Comments on: Microsoft Quells Severance Firestorm, Lets Ex-Employees Keep Their Cash

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:37:31 +0000

eFF M$ and eFF all managers dumping people in the street that they don’t like. Companies effing employees out the door while hiring from the other door. Seems like the good old days of are back.

Time for some officespace like come uppance.

By: Severance and Your Rights « The Dice News Blog

Severance and Your Rights « The Dice News Blog — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:47:01 +0000

[...] Microsoft’s severance package gaffe – first overpaying about 25 laid off workers, and then asking for the money back – brings up a question: Are former workers legally obligated to return money to a company [...]

By: Harry Seldon

Harry Seldon — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:15:54 +0000

“Microsoft error in your favor”. Sounds like the “Monopoly” game of Tech Stocks.
Ironical that not so long ago MS was a Monopoly.

By: vengu

vengu — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:21:09 +0000

Good.This is one of the rare occasions when sensationalized journalism (ahemm.. techcrunch) can help

By: 32

32 — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:34:20 +0000

I’m sure they added a couple accounting/payroll folks to the pinkslip list after that screwup!

By: Microsoft Pay Blunder [UPDATE] | Game Stooge

Microsoft Pay Blunder [UPDATE] | Game Stooge — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:28:09 +0000

[...] [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.] [...]

By: Low Book Sales

Low Book Sales — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:47:02 +0000

Wow, great job microsoft! I can’t believe they made this mistake, but good for the people that got to keep some extra cash…

By: Tecnoticias | Hasta Irán nos gana en conectividad | FeedXtractor

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:42:25 +0000

[...] casos), ante la indignación de los ex trabajadores. Finalmente, Microsoft les ha comunicado que pueden quedarse con cualquier sobrecompensación que hayan recibido, y que aquellos que recibieron menos de lo que debían (que también los hay) serán compensados de [...]

By: Yawner

Yawner — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:30:26 +0000

M$ as always fucking up everybody, even their own employees.

By: jhoysi

jhoysi — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:25:08 +0000

Only four-thousand?

By: jhoysi

jhoysi — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:19:18 +0000

Wow, surprised to see so many comments now that its repealed defending Microsoft. Yesterday, when I read this story people were cheering for the ex-employee who posted the letter, and said Microsoft is in the wrong to ask for it back. Now, the people who want to keep their severance are “self-centered”, “not to be trusted” and committing “thievery”!?

First of all – do we know if Microsoft is claiming an error because the checks didn’t match the written agreed amount, or because they are now re-thinking the written agreed amount (they ARE Microsoft after all, everything needs at least a 2.0 after it to be considered usable)? We don’t know that.

Secondly, these people are now out of a job. If they want to keep a check that was sent to them as severance, they are ANYTHING but “self-centered” – they’re trying to plan on how to stretch that to provide for their lives and families!

There is a big difference in “thievery” and an “error in your favor.” The money already changed hands, it NO LONGER BELONGS to Microsoft, as they gave it away. They have no right to ask for it back, because they made an error.

If I give too much money to a friend for their birthday, I can’t ask for it back. If it was a mistake, that doesn’t make my friend a thief, or untrustworthy. It makes me bad at math. End of story.

By: Microsoft: Not So Evil After All? | Blippitt

Microsoft: Not So Evil After All? | Blippitt — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:01:06 +0000

[...] has backpedaled on their earlier idea of asking employees who accidentally received too much severance pay to give [...]

By: retired oldfart

retired oldfart — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:48:56 +0000

