Company: Microsoft
Date: 2008-11-19
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: current

Microsoft Enron Looms beneath the lid.
Pros: If you like the rainy pacific North West and want the best Health Care Insurance you can get, then Microsoft brings it home.
Cons: True to everything you hear about the arrogance of the employees, they are some of the nastiest people you could ever want to spend a 14+ hour day with. And you will be spending 14 hour days and beyond. Work Life Balance is non-existent if you want to move up because the compensation drives extreme competitiveness of the individual. Face time is also important as it is a popularity contest more than it is about talent or getting real work done. Those that spend the most time on their personal campaigns are those that move up the fastest while the real work is carried on that backs of those with real talent that are usually hidden away in a closet somewhere and if they try to come out or get credit for the work they've done, management and HR have all kinds of interesting excuses as to why that can't happen and it usually falls to words like "Perception, Lack of Communication Abilities, Don't understand the culture' and on and on." These are canned excuses usually used for the population of new people that come in and this becomes recurring feedback to this group for about a five year period until they get tired and leave. 

This is a brilliant strategy for the old guard as they never have to change anything and simply collect the rewards from the work of others. With that, promotions are subjective and often given to those who agree to play and protect this process. Given that, there are thousands of people every day spinning and grinding their wheels on the path to nowhere. 

Of 4 Fortune five hundred companies I have worked at in my career, I experenced the worst case of poor business ethics, lack of accountability, to some degree criminal behavior and or intent that HR refuses to deal with as instead they are hunting down the "communication and perception" issues launched by countless old guard managers to hold people down. THree times I brought forward to my GM's ehtical issues and their response were the same which were "were I you I would drop this line of conversation and just get along." This spanned from the Quality Department to the Finance Department. HR protected the GM's so ultimately I left the company as I did not want to be engaged in Enron Type practices. 

Turnover of new employees is really high and HR does not care. They only focus on Partner Level and above for retention and development - all else is expendable and not really that great of a concern.