Probably this is not quite the press Microsoft would have liked from Netflix.
For those of you who watch movies instantly on your PC or Mac, you may have noticed our player is much easier to install and use now with Silverlight. The good news is fewer problems for you. The bad news is that we are now overstaffed with technical specialists in our Customer Service (CS) group.
So last week we announced internally some changes in CS. 50 of our technical specialists will work through December, then be let go in early January after the holidays. 15 of our technical specialists will take new roles in the main CS group.
Too bad those affected couldn’t be moved into other positions. Admittedly, I don’t know how those affected are employed by Netflix – maybe contract work, etc. Maybe they can interview for other Netflix jobs. (Many companies operate that way – my team at Microsoft was cut, and I was forced to re-interview with no guarantee of future employment, even though at the time they were hiring hundreds of people every week).
I read a few of the comments (I know, I shouldn’t have) …
Too many are the typical, “It’s a Microsoft product, if it hasn’t failed you yet, it will. So, keep those employees.”
One genius went so far as to call Silverlight, “pernicious malware.”
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Nice, especially the “pernicious malware.” tool. And yes, you shouldn’t have read the comments.
At least they tried [apparently] to absorb some of the folks in other groups. But, too bad that technology has to make jobs obsolete, especially in this economy.