Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Asks For a Refund From Laid-Off Workers [updated]
An anonymous reader writes "The large print giveth, the small print taketh away. Microsoft, which recently laid off 1400 employees, is now claiming that some of those lucky schmoes were inadvertently overpaid on their severance package. A letter from the company, which was subsequently circulated on the internet, states: 'We ask that you repay the overpayment and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience to you.' Microsoft has confirmed the authenticity of the letter, but it's not known what the amounts in question are, or how many of the 1400 were affected." Update: 02/24 14:00 GMT by T : VinylRecords writes "Well, now Microsoft has recanted, saying that the situation has resulted in unfortunate amounts of bad press and public relations. 'This was a mistake on our part,' said a Microsoft spokesman in an e-mailed statement. 'We should have handled this situation in a more thoughtful manner.'"
There's nothing at all accidental about it. It's a cruel joke perpetrated by cruel people.
What if they agree to use their severance to buy Vista: Ultimate Edition?
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
"A letter from the company, which was subsequently circulated on the internet, states: 'We ask that you repay the overpayment and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience to you.' Microsoft has confirmed the authenticity of the letter, but it's not known what the amounts in question are, or how many of the 1400 were affected."
How's that any different than when the government overpays you?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
then we understand.
Keep up the good work Balmer and Billy!
Microsoft follows the same policies that any publicly traded company would. Are we suppose to be shocked? You know, they do have an obligation to the shareholders, don't you?
Why are people so lunkheaded about this?
I think I am not unique in saying there is NO WAY I would consider paying that back until I get a letter from a lawyer. And THEN I would CONSIDER it. If it were a small company that made a small mistake, I would be more friendly with it. But a large corporation that treats me like a cog, gets treated like a machine in return. Microsoft has over $20 billion in the bank, and they laid of people because they wanted to cut costs. That is fine, it is their right, but it is also my right to not help them. I think it is likely (but I am not a lawyer) that there will be no legal need for these guys to give back the money.
Qxe4
Is this possible?
I would take a picture of myself laughing and send that back in reply to be honest.
42
Even though they have tons of cash in the bank, they risk bad publicity to get the overpayment back
Instead of declining comment, they admit the letter is valid, thus proving a general lack of confidence
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
IANAL but i'd treat this in exactly the same way i'd treat a letter from walmart saying i underpaid on a dvd. i'd laugh a bit while i crumpled it up and threw it away. not to mention that microsoft has no sway over these people anymore. cut your losses and fire whoever in payroll screwed it up.
IANAL but i'd expect the fees related to going after individuals who refuse to give back the money probably costs more than just letting them keep it. they'll probably just write it off and note that ex-employee's name in the HR database as a "do not hire"
I would never give the money back to Microsoft. They already make billions of dollars, so why even bother? I would give it to Piratebay :)
If one such laid off worker decided to keep the money Microsoft is asking back for, do they have any legal reasons to get this money back? Does he/she actually owe Microsoft this money?
I understand completely then. Sometimes I find Excel gives me non-trivial rounding errors too.
My previous employer overpaid quite a few people a few years back, and the worst that happened to people who didn't offer to return the money was that they had to pay income taxes on it. Although the total amount was about $80k, it was divided among so many employees that taking legal action against any one employee was not worth it.
F*ck you. Problem resolved.
But its bad PR and shows lack of morals.
If they screwed up, they need to let it go.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
When you train the people in payroll to keep clicking "Allow".
In the past, Microsoft has settled fines by giving away the fine value in money-off vouchers for schools to buy cheaper copies of Windows (in areas where the schools had tended to use the competition's systems, naturally).
These workers should do the same thing. Print up a few dozen vouchers for $100 off a week's contracting rate.
Generally you do have an obligation to return someone else's property that accidentally came into your possession. You'd be guilty of theft if you knowingly kept it despite knowing that it came into your possession by accident; if you had reason to believe it was legitimately yours, you could plead not guilty to theft, but would probably still have to return it if a court determined it wasn't rightfully yours (i.e. not paid as part of a legitimate contract, or given as a gift). In this case if the employees had signed paperwork specifying a particular amount of money, and they got a larger amount, they would have trouble arguing that they believed it to be anything but an accidental overpayment. I guess you could try arguing that it was a legitimate gift from Microsoft, but I doubt that would succeed.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It might be bad PR, but why is it bad morals?
