HP to cut 25-30k jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#261

Post by Domenic_S » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #163

test001only wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry if this question comes of as naive. Is the medical cost so high that it can only be covered with an insurance? Would a small amount of savings set aside for this purpose be viable in case somebody loses their medical insurance? Also would you not be able to take your own medical insurance which is independent of the company you work for? I am just trying to understand how the medical system there works. I…

Yes, even minor* medical issues can run into six-figures. I developed a non-critical arrhythmia last year, medication didn't fully control it, so I opted for catheter ablation. The procedure itself, plus the related office appointments and tests, was around $50,000 (after insurance discounts). That included separate bills from the surgery center, the hospital (I was admitted overnight), the cardiologist, and the anes…

I'd call "minor" something like wart removal or an ear infection, not heart surgery.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#262

Post by mahyarm » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:28 PM UTC

FilterSweep wrote: post #205

mahyarm wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You work remotely, life is pretty low stress. Live in a cheap cost of living place, take care of the kids while the spouse is out working on their other job. Never get a raise in 6 years. That is why they phone it in.

I find it hard to believe a matured company, rife with middle management, wouldn't have held those people "mailing it in," so to speak, accountable years ago . Whether they work onsite or remotely, some work is turned in. A handful may fall through the cracks, but it's just that, a handful. Not 30,000, even in a company much bigger.

You find out that large companies start reflecting some of the 'evils of government' eventually. I've realized it comes more from large bureaucracies than something fundamental to government.

These people who phone it in still do their jobs, but they aren't hard workers, they are not active in the technical environment so much. They're static workers, working on projects that might be not so necessary any more, but ignored by the business because it's part of a profitable unit. Such as printers and so on.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#263

Post by kaffeemitsahne » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:30 PM UTC

mercer wrote: post #148

yummyfajitas wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And let's suppose for a second that HP is somehow right. How did they just notice that 10% of their employees are doing something totally worthless? The keyword to search for in the economic literature is "labor hoarding". In short, companies tend to (by default) keep employees until well after they are no longer useful. Then some sort of a shock causes the company to shed the deadwood all at once. This is management…

Could you argue that in a broader sense this exact same thing happens not just on the company level, but on the level of entire economies? I recall reading a few articles on how recessions/depressions often have a way of shaking up industries to align (or rather, catch up) with new innovations/developments.

It's like a spring/mass dragging across a rough surface: it stays behind until the tension gets too much, and then skips forward. You can find this effect in a lot of places.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#264

Post by bcbrown » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:34 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #218

wsxcde wrote: post #37

What do you all think a company like HP should do when they (finally) realize that they're overstaffed by a big number like 20%, 30% or 50%? One thing I realized working for a huge company and comparing that with my time at their much smaller competitor was that organizations in huge companies become hyperspecialized. This is great during the good times, because everyone is able to squeeze out that last 5% of perform…

> What do you all think a company like HP should do when they (finally) realize that they're overstaffed by a big number like 20%, 30% or 50%? Fire the person(s) responsible for letting things get that bad.

That's a punishment, not a solution. Then what?

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#265

Post by godgod » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:36 PM UTC

This is a good thing for the survival of the company. I worked at HP and let me tell you, from what I saw, HP was the most bloated company I have ever seen. The horrible work ethic by the full time employees wasn't the exception but more the rule. I saw jsut about every employee take half day lunch breaks, and they'd hire contractors to do their work. I found it so disgusting that I exited the company. The full time employees I saw did NOTHING all day. They were basically all 25 year career employees that sat around doing NO actual work and they could get away with it because their manager and their managers manager was doing the same thing. HP is a horribly run company. Just about everyone there at least in the division I worked at was dead weight just showing up to collect a huge paycheck.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#266

Post by dovereconomics » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:53 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #242

dovereconomics wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cronyism, referring to a system where incompetent agents are given special favors, doesn't survive in the free market - merciless competition destroys any underperfoming organization. Cronyism only exists when competition doesn't work by means of a government. Get some politicians, create regulations, build a monopoly. No matter how uncompetitive it is, you're still a billionaire.

