Mini-Microsoft Cutting Room Floor

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Bret Clark - Holy Smokes! - New comment on Stirring the Microsoft Comment Pot on a Rainy Wee....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Stirring the Microsoft Comment Pot on a Rainy Wee...":

One of the best teams to work for is Bret Clark's Solutions Accelerators team.

Few benefits:

1. Work one week per year = gets you your paycheck

2. Working hours are 10am - 3pm with 2 hours for lunch, rest of the time in needless meetings where the whole world is invited

3. Wear fancy watch, show it off to the boss = you are now part of the boy's club and in line for promotion or 15% bonus every year

4. Close your office door, hang a big sign saying DO NOT DISTURB, and take a nap or watch stocks in real time (isn't technology kwoool!)

5. Come in from the field (MCS/Consulting), pretend everyone is clueless about customers, become the boss's best friend = get the Group Program Manager job with one direct report. Then chew your direct reports ass throughout the year and make his life miserable

6. Leave Microsoft at level 62, become a vendor with Volt, come back to the team, hang out with the boss (make sure to wear good 'perfume'), have blonde hair = get hired back in one year as Group Program Manager at 65 (now that you are buddies with the General Manager!) = have three direct reports and give them hell for not doing their job

7. Get pissed off, take the boss for lunch and beers = get in line for promotion

8. If you happen to come in early, say 9am = call the boss and meet him for coffee at the Overlake Starbucks. Chat, hang out and watch the ladies until 10:30am = come back and walk the corridors with the boss pretending you just came out of an early morning meeting on 'Setting Team Strategy'

9. You are buddies with the boss and the boss moves to a new team = you better move out fast

10. Do a few worthless presentations every month = you have enough visibility = get in line for promotion

11. Setup a meeting, invite 'stakeholders' in a room that can accomodate 10 = soon the whole team shows up for the meeting since everyone invited everyone else

12. Boss has a drink with his 15 year old kid and asks his kid "Whaddya think about my idea boy?", kid says "You cool pops" = boss comes in and proudly relates the story to the team and makes his idea the strategic direction based on feedback from a 'key' non-member of the team

13. Boss knows this great gal in another team = boss hires her = gives her level jump outside review cycle = boss gives sign-on bonus = gal stays for one year, gal gets 4.5 review, gal leaves for greener pastures with another level jump = gal just got two level jumps in 1.5 years = gal still best buddies with boss

Tomorrow is my last day at Microsoft and everything written above is true.

(Goodness.)

posted by Who da'Punk at 3/15/2007 06:38:00 PM

19 Comments:

  • Sounds like this diversity-challenged ex-microsoftie can't handle it when women are more qualified and do well in their careers.

    Then - invent all kinds of "excuses" why they are overlooked when opportunities arise. Blame the GM with a smokescreen of lies to rationalize their own ineptitude and career stalls.

    I'm in SAT - a fine place to work. A high impact, empowering, high-IQ environment that connects deeply with customers. I recommend coming here to my friends. I know two of the people referenced - who are both eminently qualified. Everything in this post is total BS.

    Left Microsoft this week? F'in fantastic. Microsoft is way better off without the sexist likes of you.

    Perhaps someday you will mature to learn who is truly accountable and responsible for your career performance.

    By Blogger Unknown, at March 17, 2007 at 9:38 PM  

  • I was in SAT too and da'punk is wrong.

    Well he is right in some ways. Its the best place to work but he grossly exaggerates the reasons.

    Stringing together imaginative sentences with words like high-impact, high-iq, customer focus, innovative, accountable etc and putting it in word, email and ppt takes more than a week of work. And lot of fun. Don't know what else got done beyond that but then I was only there for couple of years.

    Shame on you punk for exaggerating the benefits of SAT. While a loss for SAT, I agree with the above poster that microsoft is better off without you.

    By Blogger Unknown, at March 19, 2007 at 9:18 PM  

  • This comment has been removed by the author.

    By Blogger MaxPaine, at March 20, 2007 at 4:30 AM  

  • I work in the SAT team sitting in Building 18.

    The original poster is right on the money with his assessment of Bret Clark's team. Great place to work if you know how to work the system. Why complain when you get easy money and got four kids to raise? Let the vendors do all the work.

    I also happen to know the people mentioned in the original post, 2 gals and few guys. You just have to hang out in our corridors and you'll figure out who they are, though one of the blonde gals who got double promotions now works in building 44. Met her recently and she's not happy in the SMS team. I told her she should've stayed and she'd make GPM by now. The last GPM got kicked out of the team.

    The other gal mentioned is now a GPM. Everyone knows how she got the job and I'm not surprised by the post. Think someone filed an HR complain some time ago but it went hush hush. She's in line for the PUM job so I'm making sure I don't cross her path.

