Microsoft Fails at Laying People Off

[LazyRider 10+ year member]

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.

Images of the letters they sent out can be found here:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/21/oops-microsoft-asks-some-laid-off-workers-to-send-back-part-of-their-severance/

Click to read more...

 

[jstbass 10+ year member]

Ha ha, good stuff. I would not pick up my phone.

 

[Louisiana_CRX 5,000+ posts]

computer giant //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

 

[tc3k101 5,000+ posts]

Ha ha, good stuff. I would not pick up my phone.

x2 lol

 

[tapout 5,000+ posts]

without numbers, thread is worthless.

 

[Ken448 10+ year member]

must have been using Quicken to pay their bills!

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

must have been using Quicken to pay their bills!

Nah, Quicken's not a Microsoft product, so there's a chance they'd come up with the right numbers...

you'd think they'd at least include the calculations they made and point out where the error took place.

In Excel, durr.

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

 

[duece212 5,000+ posts]

Talk about a punch to the star after being kicked in the nuts. You get fired then get a letter asking you to make out a check or MO payable to Microsoft Corporation.....they could kiss my ***

 

[Memphis4L 10+ year member]

yeah i wouldn't give the money back

 

[GearGuy2001 10+ year member]

Id tell em to **** me off if they want it back, you would think they would double if not tipple check stuff before they cut a check.

 

[Rashaddd 5,000+ posts]

Imo, their problem. For many of those people that means a little extra food and shelter, and microsoft honestly is asking for it back?

 

[donpisto 5,000+ posts]

I seriously hate that an organization does some stupid stuff like this. IMHO, they should deal with their screw up. Coworker of mine was getting bilingual pay at work and apparently now they want to take back the comp pay he was getting from the past 3 paychecks because it was not accounted for in the budget. Don't see why he should have to pay if he was unaware of it and the organization messed up....so stupid.

 

[Ignatowski 5,000+ posts]

assuming this is real......**** em.....the pencil pusher who came up with this

great idea should be fired with no severence pay

 

[Rmsanger 10+ year member]

You guys must not have ever worked for a Corp before or even in a payroll operation.

There are tons of Paycalc errors all the time for Tax/benefit witholdings or even a base hour calc. I work for an Org within one of the biggest Corp's in the world that is responsible for processing payroll. If there is an error they can manually doc existing employee's pay checks or seek litigation for terminated employees that do not return the funds.

A severance package is a benefit; not a right and they should be happy to get anything. Some corps will compensate up to 10% of annual salary for the package.