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Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
Microsoft's comment on Yahoo, the 17-word version
Microsoft PR guy on Stevenote: Meh.

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The Brain
01/23/09

In reply to Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
DRM mail doesn't stop digital cameras.
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leonleonleon
01/23/09

@The Brain: You truly are The Brain
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leonleonleon
01/23/09

In reply to Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
FWD: RE: RE: FWD: RE: Guys lol have you noticed its on a Mac (a Mac) because the e-mail is on a computer (which is a Mac) isn't that crazy because it's on (a Mac [Mac {not a PC, a Mac}])
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Dagrolord
01/23/09

In reply to Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
In these End of Days, at least part of the reason would have been to spare humiliation for the inevitable bewildered, devastated employees who would have begged for their jobs.

Some of these Microsoft people will go on to wearing durable cotton shirts with their names embroidered onto little oval patches to work within a year. Taking 80% pay cuts will just about allow them to move into a shit-hole apartment when their Hummer House or McMansion is foreclosed on.

In a slightly kinder, gentler world, Steve's notice would have read-

Pack your things and go home. We'll mail your severance package.

The good news is that fully eighty per cent of you will find work within a year, albeit at the average annual salary pay-cut of a fully loaded Ford Expedition.

But what if you're one of the 20%ers for whom this is pretty much the End of the Line? Are you obese or otherwise unfortunate-looking? Remember, even pretty people will have to take drastic pay-cuts just to find work. If you're a fat of fugly fuck, just go home and uncork a mellow merlot and turn on 'American Beauty'. Pause the movie right before Thora Birch shows off her improbably big titties to the weirdo auteur next-door. Go to the kitchen and get another bottle, reach behind the stove and twist off the gas feed. Resume your movie. Kevin Spacey will talk you home.

Love,

Steve

P.S. On a somewhat lighter note, you can keep your genuine Microsoft logo coffee cup.
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Clarence Rosario
01/23/09

In reply to Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
Glad they had developers spend time on this capability rather than, say, fixing the myriad of security flaws in their consumer software.
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lobstr
01/23/09

In reply to Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
I bet they couldn't prevent screen caps of it, they ain't that sophisticated :D
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TenTimesFiltered
01/23/09

In reply to Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
Why do people keep thinking the screenshot image is real?
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Wrapitup
01/23/09

@TenTimesFiltered: If you don't know that it's on a Mac, it seems plausible that Ballmer would write an email like this. Which says a lot about how people perceive him, and how many people have super low expectations of management in large corporations.
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Smith
01/23/09

In reply to Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
Does ValleyWag ban members by email or do they visit you in person to break the bad news over lunch?
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Wrapitup
01/23/09

@Smith: Usually, Owen leans in, kisses you on the cheek and tells you that you broke his heart.
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Owen Thomas
01/23/09

@Smith: I like the cut of your jib. Have a star.
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Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith
01/23/09

In reply to Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
Ha, why is this email from Microsoft on a Mac screen?
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Hydroceph
01/24/09

@Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith is already psyched for Girl Talk!: alas for conspiracy theorists, Owen explains it all in replies to the second post.
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Hydroceph
01/24/09

@Hydroceph: Obey Owen. Worship Owen.
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Drunken Economist
01/24/09

@Hydroceph: It's a Mac screen, but a Microsoft product, Office 2004 or 2008, and 'Entourage', that clusterf*ck spawn'd from Microsoft's "Macintosh" "Business" "Unit"...

Three words that normally shouldn't be used together.
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Dylan Patrick Mcmorrow
01/23/09

In reply to Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
With no paper record of being told your fired are you fired ? If you where dyslexic you could claim the email was not in a readable font ...
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Tremonius
01/24/09

@Dylan Patrick Mcmorrow: There are reports of those laid off by Apple in years past continuing on with cool projects, even though they no longer had keys to the workplace and had to time entries to coincide with that of former colleagues. A couple of them at least provided great assistance to product development and were later given credit for it.
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miss_msry
01/23/09

In reply to Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
Did they have 1,400 security guards to escort them to the parking lot?
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alphabetically
01/23/09

@miss_msry: There were cops in the conference rooms, actually.
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elvenjewel
01/25/09

@alphabetically: Holy crap!