    Bret Clark loves watches, big trucks, RVs, big houses and blondes. The man's got taste and he got pictures in his office to prove it. I drop by his office once in a while to refresh my memories of what I'm missing and to chat with him, gotta keep visibility with the boss. I don't wear a Rolex but I know how to keep the guy happy.

    Truth be told, I'm over 40 and satisfied in my current role in the SAT team. I come to work at 10 and leave at around 4. I've been working on the same deployment project for past many years and have held various roles within the SAT team. Never any pressure and I've gotten by using the system. Don't even remember when was the last time I ever worked beyond 5pm.

    I wouldn't leave this team for a couple more years. This is a fine place to make decent wages, I'm at level 64 on my way to 65. I'm not ambitious but gotten 4.0 reviews during the past many years I've been with Bret. The merit raises have averaged 5-7% with bonuses between 12-16% coupled with great stock awards. I built a great house while working in the SAT team and just about ready to finish the pool.

    I'm not complaining and not planning on leaving this team.

    By Blogger MaxPaine, at March 20, 2007 at 4:35 AM  

  • Rocky: please realize that this was an anonymous comment and that I'm not the author.

    By Blogger Who da'Punk, at March 20, 2007 at 7:39 AM  

  • Wax: You are delusional. Wax off!

    Rocky: What exactly is your point? Are you yay for Bret Clark's team or nay? Rock hard!

    MaxPaine: Enjoy your well earned dollars partner. Game on!

    By Blogger Rolex, at March 20, 2007 at 10:38 AM  

  • What! People actually care about whats being said here. Check out stay-or-go thread by d'punk. D'Punk thought you were the poster of this thread too.

    I am yay for some folks in the team. Who cares about the rest.

    There are some good guys in the team who do enough to fund the extravegence enjoyed by rest of the team and the indulgences enjoyed by the GM. After all Bret was the golden boy of the previous GM who trained him thoroughly in his own image. Live the good life and work the system.

    By Blogger Unknown, at April 6, 2007 at 7:02 PM  

  • right bro', jefco took good care of this dude.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at May 6, 2007 at 12:10 PM  

  • See which one is getting rewarded in SAT this review period
    A) Part of the SAT old boys club
    B) Blond
    C) Work your ass-off to ship something valuable to customers.

    If you chose C - you'd be wrong. See who is getting promoted this time around.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at June 26, 2007 at 8:31 PM  

  • Isn't this group part of MXPS?

    Guess its the reason a ripoff team like this is still around.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at November 12, 2007 at 8:45 PM  

  • what kind of work is this? look more like a vacation than a job, you know what mean this? I want a work like this, all the day you pass doing nothing.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at February 10, 2011 at 9:29 AM  

  • by the way I hear that many of the employeers recive a daily Viagra Online advices.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at February 10, 2011 at 9:31 AM  

  • Bret Clark is an old man who still thinks he's a 30 something stud and banks his career on it. He's past his prime and women see his game. His wife is tired of is affairs though she's too ignorant to to anything about it. in the meantime, MSFT pays for his costly ways of life.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at May 13, 2012 at 10:02 PM  

  • I'm a male who was "let go" from SAT over a year ago. I didn't "fit in" to the male, swagger, kill shit culture. I agree with general sentiments left here by others. Time to disband SAT and get a group worthy of contribution to margin.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at May 13, 2012 at 10:04 PM  

  • wow a google search on bret clark sure turns up alot of dirt. what a scum bag. why is he still employed at microsoft, much less a manager? does anyone at msft care about what predatory behavior their management rank and file do? yikes. mr clark sounds like he's done....and should be.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at July 16, 2012 at 12:05 AM  

  • mr clark sounds like a disaster. how can a fortune 500 co like msft allow this cancer to continue to spread?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at July 16, 2012 at 12:06 AM  

  • I used to believe Mr Clark was a progressive manager at msft. I was sorely and pathetically mistaken.He's nothing but a self serving prick of a GM....counting the days till he can retire on MSFT's dime. Contact me offline for as much info as you want.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at August 10, 2012 at 12:52 AM  

  • Bret Clark is a pathetic façade. He thinks his Mormon boss Brad Anderson doesn't know about his philandering ways...too bad he's WRONG. Brad knows about Bret screwing his admins, his peers, whomever. Brad is just weighing his own liability to microsoft and choosing the least painful. and hoping prick bret just goes away.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at November 4, 2012 at 9:22 PM  

  • 3 years later and he's still making the rounds. what a sociopath. his linked in still says he works at microsoft though he was fired 4 years ago. old man with small penis.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at October 31, 2015 at 10:09 PM  

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