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IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe as 'slaughter' and 'massive'

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Re: IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe as 'slaughter' and 'massive'

#111

Post by a3n »

crusso wrote: post #73
a3n wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They gave the most critical projects to this guy. He worked hellish hours to get a severely important project done, ... When he came back, he got his 2 weeks pay per year worked. And thus was the lesson learned by one more person. We are all, each and every one of us, hardware to be virtualized and eliminated as soon as possible. We are all, each and every one of us, an expense to be minimized. You may get along gr…

... because an anecdote about someone good being let go is data showing that that's the way it normally happens. ... because the person who was let go and who worked very hard didn't learn anything, didn't improve his ability, couldn't take the tremendous experience he had gained and apply it in a new job or gasp start his own enterprise. No, this isn't an anecdote that should serve as a red flag signalling IBM's con…

Sorry, I'm confused.

Are you plainly asserting that "this isn't an anecdote," and pairing that with a sarcastic statement that "this is an object lesson", meaning that it's not an object lesson, to reinforce your assertion that it isn't an anecdote?

Or are you plainly asserting that "this is an object lesson," and pairing that with a sarcastic statement that "this isn't an anecdote," meaning that is is an anecdote, to reinforce your assertion that this is an object lesson?

Or something else?

Re: IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe as 'slaughter' and 'massive'

#112

Post by iends »

dfc wrote: post #103
iends wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not actually true. The unofficial IBM union ( http://www.endicottalliance.org/ ) estimates there to be ~66,000 FTE in the USA.

What is "not actually true"? OP's comment was not "there are no estimates that there are 66,000 FTE US IBMers."

"...only the research arm and a relatively small consulting staff and management remains US employees."

There are hardware and software engineers throughout the USA. I also wouldn't call 66,000 people relatively small.

Re: IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe as 'slaughter' and 'massive'

#113

Post by mathattack »

smackfu wrote: post #86
mathattack wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IBM has come a long way from "Employment for Life" which was one policy that almost killed it. A couple things jump out on this article: 1 - One analyst has estimated that IBM will cut 13,000 of its more than 434,000 workers, based on the amount of money set aside for the rebalancing This is actually very few. Cutting 3% is hardly a rebalancing. Many companies cut double that every year as part of annual performance…

>Cutting 3% is hardly a rebalancing. Many companies cut double that every year as part of annual performance management. Depends on whether there is a hiring freeze or not.

True. Though I find corporate hiring freezes to be a reaction to organizational disfunction. If you starve your growing areas because you haven't found a way to keep your stagnant divisions from increasing headcount, then you have bigger problems. Apple used to be guilty of this. They would do hiring freezes, then when they'd lift them, managers would hire everyone in sight. There was no concept of internal transfers because you could never get a backfill. Terrible way to run a business.

Re: IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe as 'slaughter' and 'massive'

#114

Post by mrjatx »

crag wrote: post #94
pekru wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Cloud is not the silver bullet. But at the same time, there is not much merit in choosing to be a luddite and not use the capabilities of cloud where there's a genuine need. I feel IBM, to an extent is guilty of not pursuing things on the cloud front and is now paying for it.

"Cloud is not the silver bullet." You can say that again. And it depends on where you are. In South Florida the cloud - well - sucks. Due to the carriers not being able to keep their networks up. I know companies who moved their PBX into the cloud (I'm going to name carriers) with Earthlink, Windstream, Comcast and ATT - misdirected, noisy (like talking in a wind tunnel), dropped calls; all classic signs of over exte…

You're using a very, very basic definition of cloud- one that really shouldn't exist anymore.

You're talking about moving a physical service into a hosted service; IAAS/SAAS. We're talking about actually developing and coding the IAAS/SAAS solutions to be cloud ready and performant. This infers automation, utilizing version control systems, scaling, stateless servers etc.

What those companies did was move their servers onto the web. It's like me telling you that I'm moving my wordpress blog from my desktop to linode. Just because I'm using linode does not mean I'm utilizing the infrastructure in any sort of "cloud" manner. If the server goes down and I've not designed my stack to be resilient I'm not "cloud." We expected IBM to be designing underlying cloud infrastructure years ago. Instead they bought Softlayer. I'm not sure if they've even done anything remotely interesting since that.

