Mini-Microsoft: Your Review, Your Numbers, Your Choices

A not so succinct but poignant look at the review this past year at Microsoft.

My commitments from June are now ponderous reflections upon an optimistic era.

And then you get the sheet with The Numbers. Your level, responsibility, department, rating, current pay, future pay, any bonus, and any stock awards. "Wow, that's small." I let slip out, wondering if this damn blog had finally had a real-world impact on me and my compensation.

"No, that's pretty much inline with average," my boss said, and reviewed how we're inline with comparable tech companies and that 2% raises are about the max-average (?) this year, along with some % bonus I forget (10%?). Later I got home and unloaded my gear and went through old review numbers. Even in my worst year when I was totally ignorant about the review process I did way better than this year.

I guess we had a lean financial year.

The post goes on to reflect on things that employees can do to address the situation but I found this line particularly liberating:

The golden handcuffs were removed from your wrists long, long ago. You own your career. It's choice time.

Amen to that...