If you accidentally overpay someone, you shouldn't ask for the money? I'd argue that if you know you've been overpaid, keeping the extra money is bad morals.
Well, ya know what Microsoft? I made a mistake using your OS software and would like you to issue me a refund. I've since moved on to Debian, so pay up. Sorry for the inconvenience.
You accidentally overpaid me? Too fucking bad. You are not getting it back, I still have not found another job and you expect me to give money back? After I moved across the country for a job? Fuck you.
so that you don't have to pay for postage, then fill it with pennies, the weight of pennies will end up costing more on postage for them than they get from the pennies. also include a letter stating that you'll need more business reply letters. ;)
The letter asks for repayments to be sent to Fargo, North Dakota. If I got a letter purporting to be from my former company asking me to send money to a totally different state from that where I had worked and that where the company was based, I'd be more than a bit suspicious. This is apparently legit, but I wonder if any employees thought it was a scam (a scam by other than Microsoft, anyway)...
No wait that's IBM.
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
You probably can't blame ol' Billy or Stevie for this one. The refund was probably asked for by an accountant who made a mistake when giving out the severance package.
Please visit http://www.mederbil.com/ i7, GTX 275, 4 1TB Caviar Green in RAID 0+1 array, EVGA X58 3X SLI Board, Silver
I agree. This happens all the time. Accountants and HR people are just human, and they make mistakes. Sure, the systems are mostly automated, but when there are exceptional events or conditions change (this WAS Microsoft's first massive layoff), mistakes happen, and people pay it back all the time. The same way if they underpay you, they'll give it back.
Now, the only difference is those are people who got fired...so unless there's a legally binding agreement over this package (like, if something was signed...which it probably was), they have no reason to pay back, and they're probably not in the mood to do so. But again, if they signed papers, they don't have much choice.
Also, MS has offered to help some of these people to get new jobs, and even may hire some of them back in the future. Thats typical in IT in general. So unless some of these people REALLY hate Microsoft to the level of an average slashdotter, its not in the former employee's best interests to screw their former employer over. May cause issues getting references too, if t he direct supervisors catch ear of it.
To somewhat quote the late Charlton Heston, "Corporate American can have my money back when they can pry it from my cold, dead hands!"
No one was over paid more than Steve Balmer. If you are working for a company started by one of the world's riches men (Bill Gates), you should be paide more than the average salary.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
And when a large group of us applied for unemployment, we got more than we should have.
After a few months, we all got a letter from the unemployment office wanting the extra money back. Good luck with that, except I still owe them money and the debt never goes away.
If I ever get laid off again, I can't draw a penny until the original amount is paid off out of what I will draw if I end up unemployed again.
When it was all over, the unemployment office sent me a postcard asking what I thought about my experience with them. I sent them a postcard back that was just short of having a federal marshal knock on my door. If I was at home right now, I would post a copy of it. It was a laugh riot.
transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Dear Microsoft,
It has recently come to my attention that I have needlessly paid licensing fees for multiple OEM licenses relating to use your Windows computer operating system (hereafter referred to as "malware").
I have upon many occassions purchased a computer from a vendor who is in the unfortunate position of being a Microsoft partner. Microsoft has continually discouraged its OEM partners from shipping "naked" (sans operating system) PCs. This has led to the situation where I, as both a consumer and business purchaser of laptop, desktop and server class computer hardware, often find it difficult to avoid paying licensing fees relating to your Malware when I order a new system. This is troubling since I neither want to run, nor to purchase a license enabling me to run your malware.
Furthermore, I have suffered financially for many years as a result of your Malware being installed on the majority of desktop computers. Many of my web site customers are infected with a specific bundled component of your malware ("Internet Explorer"). Supporting this doubles the development and maintainance cost of my companies web site.
I ask that you refund my overpayment on unwanted licenses for your malware and make a further payment in respect of losses incurred by my company due to the "Internet Explorer" component of your malware. The net amount you owe to myself is $60,000 payable by check or money order within 14 days.
Thanks,
Anonymous Coward
c/o slashdot.org
I am assuming they used Excel for calculating the payroll?
