you kindly kiss my ass.
Kind Regards,
Bobby
lame
Ya. Lame. Your name is listed as Mark anyway, not Bobby. Quite frankly, this doesn’t even make sense. What does having 25 billion in cash have to do with an insult?
Microsoft made a $15B profit last year. They can write the overpayment off. It’s not like the severance exceeds their profit.
Keep the money. They just have to account for the loss in their financial statement.
If this was another company who has a corporate loss or a little profit, I would think otherwise. But Microsoft is profitable way up the butthole.
No sympathy here.
@John Smith: I wouldn’t get your hopes up… It may be buggy until Severance Payout v.7, which I’m sure will be the bestest severance package ever!
Is that a Times New Roman? I wonder why they don’t use an Arial or Tahoma.
Considering the font that amount could easily be a 6 digit number… which possibly explains why they would like to recover it!
Microsoft has shareholders interests to protect. Simply allowing fired employees to keep overpaid severance is not going to go down well with investors – and rightly so. Microsoft has to go after these people with the full might of the law if absolutely necessary.
I can’t say I’m surprised this happened though, and it could lead to some very messy situations for MSFT.
No they don’t heck if I was an investor I’d hate to see the bad publicity. They have enough of that already.
I do not believe that this will impact your 100 block
This isn’t about protecting shareholders. Severance amounts are set arbitrarily anyway. They could have been set a few thousand dollars higher before the error, and Microsoft could have just as easily decided to let this pass.
If you don’t pay it back Billy Boy’s gonna send ya’ll some skeeters to kill ya.
If Microsoft has so much responsibility towards shareholders, why are they in the software business and consumer business?
Why dont they fuck off with the financial system – as it is those guys are getting $800 bn for fucking up the world economy – m$, with their diverting-of-bytes (TM) technology could make a killing on that one deal.
Why are they screwing businesses and users all over the world.
FUCK your shareholder responsibility at least in these times.
Why go after the poor ex-employees when they should be going after the HR/ payroll staff?
That might go a long way towards protecting shareholders’ value going forward!
Since the amounts were redacted, could we at least get an idea of the general amounts being discussed? Tens of thousands, thousands, hundreds, the cost of a Starbuck’s venti house blend?
Thousands from the cases I’ve heard, though it may be higher/lower for other ex-employees.
One one hand, a few thousand per employee, multiplied by say 1,000 employees, and M$ are in the hole for several million bucks – even M$ would miss that.
On the other hand, if the total error was under a million I’m surprised they can’t just eat it.
I’m willing to bet that the most common cause of this administrative error involves re-hires. When I re-joined Microsoft in 2000 after a year away, my “start date” according to all the internal HR sites was still my original start day from 1994, not my re-start day in 2000. From what I’ve heard from laid off employees (I’m no longer an employee, by my own volition), their severance was to be calculated based on their most recent hire date.
If i read it right there were 25 overpaid former employees at an average of $4500 USD.
do the math and this means a total of $112500 USD in over payments.
But we must balace this against that were underpaid. We were not given an average underpayment figure, but if we assume the same figure as the over payment we get a total of $90000 USD.
If the employees were told that they would be getting an amount of $#### USD and they got a check for a greater amount that they knew that they had been overpaid, and are liable for the repayment, and also those that were underpaid are due the full amount promised to them.
All of that said it seems very petty and bad business to try to recoup the over payments on M$’s part. It is bound to have cost them more in good will then a paltry $112500 USD.
And tell me something. How would you feel if you were one of those who was shorted and MS made your amount whole, you found out that the jerk from the cubicle next to yours got overpaid $4500 and was going to be allowed to keep it? I’m sure you will say, “that’s okay. As long as I got what I was promised everything is okay.”
Send Microsoft some Arnoldbucks http://www.flic...N00/3239274113/
They’re a publicly traded company, shareholders would have a fit if they didn’t at least *ask* for it back. Doesn’t mean they’ll get it, but they’ve done what they’re supposed to.
Insult to injury is right though. Sucks for those affected, but MS didn’t really have any other option. Well, other than not cocking it up in the first place I guess…
seems like that software was also created by Microsoft; quite buggy indeed
That’s really sad, Microsoft software developers have no idea how to use a scanner.
No wonder they’re losing their jobs.
If you’re going to show a document your employer sent you to the world and out them, the least you can do is not take a photo with a disposable camera then crank up the contrast in your pirated version of photoshop.
