It is bad enough that you got laid off by Microsoft because of the recent belt tightening. And although you were lucky enough to get at least some severance pay, you may now receive a letter claiming that you have, in fact, been "overpaid" and Microsoft is requesting that you return the overpayment right away. Talk about not getting a break!

Apparently, a good number of laid off Microsoft employees are in this boat, and have received letters that stopped just short of "demanding" immediate repayment of the overpayment. While no one is saying how many ex-employees have received this letter, we do know that it was not an isolated situation. What might be worse about this entire mess are the rumors that some employees might have, in fact, been underpaid due to this error.

With the entire situation being a hot mess, it seems that Microsoft has not even provided any specific details on what has happened beyond suggesting that affected employees contact Microsoft HR if they want to know more. We suspect that this will not be the last that we are going to hear of this.