> Cronyism, referring to a system where incompetent agents are given special favors, doesn't survive in the free market The "free market" in which that is a defensible claim is a counterfactual construct that is sometimes useful as a simplified analytic model, but fundamentally incompatible with the behavior of real human beings and conditions in the real world. > merciless competition destroys any underperfoming org…

>government structures the economic regime to favor the interest

That's it. If there's central planning(no matter to whom) it's socialism. And, regarding 'lock-in advantages', without a government-backed credit expansion, it'd be really difficult for companies to get as much market cap.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#267

Post by x0x0 » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:55 PM UTC

evilDagmar wrote: post #155

mapt wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but if that happens, thanks to the other half of Obamacare (the Medicaid expansion), if income goes to zero / povertylevel for any adult (no longer merely special classes of disabled or child-raising adult), then healthcare becomes free. People with big enough health problems that the heavily subsidized Silver market category is insufficient, but who have only a middle class income, do get stung in this system;…

From what I can tell it doesn't do this until you've been unemployed long enough to file a return with zero income.

No, you can call obamacare (not the insurer), explain the loss of income, and ask for the credit. You'll get it, obviously with penalties if you lied.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#268

Post by paulmd » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:56 PM UTC

joshmn wrote: post #30

jfoutz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your dad needs to think about the next best 5 guys, and how to pick them up for cheap when the layoffs happen. At his age striking out on his own will seem absolutely terrifying. Work on him for a few months. He must have built up some serious contacts over the years. His pitch is straightforward. HP can't actually support their products anymore, they don't have the staff. He knows the hardware inside and out. Sell s…

This sounds like a great idea, but I don't know if he's such an entrepreneur or risk-taker. Some people are, some people aren't. It's a natural thing. I'm not sure of the papers he's signed (non-competes...), or the contracts that HP has with their customers (there must be some), but... he could definitely "get the band together" and pull off such a feat. Again, I think this goes back to the contracts he had. He's on…

Small world - my dad's another one of those 4 HP-ES folks left from the blue days. I agree with the advice here and I've forwarded him a link to the comments (hi dad!).

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#269

Post by scholia » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 6:01 PM UTC

seunosewa wrote: post #74

stevewepay wrote: post #43

The sad part is that it's Carly Fiorina's fault for turning HP into the mess it was. And now she touts that as the reason why she should be president. It's a sick joke that she thinks gutting one of Silicon Valley's preeminent companies makes her worthy of being president. HP was the first company to pioneer Silicon Valley culture, ie. The HP Way. It was only after Fiorina's tenure that HP turned into a shadow of its…

What precisely did Carly Fiorina do weong, and what precisely should she have done instead?

Spending $25 billion on a PC company was a pretty dumb idea. Spending $25 billion on Compaq, which had spent almost $10 billion on DEC, was even dumber: either it duplicated the existing business (PCs) or complicated the existing business (severs) by adding duplicate products.

Trying to buy PriceWaterhouseCooper for $14 billion might have been a good move but it was a dumb price. IBM later bought it for $4 billion.

I did go and see her talk at Comdex. She was remarkably clueless about technology.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#270

Post by x0x0 » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 6:02 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #185

x0x0 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CA/usa, broken ankle, two surgeries: $110k in billings. All told, probably 10-12 doctor-hours. Insurance, beyond insuring you, does something perhaps more important: they negotiate massive discounts with all medical practices/hospitals/etc. My insurer negotiated that to something reasonable (approx $35k, though memory fails me); I could even afford that if I needed to. Crucially (and I understand this is fucking stup…

"uninsured people pay way more" A minor but important correction is they are billed way more, not necessarily pay way more. For example I dated a girl who just out of high school with no insurance had a really badly broken arm (car accident IIRC) and the hospital "charged" her, in total, $100K+ as an imaginary amount, complained at her for awhile, and then they wrote her off after some token payment (more than they w…

Your main point is not true.

First: hospitals are required by law to stabilize you regardless of your ability to pay. Stabilize. They are not required to treat you beyond getting you to the point you won't die on your way out of the ER.

Second: many of the better medical practices, UCSF Ortho for example, will not treat you if you don't have insurance.

Third: bankruptcy is not quite as straightforward as you make it sound, and if you have any assets, you may well lose them. You can have $10 or $20k and still find a $100k surgery very expensive. For example, in CA, you can only protect $3k or $5k, depending, of value in your car during bankruptcy. And there isn't a $3k or $5k car in the US worth a damn.