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No RIF'd Employees Need Apply For Microsoft External Staff Jobs For 6 Months
theodp (442580) writes So, what does Microsoft do for an encore after laying off 18,000 employees with a hilariously bad memo? Issue another bad memo — Changes to Microsoft Network and Building Access for External Staff — "to introduce a new policy [retroactive to July 1] that will better protect our Microsoft IP and confidential information." How so? "The policy change affects [only] US-based external staff (including Agency Temporaries, Vendors and Business Guests)," Microsoft adds, "and limits their access to Microsoft buildings and the Microsoft corporate network to a period of 18 months, with a required six-month break before access may be granted again." Suppose Microsoft feels that's where the NSA went wrong with Edward Snowden? And if any soon-to-be-terminated Microsoft employees hope to latch on to a job with a Microsoft external vendor to keep their income flowing, they best think again. "Any Microsoft employee who separated from Microsoft on or after July 1, 2014," the kick-em-while-they're-down memo explains, "will be required to take a minimum 6-month break from access between the day the employee separates from Microsoft and the date when the former employee may begin an assignment as an External Staff performing services for Microsoft."
Likely not just to prevent leaks, but also to prevent any contractors from being reclassified as employees.
This is a repeat of 2k9. They laid us off scheduled the 4th of July, but we were removed from our posts on 4th of May, and our access revoked. And while they hired the same number of people immediately the people who were laid off could not apply for 5 months.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I was in the same situation once. Laid off by Northern Telecom in the late '80s, I started work as a contractor at their head office three weeks later for double what I'd been paid as an employee. :)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Not sure what blocking re-employment has to do with leaks. If anything driving people to other companies is likely to cause MORE leaks.
This is almost certainly about eliminating the risk of contingent workforce being classified as employees. My own employer does the same thing, though it does not bar long-term relationships as long as the company doesn't interview individual workers. That is, if we hire Fred to help out with something, then Fred is gone in two years and must take a break. On the other hand, if we hire Acme janitorial to clean our trash and they send over Fred then he can work for years, but we don't get a veto on who they send/etc.
I have mixed feelings. On one hand it does make things harder on those who end up having to move on. On the other hand, before the policy we used to have a LOT of people who would be dragged along in a contract position with the elusive promise of a hire that would take years to happen. The policy forces managers to act if they don't want to lose somebody.
I am a contractor (green badge) at Intel, and I have to abide by the same policy. 18 months on, six months off. It's no big deal.
In fact, I kind of like it. I know when my "use by" date is, and I can't negotiate it, so I don't get too comfortable. Not that I don't like working at Intel, I do, but I try never to get too comfortable as a contractor.
It's akin to someone's 80 year old, 400 lb grandmother barricading herself in her house with a shotgun to prevent 20-something horny frat boys from taking advantage of her body.
And wondered was M$ chipping their employees now
For those needing another reason not to purchase Microsoft products...they just fired 18,000 people but are lobbying the government for an ever increasing number of wage slaves from India and other countries. They can hire these poor saps at lower salaries, bully them into working long hours for no additional pay (it's that bad 'ol offshore middleman that's blamed for the sweatshop hours) while backhanding profits to cronies in these offshore companies. Meanwhile, they whine that they can't find any qualified local staff. Actually, they just can't find local staff willing to work for third world salaries while living with first world expenses and taxes. Just say no.
Grandma's still got a chance of being raped if those frat boys are drunk enough and high enough.
...seems to be a great reason not to work for MS. He and Microsoft took one of the finest companies in the world, turned it inside out, and devoured it like a panic-stricken predator conscious that the end of the path it was on was in sight. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the acquisition of Nokia only bought time. When you rip open the goose that lays the golden eggs, it stops working.
Grandma's still got a chance of being raped if those frat boys are drunk enough and high enough.
... Which pretty much explains every 'Enterprise IT' purchasing decision ever.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Screw that. Every person without a trustfund or an executive job is "uppity".
Specifically, states like California are now trying to reclassify temporary employees as permanent in order to collect additional tax revenue. This happened with Apple before, and they also now have a 6 month rule. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
Microsoft is particularly sensitive to the issue, given that it was a lawsuit against them that triggered the whole idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
So this has nothing to do with the laid off employees (unless they are laying off contractors first, which is pretty common, if they can).
Not sure what the rules are at MS or CA, but I took voluntary redundancy from my job last year. That company had a minimum 6 month stand down from being re-employed there. This was to prevent people getting a large redundancy payout (proportional to time employed) and getting a job back at the same company the next day. I took my 6 month payout, had a nice two month holiday and got a job at another company for more $.
