Not a big fan of metaphors like "dead wood" to describe employees.
Regarding the "tons of middle managers" (another dehumanizing expression imo.) - I haven't met anyone just "sitting for years" and happily "causing obstructive damage" yet. I have however met quite a few where it took me some time to appreciate their work (looked like nothing/trivial from the outside) and realize their failed struggle with organizatorial constraints on their work.
Apologies if I am reading too much into your post. However, there seems to be pervasive contempt for the people affected by layoffs in threads like these that's unnecessary and unwarranted.
- There is dead wood. People who do negative work, or who do not add value, only process, to shipping products
- There are toxic middle-to-upper level managers. These people exist; I have personal experience with one who I believe is an actual psychopath
- There are many partner-level people who have essentially reduced their careers to manipulation of other people's careers, by canceling products, or getting people canned or quashing promotions, or backing poor promotions.
I don't think it's hyperbole to say that middle management at Microsoft is riddled with "dead wood".
Very thoughtful, thanks. I too had probably been swept along by the generalisations of people, but they're just that - real people with real problems and situations.
Regarding the "tons of middle managers" (another dehumanizing expression imo.) - I haven't met anyone just "sitting for years" and happily "causing obstructive damage" yet. I have however met quite a few where it took me some time to appreciate their work (looked like nothing/trivial from the outside) and realize their failed struggle with organizatorial constraints on their work.
Apologies if I am reading too much into your post. However, there seems to be pervasive contempt for the people affected by layoffs in threads like these that's unnecessary and unwarranted.