It wasn't their first-ever layoff. Just the first that ever made such a huge media splash.
Either by cost, value, or reference, all versions of windows were overpaid by consumers... what about returning those overpayments? Probably that will put around enough cash to end the current world economy problems, as a bonus.
Why do you think the people in payroll screwed it up on purpose? They got to see some of their own names on the list of the soon-to-be walking dead while they were making up the pay.
So they zuned Microsoft back while they still could.
People wonder why the rest of the world tends to only accept a watered-down version of market economics. This kind of thing answers that: capitalism is ugly. True, excess gov't can also be ugly, but lows are less low. Capitalism has higher highs and lower lows in terms of both income levels and swings for any given individual. It kicks you harder when you are down.
Table-ized A.I.
A good case against automatic deposit. Also, a good time to get a lawyer.
It looks like your trying to reclaim an overpayment. Shall I :
- Appropriate an arbitrary amount?
- Send out a legal notice?
- Leverage it as a condition of potential re-employment?
If they just mailed $X with no solicitation, then sure. But it looks like this was an agreed compensation payment, with the check written for the wrong amount.
Similarly, if I mailed Safeway a $74 check without them soliciting it, they'd be in their rights to cash and keep it. But if I accidentally wrote them a $74 check on a $47 grocery bill during checkout, I'd be within my rights to go with the receipt and ask for the accidental $27 overpayment back.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
We left a paycheck in your paycheck so you can pay us when you get paid.
The way a court would view this would have almost entirely to do with what had (or hadn't) been agreed on beforehand. If their employment contract or severance paperwork specified a dollar amount either explicitly or implicitly as a percentage of salary, then they'll need to pay the money back. It is clearly an error in that case, and you agreed to a different amount. It'd be no different than if in a store you accidentally hand a cashier a $100 bill instead of a $10 one for a $10 item. They don't get to keep the extra, they need to give you back $90.
Now if there was no agreement on amount, then MS is probably SOL. If they just said something like "You'll get a severance bonus upon termination," without bothering to state the amount, then the employees can keep what they got. MS will only get it back if the employees are nice about it. However, this situation isn't real likely.
My bet is that they probably did have an agreement in place before hand, most of the time when there's something like this there is a preexisting agreement. In that case, the employees are going to have to give the money back.
I guess Bill Gates finally paid someone for forwarding that email to 10 people, and they want it back? I've lost all faith in chain mail.
"I'm sorry sir, but when we attempted to verify your prior employment they said they never heard of you."
... Holiday pay charges you!
I over-pay my bills all the time, but that's because I have a continuing relationship with my internet, cell phone, and utilities companies, so I like it that every few months I get a bill that says "this is a credit, don't pay it!"
That's different from the situation of the former employees, There's no ongoing relationship, they probably figured any overpayment was for other stuff that they were owed (vacation pay, etc), and that they had a legit right to it. They've probably also budgeted consequent to the revised amount, and are now doubly screwed. If it's a few hundred or thousand, microsoft should have written a nice letter stating that they have paid them an additional amount as a onetime assistance benefit because of the inconvenience of the layoffs, and gotten a pr boost. After all, if you can't fix it, feature it, right?
If it's in the tens of thousands (or more) per employee, then it shows just how out-of-whack Microsoft is.
Also, now that these are FORMER employees, maybe they should send back a demand letter for their back-pay for uncompensated overtime.
I think MS got what they deserved here.
Should the employees give it back?
Yes. Anyone who keeps something that doesn't belong to them is an honorless cheating scumbag.
Will they?
Probably not. What possible leverage does MS have to make the employees do what they should? The ex-employees have no reason, other than honor, to give it back. MS has no leverage, they shot themselves in the foot.
Personally, I think that all the workers who don't cough up the dough are just exploiting microsoft's blunder to advantage themselves.
However, since MS has exploited weakness to make itself stronger and stabbed its competitors in the soft underbelly (netscape anyone?), I think this is nothing more than a bit of bad karma biting them in the arse.
They really have no choice but to write it off as a blunder. Expecting the ex employees to be honest? Hah, they're lying cheating human beings! What do you expect them to do?