#1 Speaking as one that has gone through layoffs before. The exact dollar amount of the severance payment may not be disclosed in the initial paperwork. Most of the time the paperwork is generic fill in the blanks, where the dollar amounts are hand written and based on calculations that have been agreed upon between management and employee representative committees or union representatives if not solely decided by management in companies where the employees have absolutely no representation and the numbers that are presented are always underscored with the disclaimer that these are strictly initial figures only and that your actual compensation may not match the initial calculations. I have had severance payments that were greater than the initial figures, and it was not an accounting error.
#2 The severance package numbers that are presented are those that are derived from the same payment processing company that is issuing the checks. If they made a mistake entering the parameters for the severance payments, caught and corrected their mistake after some payments had been issued, and distributed the shortfall across the last few payments to balance the funding account. It is completely conceivable that Microsoft and the employees being laid off would not have been aware of the mistakes until the fund was audited. Don’t laugh, just remember Enron and understand that accounting can do some great numbers juggling to make everything look great up front.
#3 The severance package form is only one of several dozen forms that employees that have been laid off are being presented with and being asked to sign. Most layoffs have employees being presented with their severance package, at best on a single page if not being drawn out over several pages, 401 or similar retirement investment fund options, employee stock options, life, medical, and health insurance options, legal discloser’s, proprietary information disclosures, non-comp exiting forms, etc…
So the numbers not exactly matching is easy to understand as most of the employees getting laid off would have understood that the numbers on their severance were initial numbers, and a multi-billion dollar company wanting to get the 100G’s or so that was over paid is understandable, but I think that the payment processing company that made the mistake should be the ones to be held responsible and from the looks of the letter it is the payment processing company that is trying to get the over payments back in Microsoft’s name. While times are tough I would think that Microsoft would have known the kind of negative publicity that asking laid off employees to return a portion of their severance payment would cause and would have simply accepted losing that amount as part of their maintain good public relations budget. Especially with the advertising budget that MS has set to keep Vista going until they get it replaced (and you would have thought that MS would have learned its lesson with ME).

By: SSN

SSN — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:37:35 +0000

The guy who developed Vista should be FINED four-thousand dollars for developing garbage.

By: Ex-Microsoftie

Ex-Microsoftie — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:48:02 +0000

Accounting errors happen all the time. Just because it’s Microsoft doesn’t mean it can’t happen to them.

There’s bound to be some issues when it’s the first time in history that Microsoft had layoffs. Maybe other companies have more practice and don’t make n00b mistakes.

By: joeypixie

joeypixie — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:27:53 +0000

Said employees could really do without working at Microsoft. And, Microsoft could without HRpersonnael and payroll software displaying this level of lack of professionalism.

By: joeypixie

joeypixie — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:25:28 +0000

Employees can really do without HR/Management displaying this level of lack of professionalism. Bugs in code are coders’s responsiblity. Bugs in severance packages are whose?

By: Phil Fowlerl

Phil Fowlerl — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:00:59 +0000

Hmmm. My husband’s position was cut a week ago from Sypris Electronics here in Florida. They were so generous with the severance compensation.

I wonder if they are going to ask for the “1/2″ week back?

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:46:13 +0000

So companies should not be held accountable for their mistakes? I’m not condoning thievery by any means but if you get a severance check in the mail or direct deposit for a specific amount, then you receive a letter in the mail demanding some of it back because of an overpayment but the letter is without any details explaining why and no calculations explaining how? You wouldn’t be at least a little upset about that?

Let’s be reasonable. Companies AND people should always be held accountable for their mistakes. It’s bad enough these layoffs are occuring as it is. When these people received their severance checks, as described above, they started planning for a budget based on those amounts.

If a company is going to screw up and pay some of their people more, then they deserve to lose their money. It’s not like this is an easy mistake to make, right? Just some simple math. How do you accidentally overpay someone? I think the whole thing is ridiculous and, because I hate money and how everyone is greedy for it, I think companies that make this mistake deserve to lose it.

By: Anurag

Anurag — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:27:41 +0000

I think this response from Microsoft is not to please the laid off employees – the odd 1400, or the affected 45. It is to retain the faith of the remaining 70,000 that Microsoft is a good organization that cares about its employees and ex-employees.

If you look it in that sense, this move seems perfectly right.

By: Microsoft Quells Severance Firestorm, Lets Ex-Employees Keep Their Cash « I Am Rajendra - Watch The World With Me…..

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:14:53 +0000

[...] Source: techcrunch [...]

By: The Microsoft Guide To “How Not To Handle Job Cuts” | FlightSimX

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:23:04 +0000

[...] decided to do so before it went public, so it looked like they actually meant it. See this updated story on Techcrunch for more info. You may also be interested in these postsMicrosoft Flight Simulator Development Team [...]

By: AndreaF

AndreaF — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:59:56 +0000

I am a Microsoft supporter (I know I am in the minority) but I think this time Microsoft really fucked up in allowing people to keep the extra money. They showed they have no balls and bow to people’s pressure even when they have made a genuine mistake and are not asking for more than they are rightfully owed. This was a PR disaster only because it was Microsoft to mess up and got attacked; any other companies would have not received the same treatement.
Losing faith in Microsoft and the vox populi.

By: Onapito Bright

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 06:59:47 +0000

This is crazy! Microsoft of all companies??

By: Gradyfan

Gradyfan — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 06:52:45 +0000

At least former MS employees got severance. Rearden Commerce laid off its employees and didn’t give them a dime.