5 ms·

It’s sad that a company can’t accept negative PR and show them that they do indeed support their employee’s actions. I think it has more to do with how all orga

It’s sad that a company can’t accept negative PR and show them that they do indeed support their employee’s actions. I think it has more to do with how all organizations want to feel professional instead of nerdy and fun.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
I think the issue is that the joke made Microsoft look bad (like they copied another company's product). Google has a big April Fool's collection, but you can imagine their PR department probably would not let anyone's joke reference that the product would be sunset in 18 months.
- fossuser 6y ago
  Agreed, but I think your Google idea would be pretty funny. Google sunset - from now on each product will have a countdown clock on its webpage to its death which is either when the clock hits zero or the lead dev makes promo, whatever comes first. Another easy target would be the release of the 16th chat application that’s even shittier somehow.
  - yellowapple 6y ago
    > Another easy target would be the release of the 16th chat application that’s even shittier somehow. Now presenting: Google Hangups(tm)
  - dalbasal 6y ago
    Here's the problem as I see it... Tolerating or even enjoying "make fun of yourself" humour feels important to me. How much sting you can take says something, and you need to build up a tolerance. If "jokes about the boss" are always of the bootlicking variety, those are the only acceptable jokes and decent people will just avoid humour. It's a scale though. An ill advised joke can have scary consequences in China.. Poo. At the same time, crass WW2 jokes don't always go down well in Germany... and liberalism or democracy don't change this. Anyway... MSFT, Amazon & such are heading towards East India Company market caps. At this scale (and at small scale too), I think a thick skin is essential to an open culture. The concept of "corporate culture" is both bullshit and profound at the same time. OOH, it' the drab topic of dilbert land. OTOH, corporate culture is >51% of total culture. It matters whether or not corporate culture is open.
- cbozeman 6y ago
  The joke made Microsoft look bad because Microsoft was bad then, and in the years before, and in the years behind. Microsoft basically from Gates' reign was a lot of, "Copy the shit that we see others do." Ballmer at least had the audacity to attempt something original like the Xbox. Steve gets a horrendously bad rap, but if you look at Microsoft's products from the start of his time as president (1998) to CEO (2000) and until he was replaced by Satya Nadella, Ballmer was trying to provoke his people into something new. Nowadays, Microsoft is actually an innovator making some really impressive products (the entire Surface line, Azure, etc.). Gates is boring, bland, and a "genius" at realizing the future potential of technologies (Xerox's GUI, The Internet, mobile phones, tablets, etc.), but he absolutely sucks at producing something that will appeal to a consumer. I've said before that if you could combine Gates' understanding of future tech with Steve Jobs' ability to understand design and consumer desire, you'd have an unstoppable entrepreneur. The only other person out there who I think even comes close is Elon Musk.
cube00 6y ago
It's hard for any company to support the actions of their employees once they go lone wolf and depart from the approvals and procedures the company has put in place. Even Bill wasn't happy with this and more importantly when it comes to April Fool's jokes, he wasn't laughing.
- beaconstudios 6y ago
  Just shows that he has no sense of humour. Humour isn't usually funny if it isn't pointing at legitimate criticism - in this case, it was making fun of Microsoft. Inability to laugh at yourself just makes you stuck up.
- xvf22 6y ago
  > The PR flacks, on their own, tried to clean up and bury the whole thing, out of fear that BillG might get really angry about it. (He never did. Nor did Legal. In the end, it was all a huge overreaction by PR.) Not sure where you got "Even Bill wasn't happy with this"
  - cube00 6y ago
    I got it from... > BillG said, in effect, that the prank was not in good taste, and that it made Microsoft look stupid rather than clever - especially as a catch-up to Sun Microsystems. We learned he was repeatedly calling the prank “in poor judgement” in meeting and internal memos.
duxup 6y ago
I'm not sure what employee actions they're supposed to support. MS didn't get a chance to 'support' this, these guys did the thing on their own. If I'm MS I'm not sure I want to do a lot to "support" them after the fact as I really don't need groups of other employees stocking the shelves with fake products... Any prank that looks like it has someone else's name on it, or approval... but isn't approved is just always going to have a risk associated with it.
- beaconstudios 6y ago
  "we didn't do this, but we suspect it was an employee. Either way, it's pretty funny."
  - duxup 6y ago
    Agreed it is a funny line and prank.
- musingsole 6y ago
  When you're employed by a corporation, to what degree are you an individual and to what degree are you an extension of that corporation? Microsoft isn't a person or individual. For MS to support something...really means some hundreds of individuals inside MS support a thing and have coordinated to communicate that support to the other hundreds and BOOM, MS now supports a thing (or doesn't). All of this is about permissions, ownership, and labeling. I'm inclined to think the corporate world has it all wrong. MS supported this by virtue of MS employees doing it. MS was also schizophrenic about it and smited its left-hand for not properly filing a request in triplicate with the brain.
  - duxup 6y ago
    >MS supported this by virtue of MS employees doing it. Would that apply to say crimes? Should corporate then get to tell people what else they can't do since being an employee includes '<company name> support'? I think you're inadvertently wandering into some really wonky territory.
miguelmota 6y ago
I'd think the company would be concerned of these pranks defaming the company if enough employees did them.
passivate 6y ago
I think its more about how a company defines itself. I could totally see Musk encouraging an employee to troll the NYT or some other outlet on April 1st.
II2II 6y ago
April fools pranks should leave the recipient laughing at themselves for their own foolishness, otherwise it is just a mean spirited prank at the expense of someone else. Pranking a major organisation is just too hard: there are too many different people with different personalities involved.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

