Microsoft’s flagship services, Outlook and Teams, faced a crippling outage on Monday, impacting office workers globally. The tech giant identified the problem earlier but has struggled to fully resolve the issue.

As of midday, outage-tracking site Downdetector logged over 5,000 complaints, underscoring the frustration of users worldwide. Microsoft confirmed via X that it had begun deploying a fix but admitted outlook and teams recovery is slower than anticipated.

“We’ve started manual restarts on unhealthy machines,” Microsoft stated. By noon, the company claimed its fixes had reached 98% of affected environments. However, reports on Downdetector continued to climb, highlighting delays in customer system updates.

Progress remains slower than expected

The company acknowledged the issue’s persistence, saying, “Progress remains slower than expected for most users.” At 2 p.m., Microsoft had yet to provide an estimated resolution time, leaving millions wondering when normal operations would resume.

For some U.S. users, the outage offered a silver lining: an unexpected break from work just days before Thanksgiving. “Honestly, I’m enjoying the pause,” one user quipped on X. However, many others criticized the disruption to productivity during a critical business period.

Tech outages have become alarmingly frequent this year, often wreaking havoc across industries. Though Microsoft’s outage hasn’t reached the scale of CrowdStrike’s infamous summer meltdown—which cost businesses billions—it underscores the vulnerabilities of cloud-based operations.

While experts caution patience during such large-scale disruptions, workers across industries are growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of robust preventative measures.

For now, the countdown continues as users await Microsoft’s full recovery. Businesses and employees alike wonder: How can the tech world prevent outages like this from paralyzing their workflows in the future?