I don't see anything sinister with this policy from MS.
Nothing in that language excludes cafeteria workers, janitors, HVAC repairmen, etc. Does MS really mean to restrict blue-collar workers to 18-month stints too? Their employers won’t necessarily have another gig available for them, and they’re far less likely than coders and managers to have a financial cushion.
Hey, looks like Donald Sterling's getting a $2 billion dollar Microsoft "severance" package. From TMZ: "Ballmer went to Sterling's Beverly Hills estate Monday at 3 PM, along with Shelly Sterling's lawyer, Pierce O'Donnell ... who brokered the $2 billion deal."
I was constantly amazed at how clueless the executives were when talking about the company with people being laid off present: "We're excited about the future things are going to be great, everything is roses, etc". Like they were saying "getting rid of all of you is so awesome."
I think Microsoft is setting up a situation that the courts will find repugnant. Restraining future employment seems to be at play here.
Suddenly you forget that any filesystem other than NTFS exists.
Not This Fscking S#!+ again. True, Microsoft has been trolling the IT world by patenting exFAT and getting SD Card Association to mandate its use in SDXC. But supported Windows desktop operating systems (since Vista) can read and write UDF on flash drives. Or do specific Microsoft products have problems with UDF?
An unregulated business practice designed to funnel jobs and monies overseas? Say it ain't so, George, say it ain't so!
What else would you use for a company that started out publishing BASIC interpreters for 8-bit microcomputers, where string variables' names always ended with $? (DEFSTR, DECLARE, and unnumbered lines came in the 16-bit era.)
by the end of next decade they are building a Linux distro. The trick is that it will only run a version of Microsoft Office and almost nothing else.
Linux already runs Office. I have MS Office installed under Wine and it's always run fine for me.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
If you do not sign an agreement when hired, is it legal for Microsoft to bar employment after termination? While it's surely possible that MS makes many sign such an agreement at hire time, for those that don't I'd be contacting a Lawyer for a class action lawsuit.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Pink-slips are so pretty waving in the bright sun!
Table-ized A.I.
As a former paid Microsoft shill (okay, contractor on like four different projects), I would wholeheartedly welcome this if I ever went back. Which I won't, but still.
One year was too little time. It takes months to ramp up; now you get a lot more productive time.
And 90 days of downtime between jobs was awkward--it's hard to set up a 3 month contract that fit perfectly in those dates. Realistically, you'd find another 6-month job in the meantime, and not go back to Microsoft until well after the mandatory break, even if MS was the best job you could get at the time.
So yeah. This is better for employees' stability, and for managers getting more productive time out of contractors.
I mean, if they were laid off, then that tends to mean that they *can't* be hired back on... at least not immediately. My understanding is that "laid off" means that the person is being let go because there isn't enough work to justify paying them, so how could they even *think* of hiring back anyone?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
from Canada? Are they all evil?
Mostly random stuff.
Legally, if you are continuously working for the same company as a contractor for longer than 2 years then you are considered a regular employee, with all the rights and privileges that go along with that. Washington State may say 18 months, who knows, or Microsoft is being cautious. At any rate. It is more of a legal move than a jerk move. I agree they hire too many H1B visa employees. I also agree that companies such as Microsoft who lay off huge numbers from their workforce only to turn them into contract workers should be illegal. They do it for economic reasons. When a company is run by a bunch of MBA's, this is what you get. Everyone is a number and has an assigned value. You are just a cell on a spreadsheet.
Karma, We don't need no stinkin' karma!
No RIF'd Employees Need Apply For Microsoft External Staff Jobs For 6 Months
Maybe it's common parlance down your way, but what does RIF mean? Recently Inconveniently Fired? Real Imitation Fur? Raw Industrial Faeces?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I took 'voluntary' separation from IBM, and part of the conditions for leaving with a lump sum was that I can never work for IBM either directly or via an agency or contract anywhere in the world ever again.
There's always a risk that IBM would take over all of the major employers and I would have been right royally fucked, but then what are the real chances of that ever happening?
If I got a memo like that I would have stopped reading it after the first two paragraphs, if not after the first one. I have better things to do!
This has only to do with labor laws and how contractors can be reclassified as regular employees under certain circumstances. For example, an employee cannot "quit" and then come back right away as a contractor to make more money. The IRS does not like this, because most of the time it is done by employees with extraordinarily long commutes or other ways to take huge deductions from their gross.
