That happened to me, too!

From a comment on the article Mini-Microsoft: The KIN-fusing KIN-clusion to KIN, and FY11 Microsoft Layoff Rumors:

having been in MS for only 2 years... I'm impressed with the smart ICs I have been working with... but I'm never impressed with any people managers @ Microsoft. If I start up a company, I will make sure not to hire any MS leaders. And I don't know why, but after some ICs become leaders, they become ineffective & corrupted in this company.

[Quick acronym guide: IC == independent contractor, MS == Microsoft]

I worked alongside a contractor, back in the days before MS's 100-day breaks. She started a week or two after I did, and we were officemates for over a year. MS eventually hired her, and then she became her former teammates' manager.

Have you seen The X-Files episode that starts with a guy in a call center watching how people are summoned to the manager's office and then turned into fly monsters that only someone under stress could see?

I think that's what MS does during its manager training. Because my former officemate and fellow contractor became an incredibly unsympathetic and demanding boss. She appeared to actually forget what she had done and experienced as a contractor, and turned quite unlikeable. I left shortly afterward.


Written by Andrew Ittner in misc on Sat 24 July 2010. Tags: commentary, employment