I think the issue is that the joke made Microsoft look bad (like they copied another company's product). Google has a big April Fool's collection, but you can imagine their PR department probably would not let anyone's joke reference that the product would be sunset in 18 months.

fossuser 6y ago
Agreed, but I think your Google idea would be pretty funny. Google sunset - from now on each product will have a countdown clock on its webpage to its death which is either when the clock hits zero or the lead dev makes promo, whatever comes first. Another easy target would be the release of the 16th chat application that’s even shittier somehow.
- yellowapple 6y ago
  > Another easy target would be the release of the 16th chat application that’s even shittier somehow. Now presenting: Google Hangups(tm)
- dalbasal 6y ago
  Here's the problem as I see it... Tolerating or even enjoying "make fun of yourself" humour feels important to me. How much sting you can take says something, and you need to build up a tolerance. If "jokes about the boss" are always of the bootlicking variety, those are the only acceptable jokes and decent people will just avoid humour. It's a scale though. An ill advised joke can have scary consequences in China.. Poo. At the same time, crass WW2 jokes don't always go down well in Germany... and liberalism or democracy don't change this. Anyway... MSFT, Amazon & such are heading towards East India Company market caps. At this scale (and at small scale too), I think a thick skin is essential to an open culture. The concept of "corporate culture" is both bullshit and profound at the same time. OOH, it' the drab topic of dilbert land. OTOH, corporate culture is >51% of total culture. It matters whether or not corporate culture is open.
cbozeman 6y ago
The joke made Microsoft look bad because Microsoft was bad then, and in the years before, and in the years behind. Microsoft basically from Gates' reign was a lot of, "Copy the shit that we see others do." Ballmer at least had the audacity to attempt something original like the Xbox. Steve gets a horrendously bad rap, but if you look at Microsoft's products from the start of his time as president (1998) to CEO (2000) and until he was replaced by Satya Nadella, Ballmer was trying to provoke his people into something new. Nowadays, Microsoft is actually an innovator making some really impressive products (the entire Surface line, Azure, etc.). Gates is boring, bland, and a "genius" at realizing the future potential of technologies (Xerox's GUI, The Internet, mobile phones, tablets, etc.), but he absolutely sucks at producing something that will appeal to a consumer. I've said before that if you could combine Gates' understanding of future tech with Steve Jobs' ability to understand design and consumer desire, you'd have an unstoppable entrepreneur. The only other person out there who I think even comes close is Elon Musk.

cube00 6y ago

It's hard for any company to support the actions of their employees once they go lone wolf and depart from the approvals and procedures the company has put in place. Even Bill wasn't happy with this and more importantly when it comes to April Fool's jokes, he wasn't laughing.

beaconstudios 6y ago
Just shows that he has no sense of humour. Humour isn't usually funny if it isn't pointing at legitimate criticism - in this case, it was making fun of Microsoft. Inability to laugh at yourself just makes you stuck up.
xvf22 6y ago
> The PR flacks, on their own, tried to clean up and bury the whole thing, out of fear that BillG might get really angry about it. (He never did. Nor did Legal. In the end, it was all a huge overreaction by PR.) Not sure where you got "Even Bill wasn't happy with this"
- cube00 6y ago
  I got it from... > BillG said, in effect, that the prank was not in good taste, and that it made Microsoft look stupid rather than clever - especially as a catch-up to Sun Microsystems. We learned he was repeatedly calling the prank “in poor judgement” in meeting and internal memos.

duxup 6y ago

I'm not sure what employee actions they're supposed to support. MS didn't get a chance to 'support' this, these guys did the thing on their own. If I'm MS I'm not sure I want to do a lot to "support" them after the fact as I really don't need groups of other employees stocking the shelves with fake products... Any prank that looks like it has someone else's name on it, or approval... but isn't approved is just always going to have a risk associated with it.

beaconstudios 6y ago
"we didn't do this, but we suspect it was an employee. Either way, it's pretty funny."
- duxup 6y ago
  Agreed it is a funny line and prank.
musingsole 6y ago
When you're employed by a corporation, to what degree are you an individual and to what degree are you an extension of that corporation? Microsoft isn't a person or individual. For MS to support something...really means some hundreds of individuals inside MS support a thing and have coordinated to communicate that support to the other hundreds and BOOM, MS now supports a thing (or doesn't). All of this is about permissions, ownership, and labeling. I'm inclined to think the corporate world has it all wrong. MS supported this by virtue of MS employees doing it. MS was also schizophrenic about it and smited its left-hand for not properly filing a request in triplicate with the brain.
- duxup 6y ago
  >MS supported this by virtue of MS employees doing it. Would that apply to say crimes? Should corporate then get to tell people what else they can't do since being an employee includes '<company name> support'? I think you're inadvertently wandering into some really wonky territory.

miguelmota 6y ago

I'd think the company would be concerned of these pranks defaming the company if enough employees did them.

passivate 6y ago

I think its more about how a company defines itself. I could totally see Musk encouraging an employee to troll the NYT or some other outlet on April 1st.

II2II 6y ago

April fools pranks should leave the recipient laughing at themselves for their own foolishness, otherwise it is just a mean spirited prank at the expense of someone else. Pranking a major organisation is just too hard: there are too many different people with different personalities involved.