Microsoft has fired thousands of employees this year amid a company-wide restructuring bid — including a whopping 6,000 people who were laid off in May. The lengthy list of former employees included people who had worked with the tech giant for multiple decades and spanned numerous divisions.
“I was laid off a couple of weeks ago after 23 years at Microsoft. Yet here I am, back in the office. It might sound strange to show up at the office after being let go, but I still feel committed to the products, the people using them, and my colleagues…I still have an office access card and my company laptop, at the latest until December when I’m officially terminated. In the meantime, I’m still keen to be helpful,” 59-year-old Freddy Kristiansen told Business Insider.
The former principal product manager had joined the company in 2002 after Microsoft acquired Navision (his original employer) and held a variety of roles over the years. He was laid off in May this year and currently remains on his notice period as per employment laws in Denmark. Kristiansen also told the publication that he had also been “developing products throughout” and that his last major project was AL-Go for GitHub — “a tool that helps our partners use DevOps, a software development approach, in their daily work without needing to understand the complex technical details”.
“I was laid off in May, and per Danish law, as an employee of over nine years, I have a six-month notice period. I’ve been relieved of my duties, but I am still officially an employee until the end of November. I’m also entitled to three months of severance pay after my notice,” he explained.
Kristiansen however revealed that the layoffs had come with a slight sense of relief for him — after multiple years mulling the ‘next chapter’. He told the publication that he had even submitted an anonymous question during an all-hands meeting to ask if Microsoft would consider voluntary redundancies during a wave of layoffs in 2023.
“Some of my colleagues were devastated. They are worried about what the future might hold. But I’m nearing 60. For the past decade, I’ve worked very hard and put in long hours. However, I’m at the stage of life where I’m no longer interested in working 60-hour weeks. It felt like the right time to finally pursue my long-overdue dream of doing work on my own terms,” he told the publication.
The re-telling also came days after reports indicated that the company was planning to fire thousands more in July this year. As per a Bloomberg report, the upcoming eliminations will mainly target the sales division and other customer-facing roles. Microsoft had indicated plans to use third-party firms to handle more software sales to small and mid-sized customers earlier in April.