Hacker News Reader

Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Layoffs. Bonuses cut. Raises and promos frozen. No shit a random employee survey is going to trend downward.

Ask the outside world on the other hand and they’ll say Microsoft leadership is doing a stellar job. The stock market definitely reflects it.

View on HN

Only those on the outside not involved with Windows desktop development with agree with a stellar job description.

Those still involved in Windows desktop, will assert that they are running like headless chickens, no clue which UI framework to invest, downgraded the development experience back to pre-.NET days, no longer hold the golden rule of backwards compatibility, and have teams of a ridiculous tiny size, only capable of bug fixing and very small feature development.

So most likely any employee involved in Windows desktop development, that doesn't drink the Kool Aid of COM/C++, will also not vote with much thrust on their business unit future.

> Those still involved in Windows desktop, will assert that they are running like headless chickens

I was wondering what was going on there because Windows is so incredibly bad in so many ways. I need my computer for productivity - not consumption - and Windows really seems good at getting in the way a lot of time. If I could jump back to using a Mac for work I would do it in a heartbeat.

Ignore all the talk about WinUI 3.0 being the future, and check the issues on the following repos:

https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml

https://github.com/microsoft/WindowsAppSDK

https://github.com/microsoft/cppwinrt

https://github.com/microsoft/CsWinRT

Is this why Teams has steadily gone from useful to useless? It used to just work, and now it's a source of frustration multiple times a day with bugs and delays and features being lost in the new version. So annoying.

Teams started as Electron app, and now is in the process of being released as a Webview based app.

Zero desktop stuff.

I've been using it since over two years and it has never worked.

So the people making more money because the employees are making less money are happy, and that means the leadership is doing well.

Money means too much to too many people.

Money means everything in a world where safety nets are fraught with disdain.

Even in a world with safety nets, like in Europe, you still need decent money to fund a first world lifestyle, which you don't get from your safety nets, and I'm not talking about a huge house and a garage full of sports cars. Safety nets are there to prevent you from becoming homeless that's it, so you'll definitely want a to work a good job and not rely on your safety nets. I don't think Microsoft employees in the US are at risk of becoming homeless.

Sure, but lack of safety nets can definitely turn you homeless OR force you to forego crucial medical interventions (in the US at least). For example, my daughter has some developmental delays she might be able to grow out of with the proper therapies. These therapies cost thousands of dollars a month so when my wife and I talk about what the best thing to do for our daughter is, we usually land on "making more money, getting that next promotion", because one of us staying home with the kid makes a number of things become unaffordable.

I take it back, I didn't know it was that bad in the US. I guess I only speak from my bubble as a single, low paid SW dev in the EU. Having kids that need expensive medical expenses is something I didn't think about, because one, I don't have kids, and two, it's normal here to have most critical medical expenses covered, although, even here I still have plenty out of pocket costs due to how thinly stretched the public health system is, so you get the care you need for free, IF you happen to be dying right NOW, otherwise it could mean suffering for months long waits and/or out of pocket fees. Still better than the US probably.

And I hate that the European system is being stretched thin because lawmakers here are now using it as an example for why socialized medicine is unsustainable :\

All systems are unsustainable if the money coming in, is less than the money going out, so the main problem is maths and economics, not private or public.

While public care systems don't need to turn a profit, but they also can't run on a huge deficit because you can't have it bankrupt the state, you still need money for education, defense, infrastructure, etc. so while there's no pressure to turn a profit, there's a huge pressure to cut costs wherever possible, while at the same time a huge political pressure to keep the voters happy who want their cake and to eat it too.

Both systems have their pros and cons but both can be made to work if managed right and have money or fail if managed poorly and run out of money. IIRC Singapore has a well thought out privately funded healthcare and safety net system.

I’m on my phone or I’d link you to one of a slew of reports stating that the cost savings that come with universal healthcare.

Let’s be real here, that philosophy of sustainability has no place in this discourse and can easily be rebutted with CBO reports from say, the Obamacare bill.

The US government and by extension its citizens is angel investing a military complex at the tune of 1 trillion a year with no return. I’m not saying there aren’t any benefits to it but healthcare and other safety nets like food stamps are not only a drop in the bucket but yield very tangible long term benefits…

You can’t put a price on having a healthy adult population. And for that your people need to eat during those crucial years (I’m going on a tangent here) and it helps if their teeth are rotting out of their mouths.

It’s right there in the article’s TLDR: “Microsoft closed the poll before it paused raises and cut bonuses and stock awards.”

>Ask the outside world on the other hand and they’ll say Microsoft leadership is doing a stellar job.

I doubt a majority of Windows users are happy with the direction Microsoft is taking.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com