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IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

theregister.com

61–70 of 504 posts

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#61
post #55

I am curious if anyone can find the text for "IBM's Policy Letter #4" written by IBM's chairman in 1953, which is referenced in this article. I did some searching but all the links I found to the full text were broken. I ask because I think it shows what a Rorschach test the arguments over DEI have become. I at least found one quote from the Policy Letter #4 which stated "It is the policy of this organization to hire…

Merit seems to be highly subjective given that the people in current US administration are all hired based on merit.

...damn, that's a legitimately sick burn that's also a prime example of why "Meritocracies" are a bad thing on their face. "Whose merit? What is merit? Why is X merit but not Y? How come person A's merit is worth less than person B's?"

Your response was beautifully eloquent.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#62
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that would be constructive dismissal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal

> The burden of proof in constructive dismissal cases lies with the employee. The only practical way is if somehow an executive breaks ranks and exposes some list or email or private conversation where he they were planning this. A harder way is some coordinating action from employees. All get together to figure out the patterns.

Juries are allowed to infer intent. They do not need an explicit statement admitting it.

To be honest, I find it very weird that you quoted that part and had the response you did as if you knew what you were talking about. By your logic, intent would essentially be impossible to prove in just about any circumstance. Obviously, that's not true. In reality, there's tons of caselaw about when intent can be inferred by a jury for any claim requiring intent.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#63

I'm super skeptical of this article, particularly the inclusion of the phrase "DEI purge", which I cannot find attributed to a single quote in the article. There's a memo from CHRO Nickle LaMoreaux that is quoted from, but not linked to, and the memo itself seems like a pretty anodyne statement that doesn't allude to any "DEI purge" or even DEI related firings, even if it is hypocritical[1]. 1: https://www.linkedin.c…

[deleted]

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#64

> On Tuesday, Big Blue shared new rules on where it expects its US sales staff to work: At least three days a week at a client, a flagship office, or a sales hub. > And the mainframe giant last week told all US Cloud employees, sales or otherwise, to return to the office at least three days per week at designated "strategic" locations. Yep. It's a de facto layoff. Smart of them to add the DEI statement - as we can se…

Note that a lot of”IBM’s” cloud employees are actually at Red Hat, which I’m guessing though I don’t actually know, are not affected by this assuming it’s true.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#65
post #49

As a European who used to go "fuck yeah Intel!" "fuck yeah Boeing!" "fuck yeah IBM!" etc... it seems like US companies are going down the drain real fast. I blame bad management, lack of innovation, poor quality control and of course, general greed... In this case it is bad management hiding behind RTO/DEI excuses. WFH works for many and especially on "cloud" stuff I do not see the point of having people systematical…

[dead]

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#66

The general reasoning given by a lot of these companies is that WFH did not work. Same companies were telling is how well it worked and they had the numbers to back it up. I think they are looking for scapegoats for some cost cutting. Officially force people back and hopefully some will quit. In practice, many will continue to operate as before.

Having worked at a fully remote company before (and during) COVID, I'm surprised so many companies have stuck with it for so long.

IME, remote work works best when everybody in the company buys into it and there's an effort to make it run smoothly. Conversations in chat, always online meetings, etc.

Considering most companies were forced into remote work by a pandemic with no planning or anything, it's surprising it's gone as well as it has, but it's also not surprising it's gone badly for a lot of companies.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#67

I'm super skeptical of this article, particularly the inclusion of the phrase "DEI purge", which I cannot find attributed to a single quote in the article. There's a memo from CHRO Nickle LaMoreaux that is quoted from, but not linked to, and the memo itself seems like a pretty anodyne statement that doesn't allude to any "DEI purge" or even DEI related firings, even if it is hypocritical[1]. 1: https://www.linkedin.c…

There's a whole section of the article titled "DEI'ing inside" where they explain some tactics that fit the bill. Of course nobody said the phrase "DEI purge", that's the author summarizing it for a headline. I'm not really taking a stand on whether it's accurate or click/rage-bait, just saying this is standard writing style to summarize things into themes and it appears they have the content to back it up in the article, it shouldn't need to be a direct quote.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#68
post #55

I am curious if anyone can find the text for "IBM's Policy Letter #4" written by IBM's chairman in 1953, which is referenced in this article. I did some searching but all the links I found to the full text were broken. I ask because I think it shows what a Rorschach test the arguments over DEI have become. I at least found one quote from the Policy Letter #4 which stated "It is the policy of this organization to hire…

Merit seems to be highly subjective given that the people in current US administration are all hired based on merit.

[deleted]

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#69

I am curious if anyone can find the text for "IBM's Policy Letter #4" written by IBM's chairman in 1953, which is referenced in this article. I did some searching but all the links I found to the full text were broken. I ask because I think it shows what a Rorschach test the arguments over DEI have become. I at least found one quote from the Policy Letter #4 which stated "It is the policy of this organization to hire…

I've observed the people who are very anti-DEI will change their talking points when they are competing with Asians and Indians.

Suddenly they start espousing DEI principles and emphasize how it's important to find a more "well rounded" individual.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#70

Sounds like IBM is going to have a bad year. I should probably dump that stock.

They're pretty cozy with Uncle Sam, take that for what you will...

Except the US government has been canceling contracts left and right.
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