Next year they'll probably start trying to massively hire Openstack developers just like Cisco/etc are doing now (also late to the party).

Semantics, but vastly different.

Re: IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe as 'slaughter' and 'massive'

#115

Post by boobsbr »

deepuj wrote: post #105
TsomArp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, I completely agree with you, and more specifically on the part about IBM going so low on the hiring process as to hire people that can not do their jobs. I would add that to add insult to injury, their level of english is terrible, to the point where many times you can not even understand what they are trying to say. This for both, India and China workers. Again, like you say, it is probably not the India and…

You are right, IBM Domino is much more than a mail server. It along with Notes is the single biggest cause of loss of productivity for offices infected by it.

Notes is a terrible piece of software. So outdated, slow, with a horrible UI and UX.

And Sametime is not lagging too much behind.

Re: IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe as 'slaughter' and 'massive'

#116

Post by JoeAltmaier »

mathattack wrote: post #113
smackfu wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Cutting 3% is hardly a rebalancing. Many companies cut double that every year as part of annual performance management. Depends on whether there is a hiring freeze or not.

True. Though I find corporate hiring freezes to be a reaction to organizational disfunction. If you starve your growing areas because you haven't found a way to keep your stagnant divisions from increasing headcount, then you have bigger problems. Apple used to be guilty of this. They would do hiring freezes, then when they'd lift them, managers would hire everyone in sight. There was no concept of internal transfers…

Agreed! Iowa's genius governor did a hiring freeze for the state universities. Which mean researchers could not spend their grants in Iowa; they fled. Brilliant move.

Re: IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe as 'slaughter' and 'massive'

#117

Post by tokoz »

PakG1 wrote: post #46

I have perhaps a unique perspective on this, as I was part of IBM in Asia and left in November 2013. I witnessed the 2013 layoff action and witnessed many good people in Australia and Singapore laid off in the name of cost-cutting. It is mentioned in the article that for this 2014 round, people with even PBC 1 and 2 were fired, which would have been the top performing people on their teams. I worked as a project mana…

i am indian and let me tell you, being indian is actually a great thing. we have beautiful people and we have ugly people. just like any race. I for 1 am a great person, have great friends, and i take care of every one that is in my life and i am glad to do it, and for that i have people that love me around me. also, indian parents are one of the best parents you can have. sometimes they can be really strict, but they will take care of you no matter what, and they will buy you what ever it is that you need. as long as your not a selfish head. Also, we all have great jobs, lots of money and a family that we all love and take care off. you are a disgrace op.

Re: IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe as 'slaughter' and 'massive'

#118

Post by iends »

ninv wrote: post #90
gaspropelled wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IBM has around 120,000 employees in India, around 90,000 in the US and around 20,000 in the UK. Around 35 billion dollars of IBM's revenue ( ie: around 35% )comes from IBM India.

If they cutting in low cost centers, then you can imagine, how bad the things are.

I'm not so sure. IBM seems to hire really cheap developers in India, so it could be they've realized they need to hire better engineers in the first place.

Re: IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe as 'slaughter' and 'massive'

#119

Post by dfc »

iends wrote: post #112
dfc wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "not actually true"? OP's comment was not "there are no estimates that there are 66,000 FTE US IBMers."

"...only the research arm and a relatively small consulting staff and management remains US employees." There are hardware and software engineers throughout the USA. I also wouldn't call 66,000 people relatively small.

Before replying I looked at your profile and read some of your previous posts. It is clear that you are somehow knowledgable on all things blue. This may be just due to your geography or because of more concrete connections. Whatever the case 66,000 is relatively small to the IBM of yester-day/year/decade. I was an IBMer in the 00s and 66,000 is smaller than it used to be. Moreover it is a lot smaller than how people remember the mighty Big Blue. I can not imagine any IBMer saying that number was not relatively small unless they had just finished on-boarding.

Do you know what percentage of these HW/SW engineers are in research? (i have no idea)

Re: IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe as 'slaughter' and 'massive'

#120

Post by KeepTalking »

ck2 wrote: post #78
dominotw wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel a sense of justice now?

No it is never a good thing when corporations discard people, anywhere. It is like they are throwing out an old sponge they have squeezed every drop out of.

Respect
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