The only way I see MS coming out ahead is by taking people to court over it and tacking on punitive damages for a breach of constructive trust. Knowingly keeping or disposing of property that isn't yours is called conversion.
MS screwed itself over and needs to let it go because of the bad PR that fighting karma will create. But those folks who kept the overpayment for themselves are a bunch of dirty rotten cheaters and should be ashamed of themselves.
And the nincompoop in the payroll department? A ripe target for both a canning and a negligence suit owing to breach of fiduciary duty. This is really the only person I see MS able to go after without a major karmic backlash. If the action was deliberate, then it's embezzling and he/she deserves jail time.
But they overpaid them by giving them copies of XP.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
This sort of thing happens all the time, banks overpay, payroll overpays, people overpay. It happens, if you get called out on it, you are legally and morally obligated to return the money(personally I tend to point out the mistake if I see it being made as well, but that's me).
Is it a little petty to be going after terminated employees if the amounts are fairly trivial? Yeah. Do we know that the amounts are trivial? No. Remember an average of an extra grand per employee is 1.4 million dollars, not exactly pocket change, even to Microsoft.
Companies do this all the time, it's part interacting with human beings who can and do make mistakes. If anyone other than Microsoft had done this, the article wouldn't have been written.
The affected employees should repay Microsoft in the form of coupons that Microsoft can exchange for their services in the future.
We regret to inform that we did not intend to pay you a severance package of $30,000.
We meant to give you a severance package of 30,000 MS points. Please give us back $29,850 then proceed to spend the remaining $150 on movie rentals, game addons, and desktop backgrounds for your xbox.
Love,
Microsoft
It might be bad PR, but why is it bad morals?
it's a slippery slope. one day you're overpaying employees you've fired, the next day you're stabbing hobos to death.
were one of the unlucky ones laid off from work, I would really like to say the words, "So sue me," and not return the money. But, to take the ethical high ground and pay back the money is really the best course of action because it makes you look like the good guy. You will be more apt to be considered for rehire. I dislike M$ intensely but I won't stoop to ethics violations .... including pirating M$ software. Returning the money only makes you smell like a rose. I know that those laid off are suffering, but, at least you aren't alone. The suffering is widespread and getting worse by the week. The only silver lining to this cloud is that the government needs to pay attention to the plight of the working class and middle class because the adverse economic conditions are so widespread. The unemployed are no longer a statistical minority, and while sad, will actually help in the long run.
Guys, just please tell me the true: who is stupid on paying Microsoft back? Jesus, what a such abuse, i never seen anything like this before! Laying off, and asking for overpay back? which overpay? Wouldn't be working at Microsoft humilliating enough? And even layed off from there? Anyway, this is all good news for the open-source world, thank you all! =)
Yeah Milton, if you could just push your desk back a little further, that would be great... I'm gonna burn this place down.
Mistakenly overpaid severance to 1400 laid off workers? Definitive proof that the Microsoft accounting department really does use Microsoft software! And it may have even used old Pentiums for the floating point calculations!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
At least how many digits we're talking about...
Most fonts keep numbers monospaced. Other characters in the fonts may have variable widths, but almost all fonts keep numbers the same width. This has to do with lining numbers up in columns when doing reports.
I measure about six pixels per number. The zip code is about 30 pixels wide (6 pixels x 5 digits = 30).
The blanked out area is 42 pixels wide. Now some of that is two spaces and a decimal point. Spaces look about 4 pixels and a decimal point is probably 2 or 3 pixels (it's hard to tell since the document was scanned in anti-aliased). That leaves 42 pixels - 3 pixels (decimal) - 8 pixels (spaces). About 32 pixels, or about 5 digits. Put 2 on one side of the decimal, and that leaves a number between $100 and $999 as an overpayment.
Actually, this sounds about right for a math error of this type, and isn't too unusual based upon the complexities of this type of payout which includes includes considering the base salary, bonus payouts, unused vacations, unused sick leave, years in service, ranking, etc. Add in some government specific stuff, 401K vestments, stock plans, and who knows what else, and you can see how complex this can get.
Still, it's hard to understand all of this: Microsoft laid off 1,400 people. If each of them received what seemed to be about $1000 in overpay, you're talking about $1.4 million dollars at the very most. If the average mistake was $300 and only 1/2 the people got that, you're talking about $200,000 (a more likely, but still quite large sum).