It also prevents companies firing employees only to hire them back as contractors to avoid paying benefits and FICA taxes.
Microsoft is only making sure they do not run afoul of labor laws. Because, you know, in its zeal to "protect" workers, the government would be all too happy to fine Microsoft millions of dollars and then not give a dime of the fine money to affected workers.
I think that was "Applesoft", the BASIC interpreter that Apple licensed from Microsoft for inclusion with the Apple II Plus and later.
When they close the door, they close it hard.
The move dooms Microsoft to irrelevance by preventing it from using the talent necessary to fix Windows' problems. BUT - without Microsoft to absorb the accusations of "monopoly" by economic know-nothings (at any given time in any market, there is always a largest player. This does not make that player a monopolist), it will now be Apple's turn in the barrel.
There is not discrimination against smokers.
There are companies that will not hire you if you have nicotine in your system, if that isn't discrimination I don't know what is. I don't even smoke, but I do chew nicotine gum so I wouldn't be even considered for a position at these companies.
Enigma
Nokia had some issues but was still profitable as Tomi Ahonen clearly documents in this long post. tl;dr? A couple of short quotes and links to graphs:
Let me repeat. Nokia did NOT have a problem in its handsets business. Its issues were in its Networking business line.
Now the graphs:
Nokia profits by business line Note: Elop took over Sept. 21, 2010.
Which company had the strongest handset business?
Which company saw their handset business tank and when?
Smartphone marketshare
... but really? Wouldn't it be better to just work a normal job and not have to screw around like that?
"Normal" jobs are gone. It's all about Bullshit Jobs now (see http://strikemag.org/bullshit-... ). The combination of unchecked greed of the ruling class, the pace of technological innovation, and placation of the peasant masses by shit like "hiding in the basement playing WoW" is resulting in a structural social REMOVAL of what we've been sold as the path to the American dream. The american peasant class (e.g. the 99%) has been systematically screwed for over a 1/3 of a century now. And hardly any of us are paying attention to it...
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
I read that RFID'd, and then I spent about 60 seconds wondering what those guys I Redmond had been up to. Then I calmed down and reread it.
Citation?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The US is an anti-social middle income country which happens to have some very wealthy people who live in it and run it.
It only feels wealthy for the average person when buying consumer electronics.
Mesa company bans workers from smoking, tests for nicotine
Workplaces ban not only smoking, but smokers themselves
Hospitals Shift Smoking Bans to Smoker Ban
Those are just the first three that came up in a Google search, there are many more.
Enigma
This sounds very similar to rules that have been in place for contractors for a long time (i.e. since the early 1990s). Contractors at many tech companies (in the Silicon Valley at least) are limited to a certain period of time, so as others have said, they aren't "effectively" employees.
That's a mischaracterization of the concept of "insurance". Insurance (from its very inception) was an industry of SHARING RISK. There was (and still is) a built in assumption that some insured were more risk than others. But the risks are shared nonetheless. For example you have a sedentary smoker and another person who is a long distance runner. The assumption is that the smoker will have a shorter lifespan than the runner. Out of the blue the runner has a heart attack and suffers a debilitating stroke. The smoker has no major health issues (at the time). The idea of insurance is to protect against risk and the predictability of risk is merely statistical not actual. My cousin was a runner and had a heart attack in his late 20's. My father was a smoker and worked in a factory. He lived into his late seventies. My point being, ultimately mortality (or bad health) is not necessarily dependent upon lifestyles. So when you buy insurance the whole idea is that you are in fact sharing risk with complete strangers because futures are not predictable. Now... you might argue from a statistical standpoint that certain lifestyles are more likely to contribute to ill health. That's only in the aggregate, not individually. You cannot predict for any one individual. Insurance is NOT an arrangement where you are charged for your individual risk or advanced perceived need. The risk for everyone is spread among everyone. That's the whole idea of insurance.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
I got outsourced from my company (Large Insurance Company) to a three letter integrator that starts with I and ends with M. I worked for that large integrator for 2 and 1/2 years. Then the axe came and they laid me off. I worked for another huge insurance company for 3 months and then got the call to come back to my same job same seat same everything but as a contractor. I took the position back because I got sick of driving to Boston from Hartford / Springfield every day. I don't know why the integrator thinks it's better to fill their rolls with contractors but they do. Each time I got laid off I got a huge package which wasn't bad either though of course if I get laid off now I'm going to have to rush finding something quicker than before. I feel like I"m falling off the ladder of success and hitting every rung on the way down....
Paul E. Bahre