Have you seen the e-mail? I think the DRM thing is crazy, but they can only enforce the EXACT WORDING of it. If you have seen it, can you kindly paraphrase what it said?
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Btwbfdimho
01/23/09

In reply to Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
Mmmmm, with the subject line You're fired!? And they use Imacs at Microsoft?

Do not forward? no problema, take a screen picture (Cmd+Shift+4) and send it to your friends.
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badasscat
01/23/09

@Btwbfdimho: I'm pretty sure that's just a snarked-up screenshot somebody made for this story. Remember? The real emails have DRM on them! (I remain skeptical.)
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sample032
01/23/09

@Btwbfdimho: The Xbox group initially used macs to develop games for the Xbox 360 because both used a Power PC processor.

Now here's where it makes fanboys want to shoot themselves: PPC is an IBM product, and in Apple fanboy land, using PPC is blasphemous, but what's worse is switching to Intel...right as Microsoft is using non-intel chips for a console and using--Jobs forbid--Macs to develop it.
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Drunken Economist
01/24/09

@sample032: The XBox Group also used Macs because a cornerstone to the XBox empire, Halo, was made by Bungie Games, a Mac games developer of old greats like Marathon / Aleph One.

As I remember PPC chips were falling out of favor due to processor bottlenecks and were... cheap. Having Bungie there and making Halo a hit became icing on the cake.

Processors don't matter. Most fanbois are over so over the PPC, just like they got over Motorola 68K.
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contradicto
01/23/09

In reply to Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
And still Microsoft has "security issues."
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Niko Bellic
01/23/09

In reply to Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
It would piss me off to be told to "go home" by someone who is not even my boss anymore.

Maybe I'll go to Tahiti? Maybe to the movies? Maybe I want to go and protest in front of... something, or just go to the crack house. Or maybe I'm gonna go to the competitors with all the secrets I might have, or just start my own company. Why do these people assume their workers only have work and home?

"You are fired, so here is what you should do next: you should go home, sit on your couch and eat some ice cream. You can turn on the TV, and take a bathroom break." Yes, sir.
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Wrapitup
01/23/09

@Niko Bellic: Heh, yeah. But that's how HR sees them. As programmable cyborgs who swing back and forth between their sleep-pods and work-pods. They'll throw in some great bennies at Microsoft, sure. But given the current economic conditions and the status as a publicly traded company, who knows how long that will last.
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Tremonius
01/24/09

@Niko Bellic: Because Home is not only where the hearth is, it's where your severance package is heading.
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miss_msry
01/23/09

In reply to Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
What about a screen save, then print that out.
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uninspired
01/23/09

@miss_msry: A camera phone/digital camera will do the job.
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TedEx
01/23/09

@miss_msry: Print Screen. Paste into MS Paint. Save file. Send to Owen.
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Greasy Thumb Guzik
01/23/09

@TedEx:

I long ago lost count of how many people I taught that to!
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Owen Thomas
01/23/09

@TedEx: My tipster tells me the DRM may have disabled the Print Screen function.
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Tremonius
01/24/09

@Greasy Thumb Guzik: The very greatest technique was described in one of those fun Apple advice columns, to the question, "How can I transfer a document from my Mac to Windows?" The answer: with your document on your Mac screen, pick up the monitor and carry it over to the scanner ..."

If anybody comes into the copy room, you were allowed to take full credit for the idea.
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Kari's Favorite Mark
01/23/09

In reply to Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips
DRM restrictions so you can't fire your friends?
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HurtsSoGood
01/25/09

@formerly it takes a lot to laugh: DRM so you couldn't forward it to the media, your attorney, or whatever, or so you couldn't save off a copy for posterity.
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Microsoft's Self-Destructing Email Pink Slips

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