Techflash does an admirable job of covering the layoffs, and also got a copy of the internal memo that Steve Ballmer sent to all Microsoft Employees about the whole layoff process.

Mini Microsoft has posted two threads here and here on his cutting room floor to give space for people to talk about the layoffs, and this might be a great place to vent. Remember if you vent, do this one anonymously just in case. There will be though a data loss with the eweeks Microsoft Watch editors last day being on April 30th (and no new updates to Microsoft watch since then) the news on this one is going to be scarce unless it hits the local TV channels. Otherwise, there will be an impact on Seattle, and there might just be an impact on Microsoft to go along with all this as well. After reporting their first ever quarterly loss, Microsoft had to do something. Although speculation amongst some microsofties is that the bloodletting is not over with yet. Realistically, people are waiting to see what the next quarter looks like until they speculate if there would be/could be more than 5000 total people laid off.

In the longer run though, you have to think about what ultimate influence this will also have on contractors. Many of the Microsoft contractors have already taken pay cuts, and some have been let go. There is a lot of worry in the contractor community right now, with all eyes on the next quarter to see what Microsoft will do next. While there is also a lot of speculation out there on what is going to happen, the realistic truth, people are being let go today. What happens next with Microsoft is dependent upon the next reporting quarter. That is when things will get interesting. The other truth to all this is that Microsoft is still hiring, and that there really has not been a huge net loss of jobs. That is something to think about, with all the talk of firing, Microsoft is still hiring.

In all this is going to be a hard day for Microsoft employees who are going to be let go, and while the natural reaction is to be angry, the realistic viewpoint is that suddenly you are free to go do something different. For all the reasons that we stay in a job, and all the reasons that we work in places, inertia is one of the biggest reasons to stick around. Most people will go through the normal stages of grief and loss, but hurry through them; you have an opportunity to go reinvent yourself and go do something even cooler than you were doing before.

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