Heck, the paper work alone to send out these letters and to track them probably costs Microsoft more -- not to mention the bad will and publicity it'll generate.
fsck them. i would ignore the letter. they'll let it go because taking the matter to court would cost them more in litigation. even if they do take it to court, just destroy everything you have and blow your brains out, leaving a suicide note saying that it is THEIR fault. not only will they get NOTHING, they'll also have your death on their conscience. and by being struck down you shall become more powerful than they could ever imagine. IANAL and this should not be considered legal advice. however in terms of medical advice you should be warned that following the above procedure will be harmful to your health. you have been warned.
To Microsoft:
I think you are mistaken.
You can claim bail package from Government and NOT from your former employees.
Cheers,
Mahadiga
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
For Microsoft's payroll system.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
...you can bet Accounting will blame IT.
...YOU pay Microsoft severance!
...Poor Clippy: not only did he lose his job, but now he is going to have to pay MS back for all his hard work.
In my book, "Honor" includes defense of the weak, or at the very least, refraining from morally condemning them for the crime of being at the wrong end of the stick.
Microsoft is a successful player in a punishing system designed to keep people over-worked and needy. People are going to starve over the next couple of years directly as a result of predatory business practices and what those practices have collectively done to the economy. Stealing from thieves is not a crime as far as I see it. It's just deserts. Because at the end of the day, the corporate behemoth cannot suffer or die. The humans that beast was supposed to serve, however, can suffer and die, and that trumps moral obligations to a paper monster. Social responsibility should be reserved for people, not heartless machines.
But guilt and self-flagellation have been taught well to the slaves whose livelihoods depend on how high they jump when commanded.
Is it legally right to keep an over-payment? No. But the social contract I 'signed' upon my birth is not one I have willingly agreed to. Born into bondage means, to me, an unspoken right to kill the slave master and escape whenever I get the chance, and I will certainly not feel guilty about doing that. In a system designed from the ground up to enslave the population of the planet through debt, the system as a tool of the enemy. I will never defend the enemy no matter what crimes are done to it. I will cheer.
As it happens, the system is currently self-destructing. Good. It was inevitable. The only bad part is that people will suffer, but that too was pre-planned by those who invented fractional banking and the idea of the interest bearing Federal Reserve note. Population control was always the goal. --Hopefully whatever system replaces it will actually serve humanity. If that ever happens, then theft from the collective wealth will then truly be theft from the people, and then I might start to care and call names. But right now, the downtrodden slave is not my target of ire.
-FL
Typical microshit. snigger.
Prove it!
Let Microsoft prove it in a court of law that it overpaid them.
Just because a BIG corporate demands money from you doesn't mean you have to bend over.
If i claim Microsoft wasted my money due to faults in its XP, would Microsoft bend over and pay me? NO
They will regretfully inform me of their inability to pay and thank me for my comments.
So, i have to sue them.
Similarly, each such employee should send a simple regret letter expressing their deep regret at microsoft and stating clearly their personal policies prevent them from paying. Neither confirm nor deny you owe them money. State POLICY.
Simple.
Microsoft will spend 10x times the money on lawyers to recover the money from you.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
There's a difference. As an intern, you responsibilites end at the end of your internship. So no one is cracking the whip over your head or forces you to come to work on Saturday (otherwise you won't want to join after you graduate). Once you become an FTE (full-time employee) all of that will change. For one, there will be "stack ranking" where you're ranked against your peers according to the perception that management has of you. If you don't pay attention to "visibility" -- you won't get promoted, no matter how much of a genius you are. You will learn this in about a year or two. Another killer thing is that nowhere does the TEAM performance come into the equation. You're competing solely with your peers for a fixed size pie. The problem with this is that someone has to get a shitty review score in order for someone else to get a good review score. If all members of your team are good, you may have to whore yourself to the management in order to get promoted. But that won't be easy either, because your team members are not stupid, and they're doing the same thing.
This is how FTEs are forced into overtime, ridiculous schedules, and other unreasonable demands. Needless to say, this shit doesn't work on interns, since they couldn't care less if they get a promo.
