IBM Fired as Many as 100k in Recent Years, Lawsuit Shows • Hacker News Board

Re: IBM Fired as Many as 100k in Recent Years, Lawsuit Shows

#61

Post by znpy » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 8:40 AM UTC

I was fond of IBM (I still have their centennial book, which I find very interesting).

I was fond of IBM... Until I had the change of being interviewed by one of their HR people in the local branch (nothern Italy).

That was the worst interview experience ever.

This woman called me as soon as I emailed her some details about me, including my phone number, without any kind of prior agreement or scheduling, and puth me through an enormous amount of questions, all while being extremely rude, until we reached the compensation topic, to which she replied that they were looking for someone with double my experience but for less money.

Ugh.

Re: IBM Fired as Many as 100k in Recent Years, Lawsuit Shows

#62

Post by scarejunba » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 8:41 AM UTC

It's IBM. They're retarded enough to think this will work.

Re: IBM Fired as Many as 100k in Recent Years, Lawsuit Shows

#63

Post by bubble_talk » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 8:44 AM UTC

Isn't this simply suppy-demand economics?

Have you ever seen a comment on HN to the effect of "yeah, if you are in the US and not already working for one of the big tech companies, at this point that just means you are not good enough to be working for them" (implying they should have been interviewing there as frequently as possible until they land in one of them, and also that every other software job falls well short in terms of compensation - implying some kind of additional stupidity on your part if you don't aspire to work for big tech).

Today it is IBM - tomorrow, it is going to be every other company whose coolness falls short of the big tech companies. I wonder what alternative IBM really had?

Re: IBM Fired as Many as 100k in Recent Years, Lawsuit Shows

#64

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 8:46 AM UTC

js8 wrote: post #14

Of course, the explanation is BS, everybody sees that. But I want to comment that as a young mainframer (I started 14 years ago at the age of 26, with a big IBM competitor), I really enjoyed working with older people. They work quite hard (they have survived lots of changes in the organization, and that - in majority of cases - means that their contribution was appreciated somewhere), often are less crazy (they are s…

[deleted]

Re: IBM Fired as Many as 100k in Recent Years, Lawsuit Shows

#65

Post by austinprete » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 8:49 AM UTC

jnbiche wrote: post #47

flukus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> s/Millennials/Generation Z/ at this point. I don't think that works either, Gen Z are either really early in their career and only making up a tiny fraction of the industry or not in any career at all yet, it's hardly the demographic IBM needs to appeal to. As an older millennial my hair is starting to take on a grayish tinge and ageism in the industry is becoming a direct concern, so this can only lower my opinion…

Ageism in our industry should be a concern to everyone, regardless of the amount of grey hair they have. We all get old, after all. And more importantly, even if we didn't all get old, it's still wrong to discriminate (we don't all become black over time, but it's still wrong to discriminate in the basis of race).

Not sure the comparison to race is either fitting or appropriate here. Becoming more old undoubtedly has a negative effect on performance/productivity at some point, I don’t think the same can ever be said for becoming more black.

Re: IBM Fired as Many as 100k in Recent Years, Lawsuit Shows

#66

Post by atkbrah » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 8:50 AM UTC

rxhernandez wrote: post #27

MegaButts wrote: post #22

I was curious what IBM still makes that people use since they sold their Thinkpad division to Lenovo years ago, so I googled it: > IBM produces and sells computer hardware, middleware and software, and provides hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. IBM is also a major research organization, holding the record for most U.S. patents generated by a business (as of 2…

I had someone from IBM service my Lenovo P50 Thinkpad last week so they still do that apparently.

I was also recently surprised when I made a service call for one of our lenovos and the replies to it came from an ibm.com address.

Re: IBM Fired as Many as 100k in Recent Years, Lawsuit Shows

#67

Post by angarg12 » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 8:55 AM UTC

I'm an early millennial and ex IBMer. We know this is bullcrap. What sets IBM apart from Google isn't older workers, but things that don't appeal to millennial sensibilities: deep management hierarchies, focus in sales and marketing instead of tech, a hellscape cubicled office out of the 50s... IBM convinced me that Office Space is a documentary.

I would be hard pressed to find anything cool I did on my time there; quite the opposite, everything was 'uncool': uncool offices, uncool projects, uncool tech, uncool processes.

And to add to all that, they offer salaries and perks below market rate compared to their direct competitors. Remember when recently IBM rescinded all remote work arrangement for employees? Good luck attracting talent like that.

I don't think IBM is doomed just yet. Their sheer size and inertia will keep them moving for quite a while. But if they want to keep up with the competition they will need to pivot really really hard. Also they should we aware of their strengths and weaknesses and not compete with Google. Just don't.

Re: IBM Fired as Many as 100k in Recent Years, Lawsuit Shows

#68

Post by majkinetor » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 9:11 AM UTC

jve wrote: post #5

Firing talent because of age is not so smart I think. Of course I don't know who they fire, etc. But I'm young, yeah, and I want to distance myself from IBM products. Why? I'v been setting IBM Tivoli/Spectrum protect to backup client computers and, ugh, is it ugly, unfriendly and complex piece of software. I'v also touched the server part. Maybe it's just me, the windows guy (but who loves scripting) and it is more a…

IBM QRadar is not different, just like anything else IBM sells nowdays. For example, to send custom logs from application you need to read bunch of confusing PDF's while at the same time most FOSS systems have single curl call to do so (or something equally trivial).

Re: IBM Fired as Many as 100k in Recent Years, Lawsuit Shows

#69

Post by majkinetor » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 9:14 AM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #58

pas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple fact, that IBM stuff is never used by big sites (fb, spotify, google, etc..) despite their solutions being available for ages should lead anyone to the conclusion that they are salesware. QRadar is a glorified syslog server with a query interface (bought by IBM in 2011, formerly developed by Q1 Labs, est 2001), and ... again the fact that Splunk is available (started 2 years after Q1 Labs), that the ELK st…

> The simple fact, that IBM stuff is never used by big sites (fb, spotify, google, etc..) despite their solutions being available for ages should lead anyone to the conclusion that they are salesware. They are used by big sites, governments are the biggest sites you can get.

Gov systems are orders of magnitude smaller then Facebook & friends.

Re: IBM Fired as Many as 100k in Recent Years, Lawsuit Shows

#70

Post by Aromasin » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 9:23 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #42

js8 wrote: post #14

Of course, the explanation is BS, everybody sees that. But I want to comment that as a young mainframer (I started 14 years ago at the age of 26, with a big IBM competitor), I really enjoyed working with older people. They work quite hard (they have survived lots of changes in the organization, and that - in majority of cases - means that their contribution was appreciated somewhere), often are less crazy (they are s…

When I worked at Boeing (my first real job) I learned an awful lot from the older engineers. But when I switched to the software biz, older ones didn't exist and I had to pretty much learn everything the hard way.

I've noticed this also. I'm originally an EE, so during my first job the department was basically made up of a bunch of wizards from the days of Electronics magazine who all were in to HAM radio and custom guitar amps. I learnt a phenomenal amount in a short amount of time, even though I probably annoyed them with my incessant questions. I'm currently in the process of transitioning to software and I don't have nearly as much support now. I enjoy it more, but the learning curve is much more daunting.