Insanity

The past couple of months since I took on my new HR Business Partner role in MGS have been a perfect storm of activity. Needless to say, it's completely derailed (again) my efforts to post regularly -- even short posts. Part of it is that, when I get absorbed in something, I kind of tune out everything else, which means that I don't even think about posting. (Terrible, I know.)

Anyway - It's been particularly crazy the last week, as we were preparing to announce to our employees in the Ensemble studio in Dallas that we're going to close the studio in the next few months. It's never easy news to deliver, but I think most people are going to land either in another role at Microsoft or else in a new company being formed by the leaders of the studio. The rest will receive what to me seems like a really great severance package. Of course, I can't discuss the details of that here, but it feels good that Microsoft is willing to take care of its people in this way, when we're making them go through such an uncomfortable experience...

On the bright side, I'll be traveling down to Dallas for a few days next week to meet with the employees individually and outline their severance packages. And, while the work itself doesn't sound terribly fun, I'm excited to see Greg Hanson -- my best friend and best man at my wedding, whom I haven't seen in years. Greg and fam live outside of Ft. Worth, and they've invited me for dinner Sunday evening. Hopefully, we can take some photos and post them after the visit!