After about 2 or 3 years there I figured things out and started acting accordingly. I maintained a reasonable, albeit not outstanding, promotion velocity while flat out refusing to work weekends and overtime (except in the final stretch of the shipping cycle). I did good work, I kept my manager (and skip-level manager) informed, and I set the expectations beforehand with each new team I moved to.
That said, the endless fucking performance review cycle did me in and I decided to go somewhere where I'd be actually focused on my job, not on keeping everyone informed.
I did learn a TON, though, both about software engineering and about corporate life (or, shall we say, warfare). I can't recommend Microsoft highly enough for someone who's just out of college, if only for 2 or 3 years.
Don't make a mistake of staying longer. The compensation system is engineered in such a way that you really start liking the numbers in your paycheck at around 3 or 4 year mark. Stash away some cash and move on.
I wonder what accounting software they use over there...
No idea. I thought Microsoft was a public company mandated to create profit.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Bad PR?? Lack of morals???
hey, we are talking about Microsoft here!
Template of a sample Letter to be sent to Microsoft:
Sir:
Sub: Refund of "overpayments" supposedly made by Microsoft, Corp to XYZ bearing SSN 000-00-0000
This refers to your letter dated xxx-nn-yyyy bearing reference number: bbbb/nnn stating that you have "overpaid" me an amount of $nnnn and demanding a refund of this excess amount.
I regret to inform you that my policy prevents me from discussing this further until you agree to my following contract conditions:
1) My "record retrieval fee" is $100 for every hour i spend on retrieving my records pertaining to this supposed "overpayment" as you claim.
2) My "billing fee" is $250 per hour for the time i spend on handling this supposed "overpayment" case. This includes waiting time for you to receive this letter sent via First class Post, and to receive a written, signed response from you. This excludes all taxes, surcharges and other charges including but not limited to telephone charges, postal charges, fax charges, stationary supplies, medicare and others i may deem necessary.
3) All legal disputes arising out of this and subsequent related disputes may be pursued only in the County court of Keene, NH
4) This does not construe a legal contract and the terms & conditions specified herewith may be changed by me without notice to you at any time.
If you agree to above specified terms & conditions, kindly send across a signed contract signifying your acceptance along with a payment to the tune of advance 8 hours of work.
If you fail to respond within 48 hours of receipt of this letter, i shall assume that your query has been answered to your satisfaction and no further communication or correspondence shall be entertained.
If you refuse to accept these terms & conditions, kindly signify the same in a signed, written letter stating your response clearly and legibly in English.
Your refusal to accept these terms & conditions shall in no way mean i have accepted your demand, nor shall your acceptance of terms & conditions mean i have accepted your demand to pay.
In the absence of your refusal to accept these terms & conditions, i regret to say my personal policy prevents me from taking any action on your demand.
Thanks
XYZ
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Nope.
People may pay back all the time. Corporates don't pay back. If an employee disputes a settlement and demands the correct amount, a corporate WILL NOT pay.
It will just sit on the letter, and send back a regret response, leaving this poor guy with no recourse but to sue them.
Same should be applied here by employees.
Just because a LARGE corporate demands money from them, they should not poney up.
After all, legally, it makes no sense, and in a way amounts to RICO charges.
If i were such an employee, i would sit tight and send a regret letter informing them of my policy that prevents me from paying without substantial proof.
I will also let them know that by opening my letter they have agreed to sue me if necessary ONLY in my home town's county court.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
> It's almost as if Ballmer threw these employees' chairs out the window and now he's billing them to replace the broken window! Good luck collecting this, Micro$oft!
That's absurd! Chairman Ballmer would NEVER ask them to replace the window. He has a much more reasonable request: he just wants his chairs back.
Is that really too much to ask?
You're not talking above $200,000-$1.4mil for a bit of good publicity. You're talking no publicity vs a very slight bit of bad publicity.
Anyone who's worked for a long time will know that occasionally you're going to be overpaid and that money isn't yours. The reaction most people will evoke from this is a "ouch, that's some unfortunate PR" response, not a "I HATE M$!!!!" one. This isn't going to dissuade people from MS.