No wonder IE and Windows have become the shoddy and un-innovative products they are today. People just don’t care anymore. Where’s the pride?
Using disposable camera will prevent any one to read the blanked item
The arguments about needing to protect the shareholders doesnt hold water to me. In the end it will be a PR disaster, more people will turn from MS, and shareholders will be hurting more than had they taken responsibility for their mistakes in the first place.
Second: if they were going to ask for the money back couldn’t the employees have been given an agreement to sign an return so their next severance payment (assuming they were being paid over time) could just have the over calculation deducted from it. Maybe this was a one time payment?
MS needs to pull their head out.
You know pseudo Mini-microsoft,
It’s unbelievable what real programmers can pull out of images and pdfs with blacked out text.
http://picasawe...449491716544178
LA code monkeys > Redmond b1tches * 10
Take that Gill Bates and your army of pions.
LOL, this is gonna get crazy the Microsoft ex employees. Maybe they will knock at the Google doors, muhaha
)
Microsoft has confirmed that the letter is authentic in an email with us here in Seattle.
http://bit.ly/MeFuT
But they also say it is “a private matter between the company and the affected people.”
John Cook
Executive Editor, TechFlash.com
Screwing people over is always a private matter.
Yes. People make mistakes.
Even if they work for Microsoft. I’m sure you people @ TC never make mistakes
I think you meant “*Especially* if they work for Microsoft.”
Mistakes my fucking foot!!
Enjoy the forgotten episode at the fullest:
=============
http://www.goog...oween+documents
=============
“Mistakes” like these happen when the fuckers get too cozied up with no morals and safeguards against unethical business.
If m$ were to be sued for every one of their antitrust policies, MOST OF THAT DIRTY MONEY WILL BE UP FOR GRABS.
I think we are getting there, step by step.
I don’t like that the letter was censored.
This happened to me once in California in the 80’s. I got a promotion, was overpaid for a couple of checks, did not know it, cashed the check and spent it. The employer (a public university) said that they were going to deduct the entire overpayment from my next check, leaving me with no money to pay bills, etc. I called California labor board, and was given the cites that state that if an employee received compensation, and does not know that they have been overpaid, that the employer is out of luck and cannot recover the funds. I told my employer, they double checked my info, and told me I was right.
Don’t worry, Bill Gates are u Crazy, that ridiculous….
oops, this is a duh moment
It was a software error of course!
This is easily solved if we don’t use the Microsoft way to solve issues, which is:
1. Admit there was some trouble.
2. Tell everybody it’s someone else’s fault.
3. Deploy a patch.
The way this should be dealt with is:
1. Take responsibility.
2. Locate those who screw up. (From the guy who writes this numbers with pencil to the high head that signed this as approved).
3. Fire them.
4. Charge them for the mistake.
5. Let the overpaid severances go.
6. Save some face.
And any software that was used for this should get a revision.
This kind of stunts, in this economy? Please!
Just another Microsoft bug!
please make Scribd go away.
This is so obnoxious. A company like Microsoft can digest the damages rather than losing goodwill and reputation to a great degree.
Even for Microsoft, that’s just cold.
I agree to the idea that shareholdrers would not want to see a bad PR at this moment.
I even don’t believe this. Duh!
This is ludicrous. Microsoft have to blame themselves for this.
They might use MS Money in the HR department, that would explain a lot…
I really don’t think this is legal…
If the over payments were a ligitimate accident, then if you have been raised by parents with standards of moral integrity, rthen there is no question about what to do. Send it back. NOW!!
that’s what happens when you use Excel ™ to calculate payroll…
ha ha,Never heard of this before.I wonder How they use calculations I wonder who they employ to “pay the money “I wonder how they SO big so that they could not pay Very small and I wonder at the end,how with a “rescission reason “still they have a reason to pay something to someone who is NOT works with them no more?
For everyone talking about MS PR, how many fewer windows OSs do you think MS will sell after this? $1m is $1m and this little embarrassment isn’t going to stop anyone from buying a new dell with vista or win7 preloaded… they may as well get their money back if they can… if any of the lay-offs wanted the chance to get a job there when things improve again, they’ll send it back… not everyone who gets laid off is disgruntled….
MS may just have to leave this alone, for the PR’s sake if anything else. When you lay off people, asking for money back is just rubbing salt into the wound.