Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S. • Hacker News Board

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#371

Post by mcguire » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 5:45 PM UTC

marktangotango wrote: post #366

mcguire wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at IBM in the '90s and again in the early 2000s. (Yeah, I'm not bright.) I worked on three major projects (i.e. things that had newspaper articles at the time and Wikipedia entries today) and relatively minor one (cough, cough, AACS). None of the projects shipped. One had hard technical problems, but those paled in comparison to the management problems. In the final case, the entire division disappeared in t…

Honest question, why do you feel you are unable to talk freely about what you worked on? It seems odd to me that 10/15 years later one would not talk openly about past projects. Certainly any NDA's have long since expired?

I feel perfectly free to talk about anything I've worked on. I doubt anyone is particularly interested, though. Heck, it bores me.

In roughly 2005, shortly after I finished my Ph.D. and while I was busy not finding a research job, I went to work at IBM as a contractor. The project I was working on, xCP, was a peer-to-peer distributed system for securely sharing digital media, i.e. between various devices in a user's home or car. It used a technique called broadcast encryption, much of which IP is owned by IBM (Jeff Lotspiech worked for IBM[1]).

I wrote the C version of the prototype distributed system including translating (and fixing) the (horribly, horribly broken) Java reference implementation of the broadcast encryption library.

Shortly afterwards, the project was cancelled and IBM's Pervasive Computing division (not Pervasive Computing the company) disappeared like a puff of smoke.

Then I remembered why I didn't want to work for IBM again.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Access_Content_System

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#372

Post by mathattack » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 5:59 PM UTC

ransom1538 wrote: post #219

dredmorbius wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among other factors mentioned: employer-specific skillsets. Technology jobs are very highly specialised. And I'm not just speaking of computer tech. I'm old enough to have seen several generations of obsoleted "gold tickets". Nuclear Engineering, future destroyed March 28, 1979. Freeway engineers, the freeway protests of the 1960s/1970s. Big Three auto manufacturers, dream destroyed with the first oil embargo, and su…

Regarding skill sets. I have only been in software 12 years or so, but I noticed a type of tech 'gamble'. Basically, when you decided to learn something in tech you are basically gambling that the tech will last. In 2007 many faced a simple decision: AS3 or iOS. Supposed you chose AS3. Then, worked on it from 2009-2012, quite profitably. Currently the AS3 job outlook is horrific, and all that knowledge is a waste. No…

In up markets it's easy to say, "I'm a mobile developer" but in a down market, only iOS will do. You're right there are gambles.

I see 4 ways to mitigate this:

1 - Live somewhere that has many companies or be prepared to move.

2 - Keep in contact periodically with everyone who respects your work. (Don't make the "Hey it's been 5 years" call one where you're asking for a favor)

3 - Always keep learning.

4 - Communicate in your customer's language. If you are strictly an ActionScript expert, you are very narrowly pegged if you haven't learned iOS on the side. But if the buyers of technology view you as "A mobile expert who makes brands come alive across many devices" then you can survive technology switches.

4.5 - Help others before you need help.

In the grand scheme it's still better to be a laid off technology worker than a laid off steelworker. I still feel their pain though - it sucks to lose your job, especially if family is involved.

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#373

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 6:01 PM UTC

acheron wrote: post #355

ryandrake wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your advice is not generalizable to "tech workers" in general, whose salary ranges, cost of living, family situations, etc. are all over the map. Come out to San Francisco and try to support a family of five on a $90K tech salary. Congratulations if your particular situation allows you to save for unforeseen events in the future, though.

Living in a high cost of living area is voluntary consumption just like leasing new cars every year.

[deleted]

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#374

Post by ethbro » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 6:11 PM UTC

dkrich wrote: post #353

finstell wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economic downturn happens every now and again. That's expected. You cannot change it. What a software engineer should have done was to be prepared for it. I don't see any valid reasons for him to end up in a supermarket job. 2000s crisis lasted a couple of years at the most. He should have had the means to survive comfortably the temporary time period when he was without an income. The lesson is: Be prepared as if yo…

I don't see any valid reasons for him to end up in a supermarket job. Generalize much? You know based on the fact that he "worked in software" that that he had no valid reason to need a "supermarket job"? I hope no awful life event happens to you, but when things are going great, it's easy to say others shouldn't be struggling. Then something happens. Maybe you get sick. Or a close relative needs financial assistance…

I agree, especially with regards to medical situations.

If I didn't have health insurance and had a major medical problem -- first thing I'd do would be to arrange a plane ticket to a medical tourist country. Extended diagnostics + care + treatment (especially without managed insurance prices) in thr US is ridiculously expensive.