What it could do however is set a precedent. Next time you overpay someone, they could go "but you let those people keep their money...". If you're then forced to forcibly take back the overpayment from those people, you've drastically lowered their morale. A company can't afford to let money leak out like this. You can argue that they get so many billions so they can afford to loosen up but they really can't. Sloppy management will turn a profit of billions into hundreds of millions or even a loss, with such a drastic fall in profits, investors and shareholders will get worried and suddenly your business is in danger of a hostile takeover as its value plummets.
The rot sets in from the top. Any other company, with this many blunders, the CEO would be invited to fall on his sword, or step down to "spend more time with their family."
People are insecure enough at their jobs already; telling everyone that there will be another round, with double the head loss, sends the "work even harder and maybe you'll be safe ... for now" message. Not "we've made some hard decisions, lost some good people, those of us who are left have a job building the future of our business."
You don't get good work out of a demoralized, insecure workforce who are spending more time worrying about their resumes and performance reviews than actually producing value. Worse, people will hunker down and "not make waves" - for example, pointing out flaws that need to be fixed in processes - for fear of getting the "not a team player" black mark.
Balmer's office has to be ReZuned. Going forward, Microsoft would have been better off if the DoJ *had* split them into 3 or more companies. It's not like they would have to keep what's left of the former Entertainment Division alive. The XBox continues to bleed money (price cuts to move units, billion-dollar warranty recalls), while Nintendo continues to sell Wiis at their original price point.
Rumour has it that the 360 is the last Microsoft game console. The Wii still has lots of life in its' current incarnation, and the next gens' upgrade path is rather obvious - hi-def output (it's currently POTV - plain old TV). The 360 is already at 720p minimum for all games, so there's no "headroom" to grow a new "wow - this is NEW" factor.
As a current Redmond, WA area hobo, Microsoft being literally but a mile away from me, I hope not!
(no I am not Microsoft employee, no I am not a former Microsoft employee, yes I am damaged enough to want to become one eventually)
What else do you want? The clerk doesn't know everything about your pay, and the pay inquiry is a way to let people who can find out that you have a problem. It's dead easy: the form is just one page long and it costs the soldier/sailor/airman nothing. You always get a response within a month or two and if the government made a mistake, you get your money.
You remember that scam a few years ago where some people working at DFAS were getting rich with one cent allotments from millions of paychecks? They got caught because somebody did a pay inquiry.
Mistakes happen everywhere. You should always have cash on hand because to live for a month or two because, even working for small companies, shit happens. I once had to go three months with no income because the company I was working for decided to let us know about its bankruptcy by not giving us paychecks at the end of the month.
On the other hand, in the entire 18 months I ran a battalion S1 shop, of the 700 personnel in the battalion, we never had pay later than one month for anybody, and that was pretty rare.
We all like to bash bureaucracy, but in reality it often works pretty well.
I got my redundancy payment and other such formalities done and dusted one week after I left.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Corporations have a legal obligation to make a profit. They do not have a legal obligation to do the right thing.
Where, please pray tell, is this so?
Companies face a barrage of legal requirements (the right things to do) which they are *legally obliged* to obey.
It is the damned law for grace sakes...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... but most companies I know about have a strict policy of not hiring people that have worked there before.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Just think "Child Tax Credits".
Microsoft has always been an asshole. Now they are just showing their ex employees how much of an asshole they are.
If there was a contract, i agree it has to be repaid. But if no contact, Microsoft ( or any company ) can lump it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
About 90% of the (Anonymous) commenters at MiniMSFT. - The notorious bitchy insider blog.
As expected in a company that size, at the lower levels one is expendable, and any higher up one's energy is entirely consumed with political survival.
This may help explain the quality of the product, management and strategy that we have been seeing for the last few years...
you had me at #!
Two wrongs don't make a right in my book either, and the whole logic of "the pot calling the kettle black" doesn't make the kettle any cleaner.
Do you "Turn the other cheek" and "Forgive and forget" as well?
Mind programming comes in all kinds of easily consumed sound-bitten little packages. Predators love people who roll over so nicely. It might be wise to re-think a few things before you end up being somebody's dinner. --You've already got the chops; we need more people who prize honor and courage, but unless one strips away the gunk on the machine, then even people with the potential for good remain part of the problem.
