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

theregister.com

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

#191

Post by nunez »

js2 wrote: post #117
repiret wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Veering off topic, but this letter is in a variable width font. Were there typewriters that could do that? Was this so widely distributed that it was typeset on a printing press? The letterhead and body text aren’t aligned, so if it did go through a press it took two passes. The signature is also in ink, so that’s either a third pass for color, or an actual signature, and the letter doesn’t have the notation to indic…

Looks like it was written on an IBM Executive Model A: https://old.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/178vjlf/sample... There were variable-width font typewriters starting in 1930: https://old.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/3ltlgn/have_va... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vari-Typer

That is a REALLY nice typewriter; wow.

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

#192

Post by bluedino »

xyst wrote: post #41

Surprising that IBM still generates _new_ sales and has a dedicated sales workforce. Must be hard to generate new sales for their deadass mainframe tech.

We're still buying tons of things from IBM. Storage, Linux, automation, data analytics...

Part of it is the old guard saying "Let's see what IBM has" when we're looking for solutions, but they do provide a pretty large group of established products. They're already in, as well.

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

#193

Post by nunez »

nelblu wrote: post #156
givemeethekeys wrote: post #4

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.

> Same companies were telling is how well it worked and they had the numbers to back it up. I took a new job in 2022, at that time everyone was still working from home. My boss, who was a VP at that time, said isn't this amazing? We save on fuel, time, spend more time at home etc. Productivity has been amazing and all. Two years later in early 2024 when they started pushing RTO, same guy repeats the standard bullshit…

It's likely that both can be true: he meant what he said in 2022 but _had_ to mean what he said in 2024.

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

#195

Post by rayiner »

archagon wrote: post #187
rayiner wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why are you always all over these DEI threads?

Because I view DEI and ethnic identity as a personal threat to my mixed kids. Followed closely by the fact that i’m from a third world country, and I know that promoting ethnic identity invariably corrodes and destroys a society. It wrecks every facet of society and governance. Every issue becomes overtaken by ethnic scorekeeping and jockeying. Democracy itself disappears, replaced with ethnic machine politics.

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

#196

Post by Timon3 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #186
Timon3 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, being good at passing tests doesn't mean one will be good at other things, in much the same way that one can be good at Leetcode problems but not good at building and maintaining large scale software systems in a large corporate environment. Still, it remains a 'credible' example of 'how to do meritocracy right', [...] It's important not to forget Goodhart's law in this context: "When a measure becomes a…

This is presented as an argument against objective metrics, but a) the alternative is subjective metrics, which is even worse, b) "disparate impact" is just another metric subject to Goodhart's law, and c) resources aren't the only thing that determines test scores. If you're poor but determined, you can't afford a high cost test prep course, but you can go to the library. The rich kid has their private tutor come to…

> This is presented as an argument against objective metrics

No, it's not. It's presented as an argument that measuring objective metrics doesn't mean you're measuring merit.

> If you're poor but determined, you can't afford a high cost test prep course, but you can go to the library.

The library most likely doesn't have the same specialized learning materials that rich kids can afford, so this doesn't mean the poor kid has equal opportunity.

> The rich kid has their private tutor come to their house and then saves time that allowed them to be chauffeured to tennis lessons. The poor kid has to take the bus to the library and spend twice as long with the study books and then doesn't get any tennis lessons, but it's possible for someone to do that if they actually care about it.

You're presenting this like it's purely an issue of free time, which is obviously not the case. The poor kid possibly can't reach the library without their guardian, who may or may not have time to drive them there. The poor kid possibly doesn't have anyone to teach them using the learning material there, while the rich kid likely has either their guardians or even specialized tutors for this purpose.

Your comment is a wonderful example of how people arguing for meritocracy can ignore reality - the bare minimum is supposed to be enough for the disadvantaged, even though there's a massive difference in effectiveness.

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

#197

Post by croes »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #186
Timon3 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, being good at passing tests doesn't mean one will be good at other things, in much the same way that one can be good at Leetcode problems but not good at building and maintaining large scale software systems in a large corporate environment. Still, it remains a 'credible' example of 'how to do meritocracy right', [...] It's important not to forget Goodhart's law in this context: "When a measure becomes a…

This is presented as an argument against objective metrics, but a) the alternative is subjective metrics, which is even worse, b) "disparate impact" is just another metric subject to Goodhart's law, and c) resources aren't the only thing that determines test scores. If you're poor but determined, you can't afford a high cost test prep course, but you can go to the library. The rich kid has their private tutor come to…

That would need some inclusion laws that enforce preferred hires from lower financial backgrounds instead of better prepared candidates with more resources.

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

#198

Post by dudeinhawaii »

Large corporations aren't demonstrably harmed by DEI initiatives, yet all hiring processes should be merit-based. Encouraging more women in engineering is a reasonable goal, but lowering qualification standards would be problematic. Throughout my career, I've never observed standards being lowered for diversity candidates—though I've witnessed DEI being wrongly blamed when underperformers are terminated.

What I have consistently seen is hiring standards fluctuating based on company performance: loosening when profits are high, tightening when they're not. The most pervasive bias in hiring isn't DEI-related but rather social network preference, where managers favor friends, neighbors, or people similar to themselves regardless of qualifications. This mirrors the "backdoor" admissions seen at elite universities and extends to government appointments, where connections often appear to outweigh merit...

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

#199

Post by ramesh31 »

pitaj wrote: post #45
ramesh31 wrote: post #28

>"DEI Purge" What in the actual fuck is that supposed to mean? Firing black people to make the president happy? As if there were any meaningful amount of "DEI" to "purge" from the tech industry in the first place. Absolutely disgusting.

It typically just means gutting DEI programs, not firing people hired because of them.

>It typically just means gutting DEI programs, not firing people hired because of them.

And who do you think is running those programs?

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

#200

Post by mdhb »

rayiner wrote: post #195
archagon wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you always all over these DEI threads?

Because I view DEI and ethnic identity as a personal threat to my mixed kids. Followed closely by the fact that i’m from a third world country, and I know that promoting ethnic identity invariably corrodes and destroys a society. It wrecks every facet of society and governance. Every issue becomes overtaken by ethnic scorekeeping and jockeying. Democracy itself disappears, replaced with ethnic machine politics.

I
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