Microsoft to employees: ‘We plan to right-size our manufacturing operations’

The tech giant has announced plans to lay off 18,000 employees. One memo announcing those layoffs was full of business-speak.

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We plan that this would result in an estimated reduction of 12,500 factory direct and professional employees over the next year. These decisions are difficult for the team, and we plan to support departing team members with severance benefits.

New York magazine tore the memo to shreds in a blog post, noting that there isn’t anything in the memo thanking employees for their service. Elop’s “Hello there” was a particular point of contention for lots of Twitter observers:

#Elop begins memo telling 13,000 people they’ve lost their jobs with ‘Hello there’. You couldn’t make it up #nokia http://t.co/Z0qyZybl5o

— Najeeb Khan (@najeebster) July 17, 2014

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