And honestly? I'd be willing to go from 98 percentile to 9X percentile care to trim that.

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#375

Post by ambrice » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 6:21 PM UTC

theklub wrote: post #363

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You turned this into an H1Bs thing a heartbeat... And this in a country built by and welcoming towards immigrants. Shouldn't we be discussing how to make the industry and the life of H1Bs better?

How about first improving the life of our citizens?

Why is the life of our citizens more important than the life of an immigrant? How about whoever can do the job better and more efficiently?

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#376

Post by taylodl » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 6:25 PM UTC

im_down_w_otp wrote: post #358

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids are hardly mobile. Remember that they're kids and may not be capable of coping fully with losing their friends and familiar surroundings to a different place with no guarantee of things being better for them. Minor anecdote, when I moved from Canada to USA in my childhood, my little brother who was 12 at the time tried to run away to avoid losing all his friends he had made.

A kid living in a household where neither parent can adequately provide for them because the economic opportunities are shrinking and offering no signs of ever improving, which often results in other toxic environmental conditions (stress about money, substance abuse, divorce, etc.), seems to me to be almost always worse than relocating to a new place in the long-term.

That's an adult view of things, not a kid's view. Most kids would rather stay and be a little poorer. What kids don't know is how bad things could get. They have no idea yet what it's like to live without safety nets.

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#377

Post by x5n1 » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #361

MikeNomad wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to work with your analogy... Does that mean H1Bs are the sharks, or the chum?

You turned this into an H1Bs thing a heartbeat... And this in a country built by and welcoming towards immigrants. Shouldn't we be discussing how to make the industry and the life of H1Bs better?

Why? That does not make any sense whatsoever. Most corporations that use H1Bs have billions sitting in cash in their bank accounts. They are more than capable of paying for local workers. There is a glut of local workers looking for jobs that can do the work that are for the most part as smart as the immigrants.

The work is highly profitable. The skills are present in the local population. Why should anyone want H1Bs in the US at all other than the investors looking for the largest returns for exploiting the poorest people in the world.

Ultimately this whole issue is an issue of exploitation at the behest of the owners of America who don't give a shit about its people. Initially they exploited slaves, then they exploited immigrants, now they want to import not even real immigrants to exploit.

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#378

Post by wavefunction » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 6:33 PM UTC

TheLogothete wrote: post #367

mrow84 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you attribute an increase in sales or profits to the leader? Just because Pharaoh decides to build a pyramid, doesn't mean it will happen, however hard they think it, without an army of people doing the actual work. Also, after the fact, sure, you got a pyramid, but what might have happened if those people were doing something else? It is easy (and in leaders' interests) to take credit for non-negative chan…

Actually the pyramids were built exactly because of the pharoahs. Try building one now. You can't. Because there is no divine inspiration demanding the people do it.

Recent consensus among Egyptologists is that the Pyramids were constructed with paid labor rather than the stereotype of slave labor.

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#379

Post by tacon » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 6:34 PM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #374

dkrich wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any valid reasons for him to end up in a supermarket job. Generalize much? You know based on the fact that he "worked in software" that that he had no valid reason to need a "supermarket job"? I hope no awful life event happens to you, but when things are going great, it's easy to say others shouldn't be struggling. Then something happens. Maybe you get sick. Or a close relative needs financial assistance…

I agree, especially with regards to medical situations. If I didn't have health insurance and had a major medical problem -- first thing I'd do would be to arrange a plane ticket to a medical tourist country. Extended diagnostics + care + treatment (especially without managed insurance prices) in thr US is ridiculously expensive. And honestly? I'd be willing to go from 98 percentile to 9X percentile care to trim that…

For a significant fraction of medical problems, that is a great strategy. For a large fraction of medical problems, it will be a combination of friends and family close by keeping you alive, or at least, tended to well enough that you still want to live. Long term care in another country probably won't have that support, which is a really big problem long term.

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#380

Post by 01019109 » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 6:34 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #260

pyre wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in the US, and I still think that singular "they" is weird. I remember thinking that it was weird in grade school, and wishing that there was a better gender-neutral pronoun. Part of the problem with it being used in singular and plural context is that it's possible to use it in an ambiguous way where the ambiguity comes from the lack of enough context to differentiate between plural or singular. Separate w…

It's weird in theory but not in practice. Listen closely and you'll find that every every English speaker uses it without thinking.

English speakers also use "reach out to someone" for "contact someone", which sounds amazingly pompous for non-native speakers.