Michael Hanscom story

To let you have your opinion this is the version from Michael about his unfortunate picture:

The day started like any other day — get up, dink around for a bit, bus into work, and start working through the stack of jobs. Just shy of an hour after I got in, my manager came in and asked me to step into his office when I had a chance. Sure, no biggie, and I headed over as soon as I finished the job I was setting up.

"Okay, here's the first question. Is this page," and here he turned his monitor towards me, letting me see my "Even Microsoft wants G5s" post from last Thursday, "hosted on any Microsoft computer? Or is it on your own?"

"It's on mine. Well, it's on a hosted site that I pay for, but no, it's not on anything of Microsoft's."

"Good. That means that as it's your site on your own server, you have the right to say anything you want. Unfortunately, Microsoft has the right to decide that because of what you said, you're no longer welcome on the Microsoft campus."

And that simply, as of about 2pm today, I once again joined the ranks of the unemployed.

It seems that my post is seen by Microsoft Security as being a security violation. The picture itself might have been permissible, but because I also mentioned that I worked at the MSCopy print shop, and which building it was in, it pushed me over the line. Merely removing the post was also not an option — I offered, and my manager said that he had asked the same thing — but the only option afforded me was to collect any personal belongings I had at my workstation and be escorted out the door. They were at least kind enough to let me be escorted out by one of my co-workers, rather than sending security over to usher me out, but the end result is the same.

More frustrating for me is that, having read stories here and there on the 'net about people who had for one reason or another lost their jobs due to something on their weblogs, I thought that I had done what I could to avoid that possibility. To my mind, it's an innocuous post. The presence of Macs on the Microsoft campus isn't a secret (for everything from graphic design work to the Mac Business Unit), and when I took the picture, I made sure to stand with my back to the building so that nothing other than the computers and the truck would be shown — no building features, no security measures, and no Microsoft personnel. However, it obviously wasn't enough.

So, I'm unemployed. I am somewhat lucky in that I'm not technically unemployed — I am still on the roster for my temp agency, who has been very good to me so far (and hopefully will continue to be), but as their ability to place me anywhere does depend on the current job market, it's not a foolproof guarantee of employment coming in quickly. I've put a call into them and let them know of the situation and that I'm available and willing for whatever can be found, so with any luck, they'll be able to find a placement for me. However, it appears that it's also time for me to start hitting the streets and shopping my resume around again.

Wish me luck.

IMHO difficult to give Microsoft wrong when you talk about security, but a picture which could be taken from any place on the planet (including Apple), that seems to be a very strong decision to sack somebody for that.
It could be good benefits from Microsoft to have their version of the story.
Surely a nice PR exercice.

 

4 Comments

  • A couple of things that make a big difference here. The first, as you noted, is security. It was not so much the photo, as the combination of photo and description that apparently fell afoul of security. Given the reality of truck bombs or other threats, I can understand why the security folks would not want people publicly advertising which loading docks serve particular divisions. The second, which was noted in the Register story, is that it appears this guy was a temp. There's a big difference between employees and temps, and it's not surprising that a temp is cut less slack in terms of judgement calls on blogging and security. My guess would be that if this was an employee, he would've received a stern warning, and that would have been that.



    Whether this was a good move from a PR perspective, of course, is another question entirely. But then, if I'm making decisions between the physical security of the campus, and a little PR kerfluffle, I'm not sure I'd decide any differently.



    One last point...take the Macs out of the story, and no one notices at all. The reason bloggers and the Register are even talking about this is the spin that Microsoft is somehow trying to cover up their use of Macs, which even the temp admits is hardly the case.

  • a) The reason bloggers are talking about this is because he was fired for what he wrote in a blog.

    b) If security was the problem, they still would have (or at least should have) asked him to remove the entry.

  • I am quite agree with Shannon. I am bit disturbed to know that temps people are named 'disposable' by some bloggers here. It sounds like cattle. Not sure it's good practice in 2003 to do such things.

    I think a strong warning and a request to remove the pictures should be more appropriate

  • Exactly, misunderstanding what being a temp means to an employer is the mistake the poor guy made.



    Personally, I'm not really comfortable with publishing company details on the web anyway; it's not my information to give. It's like visiting a friend and blogging about their bathroom habits - you should probably ask before you post.

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