See the post below, about Microsoft, then read this. Now that's pretty scary stuff. Wow.
posted by Jo Fish on 09.25.03 at 11:47 PM
Comments:
This doesn't strike me as at all surprising.
My first job in the tech industry after my career change (I was a lawyer for about 10 years before that) was with a Microsoft Solution Provider and MS certified training center. During the time I worked there we were always strongly urged to be Microsoft "evangelists" and to always urge Microsoft solutions to our client problems, even when there were obviously superior non-Microsoft solutions available. After a few years I got tired of being a whore for Microsoft and began criticizing MS outside the office (on 'net chat boards and the like), openly identifying myself as a disgruntled Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer/Microsoft Certified Trainer. Not a surprise, about 6 months later, that I was laid off. I have no doubts that the layoff was legitimate and not retalitory (the company had been hit hard by the "dot bomb", and I did mostly training, which was very hard hit by the Bush economic "miracle"), but I'm sure my Microsoft anti-evangelism wasn't "a career enhancing move" as we used to say in the USN.
I'm so happy to be working where I am now; while we're a Microsoft shop my boss doesn't hold my Linux enthusiasm against me, and I can scream "Microsoft sucks!!!!" in public without worrying that my job is in jeopardy now.
