In a comment in the Power vectors thread, Vanita said:
You were useless (I met with you several times at Microsoft) and it looks like you still are. I am glad to hear you are gone – it made no sense for Microsoft to pay you a hefty salary given the “work†you were doing. All this high level bullshit…
I let the comment through because it’s a great illustration of the kinds of attitude and environment that’s disappointingly common at Microsoft these days, unwilling to take the time to understand new ideas and so threatened by anything “high level” that might actually lead to a change in the system, that the response is to hide behind the cloak of anonymity to spread around virulent negative abuse in completely inappropriate situations. Yeah, that’ll help.
Imagine working in an environment where this kind of behavior is widely tolerated. When I was at Microsoft, I got reactions similar to this from maybe 5-10% of the people, and so on large mailing lists or with the 200+ people who attended a mashup the odds were extremely high that somebody would jump in with some garbage like this — with superficially more polite phrasing if their names were associated with it, but still the same mix of knee-jerk uncomprehending rejection and personal attack.
And bear in mind the impact this has not just on the person receiving the abuse (me), but all those witnessing it. No wonder so many people at Microsoft are unhappy and frustrated.
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