Was laid off from Microsoft after 23 years, and I'm still going into the office
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
The reality is that we’re talking about a human navigating the impending restructuring of human relationships and being removed from a product that they clearly cared about.
I’ve been there — working on something I believed in, for a company that treated me well, with customers and colleagues who also believed in the product.
It’s common advice to treat work as something separate from your personal life, to not rely on work as a social/support system, etc. and I think that’s mostly decent advice.
But it doesn’t change the complexity of the relationship someone can have with their work and the people associated with it.
When I finally left, it was voluntary and after much planning. If I had been laid off instead, and if I had 6 months to prepare, I’d still be going into the office too.
My loyalty would not be to my employer at that point, but to the many humans around me with whom I had relationships and still have relationships years later.
What the article describes sounds like a period of transition. Not something to be derided.
I’m sure he really made an effort during his long career at Microsoft. And I’m unsure why he was let go. But the repeated theme of “60 hour weeks” and “20 hour weekends” seems like trying to win an argument that he was, in fact, valuable.
I don’t know what it’s like to be fired, much less at the age of 59. But it’s nice to hear of the silver lining. I’d want to feel the way he does, and blog less about it.
This is seriously mental illness.
You are WAY too psychologically invested in your job.
Work is not life!
Seriously, go outside more! There's a HUGE world outside of a cubicle. Expand your horizons. The rewards will vastly outsize any job satisfaction.
I'm not being derisive, I'm trying to suggest a path to an improved life experience.
People say this, and I understand the sentiment behind it, but this is not true. Work is a large % of most people's lives, and to pretend it is not is to deny the reality of many people's existence.
Most people aspire to work less, myself included, and it's absolutely true that many of the best things in life happen outside of work, but I think it's a bit problematic to pretend people are automatons who can compartmentalize their work and home life. Most brains don't work this way, aspirations notwithstanding.
> Seriously, go outside more! There's a HUGE world outside of a cubicle. Expand your horizons. The rewards will vastly outsize any job satisfaction.
I've been on sabbatical for 3+ years now.
Getting outside more, traveling, spending time not working is exactly why I personally spent a lot of time preparing to leave my last job before I did. I wanted to feel free and unencumbered, and making sure I left things in a good place was an important part of doing that.
There are a lot of assumptions packed into your comment that don't align with my personal reality or lived experience, and many of the things you're describing are not mutually exclusive.
Diagnosing people with mental illness given the limited information available seems like a pretty questionable position to take as well. If caring about the people I built relationships with and investing time to make their lives easier on my way out the door is mental illness, then yes, I'm mentally ill.
Danish law requires a long notice period.
The best thing is, that applies only to your employer. Employees can always quit with a 4 week’s notice.
So less unhealthy and the title is fairly misleading. I hope he isn't working too hard though
If he still has the laptop it means there is trust on both sides. Otherwise they would have revoked all his accesses and just exempted him from working to protect the company from possible harm.
At least that is how it works in Germany but should be basically the same in Danish law. Getting laid off is really not so bad. Firing people is expensive, as it should be.
It it just that often that people get excepted from working because the corporation does not trust them anymore and they don't want to risk anything. Or on the other side the employee calls in sick to avoid working.
He got 6 months until the contract expires plus 3 extra months of pay as severance. Dude is pretty happy about being laid off, no hard feeling.
It is really not that crazy to still answer some questions from time to time after being laid up, especially if the company is still paying you full time anyway. Not like he is putting in 60 hours a week, dude is enjoying early retirement with some side gigs.
There is definitely a problem with people being being married to their job but this is just clickbait.
https://seinfeldscripts.com/TheBizarroJerry.htm#:~:text=I%20...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg71v533q6o
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/23/business/denmark-retirement-a...
If I got an offer to retire early with 9-12 months salary I'd take it in a heartbeat. IT is absolutely no fun anymore. As soon as you learn something it's obsolete. And the treadmill keeps getting faster and faster. I used to go to work feeling like I was an expert at what I did. Now I feel like I'm babysitting technology that nobody really understands but has decided we need to be using. There's no training for it because anything you learn is already out of date. Problems are solved by googling (or more recently, asking an LLM) and trying stuff until you find something that works. I.e. vibing. It's totally demotivating.
> I was laid off in May, and per Danish law, as an employee of over nine years, I have a six-month notice period. I've been relieved of my duties, but I am still officially an employee until the end of November. I'm also entitled to three months of severance pay after my notice.
> I was laid off in May, and per Danish law, as an employee of over nine years, I have a six-month notice period. I've been relieved of my duties, but I am still officially an employee until the end of November. I'm also entitled to three months of severance pay after my notice.
As someone currently living and employed in Denmark, I can confirm that this is how it works as per Funktionærloven § 2 s. 2-3. Once you've worked somewhere for 6 months, the employer has to give you 3 months notice when terminating your employment. Every 3 years, that notice period increases by 1 month.
Depending on circumstances, other regulatory requirements, etc. employees let go might be placed on garden leave: they get paid for the notice + severance period, but aren't expected to come in.
On the other hand: he mentions working 60 hour work weeks. That is _very_ unusual in Denmark, mostly because in many cases it's illegal by the 48-hour rule (see e.g. https://english.ida.dk/working-hours).
> I was laid off in May, and per Danish law, as an employee of over nine years, I have a six-month notice period. I've been relieved of my duties, but I am still officially an employee until the end of November.
It would also be pretty easy to tailgate at a place you’ve worked for 20+ years, but it sounds like that isn’t even necessary.