-FL
Dude;
There are these things called collection agencies. They consist of former telemarketers that just call and call and send letters, and then ruin your credit rating, if you don't cough up the money. It requires no lawyers, no judge, and no jury.
Your fate is sealed before the first phone call.
You are guilty as charged, and there's no appeal.
And you will spend years trying to fix the mess they make to your credit history.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The burden of proof is on them. I worked in management for Dell before they're rounds of layoffs a few years back, and they're pay system was so convoluted that they couldn't track anything. When they let me go, along with my entire division, they demanded shortly thereafter that I "return" some money that I was "overpaid." I'm an ethical person, but the math didn't add up. They were going to send me to a collection agency if I didn't pay up in 30 days. I sent a certified letter essentially telling them they needed to prove it, per the FCRA, in triplicate. Eventually, they did turn me over to a collection agency, who also sent me a terse letter demanding the money. I sent the same letter to them. It's been almost 2 years and I haven't heard back from either of them and my credit is fine. I keep all the paper work just in case they want to come after me later. The point is, most of the time if they're stupid enough to over pay, they can't prove crap. Keep that in mind.
You hear a fair bit about the bad PR here, and to be fair I definitely heard a lot of badmouthing vista even among the non-IT crowd, but I still hear a lot of positive things just based on the size of the company etc.
Adding to that, and there's been a lot of good spin around Windows 7 these days, so it seems that their image is improving in that regard. Not many people remember ME, after all.
As a windows license victim forced to buy windows licenses, and never able to obtain my legal refund for the unused product I here by relinquish the money owed to me by Microsoft to the former employees.
Living in Chile
...and if the payment was given to the (ex) employee via direct deposit, MS can very easily retract the deposit, and then issue a second one in the 'correct' amount. Or not. Overdraft after the retraction? Sorry, not our problem. That's part of the fine print of the direct deposit agreement. They can effectively make withdrawals too...
BTDT. I had a final paycheck retracted after they decided to re-calculate my vacation day balance and needed to subtract a day. Caused all sorts of havoc.
Let me reiterate that, HA!
I think most of the thinking ones cashed their checks and said "F O" to that request.
I got laid off several years ago and it immediately cashed the check they gave me.
I worked there for 4 years and had a chunk of money for severance so I didn't want anything happen to that money.
With the economy as it is these laid off workers need every penny they can get.
It's always been the case Microsoft is asked for a refund. Look who is laughing now!
I currently am at a "great place to work": we all watch out for each other, we do our jobs, we cooperate, and there's very, very little infighting or office politics.
A few months ago, I asked my boss for a week of paid vacation, and he gave it to me. I wound up not getting paid for that week. Two things went wrong: I didn't fill out the official leave request, and my boss didn't tell HR; either one of those would have solved the problem. My boss told HR about it, and I received a supplemental paycheck and apology. We all learned our lesson, and life went on.
Yes, HR apologized for the minor inconvenience to me, but it wasn't their fault--it was mine/my boss's, and it was corrected so easily, no disciplinary action was taken. HR probably makes errors very, very seldom, especially considering the amount of automation they have around here.
Judging by the culture of my workplace, If we did have layoffs, there would probably be severance, and you can bet your ass that HR would not goof up the severance checks.
Having said this, I'd love to know the magnitude of the M$ errors/overpayment [not mentioned in TFA], and if M$ told their employees beforehand how much to expect in severance. Or if someone just said "Oh, we shouldn't have paid them that much! Recall it!"
Is Microsoft related to the RIAA in this matter? What's next? Am I going to get a letter demanding payment for having never worked for Microsoft?
Now Microsoft is admitting their mistake and telling the workers they don't need to return the overpayment. Great way to handle this situation -- you don't recover the money you mistakenly overpaid, plus you still manage to shoot yourselves in the foot in public relations! I think MS needs to lay off a few more people -- namely those who screwed up the severance pay in the first place, plus those who made the Custer decision to ask for the overpayments back!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
We have definitely different experiences here. I worked for 11 different companies in the last decade, and many of them made mistakes, and aside for one shitty 1 man consulting firm ran in a basement, I was always paid back pronto, and usually, before I even noticed the mistake. Large corporations never failed in that regard.