Silence is not golden when you’re waiting for a response from your Microsoft contact.

Silence is unnerving – you expect to hear back from your Microsoft contact about your latest question or request, but instead you get silence. Did you do something wrong, ask a forbidden question, or somehow upset your contact?

You’ve encountered an odd bit of MS culture. Microsofties don’t want to say “no”, or admit they cannot help you with your request; instead you get radio silence.

It isn’t actually because the person you’ve contacted “can’t be bothered” – it’s because they know they are not the expert or authority on that specific topic, so they cannot say “yes”.

Somewhere within MS there is an expert or authority who might still say “yes” (if you ever reach them), so the person you’ve contacted also cannot tell you “no”.

Nor can they afford to spend the time to track down the expert (see Stack Ranking Hurts Partners Too).

They can’t say “yes” and they can’t say “no” – with no constructive response possible, Microsofties go radio silent.

Within MS, this response is viewed as a positive, almost helpful in fact. If a Microsoftie tells you “no”, you would likely interpret that as definitive and final, and you might give up and move on. But until the expert or authority has weighed in, “yes” may still be possible.

Radio silence keeps hope alive, which is a good thing, right? But when it’s your request that’s in limbo and you’re awaiting a response, silence definitely is not golden.

To get things moving, see Finding The Right Person.