Posted on 08/27/2002 2:02:31 PM PDT by Incorrigible
Edited on 07/06/2004 6:37:49 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Then his boss asked him to work weekends during his final month on the payroll.
"That was the last straw," the 48-year-old East Brunswick man said. "It told me a lot about the state of things there."
The Armonk, N.Y.-based computer giant was supposed to be a soft landing spot for Fusco and 3,500 other software developers AT&T had shipped there in two waves beginning in 1999.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
IBM is allergic to unions, though there are one or two with a few IBMer's in them. Also, "seniority" has never meant anything in IBM; job performance determined whether one stayed or not.
These guys simply failed to notice that their performance in this field fell off as they aged and could no longer stay awake the length of time necessary to resolve difficult processing steps.
Somebody in India is younger!
You have to face up to it and move on into a related, possibly less lucrative, but do-able field of work. Right now I am paid for my wisdom, not my programming skills!
The 1500 folks formerly at AT&T who went to IBM could be doing that too but they aren't because they sought to "hang on" just another year.
When it's time to change, you must change, or you will run the risk of being laid off during a recession.
A very hard truth for the human mind to accept.
There are no guarantees of lifetime employment. Remember what it was like in 1999? The dot-coms had not yet burst, irrational enthusiasm was fueling the stock market, Clinton's "Justice" Department had not yet eviscerated Microsoft and the NASDAQ, etc. But times change. Get used to it.
I worked for five and a half years in Chicago for Centel (Central Telephone) before they merged with (were bought out by) Sprint. Most of the last year I worked for Centel, I was on disability with severe back problems which ended with two operations before returning to work with Centel. I was forced to return to work before I was capable of returning because they wanted me to be off disability before the merger. I was terminated shortly after returning to work.
During the 'merger' we were given the opportunity to transfer to Sprint, but we had to relocate to Kansas City to do so. There were other positions available at other Sprint locations and I applied for a few in Apopka Florida that was listed in an internal open positions listing. I was told that there were no openings there despite the listing and I later learned that someone else from my particular project team was allowed to transfer to the location I requested.
After being released by Centel/Sprint. I relocated to Orlando Florida and worked as a consultant for GTE on and off for about a year. I followed that with a six month assignment at AT&T in Altamonte Springs Florida and then was hired as a consultant by Sprint in Apopka Florida which is where I originally tried to transfer to from Centel/Sprint in Chicago. I came to Sprint as an employee of another person who was working an a contract programmer for Sprint.
I worked for Sprint as a consultant for almost four years and during that time others were offered the opportunity to 'roll over' as Sprint employees, but Sprint wouldn't roll me over strictly because of my back problems. I was told face to face that they were satisfied with my work and the only reason for not hiring me was the back problems. They didn't want the insurance and possible disability liability.
The IRS has declared it illegal to keep a person as a contractor for over a year, but Sprint regularly kept long term contractors to avoid any pension and tax liabilities. It was relayed to me that in the Kansas City office Sprint had an 'agreement' with another local company where every year they released contractors to work at each others companies and after another year brought them back. They did this to avoid the one year IRS limitation and were playing games to avoid hiring the programmers and paying the taxes, insurance, and other benefits that they were due.
It is much easier to keep programmers on as long term consultants than to hire them and pay them all the benefits due them. A contractor or consultant receives no pension, holiday pay, vacation pay or other benefits from the company they are ultimately working for. After the IRS clamped down, the major companies often brought in the contractors as sub-contractors or employees of other consulting companies to continue the tax dodge.
Hmmmmm... I thought that Big Blue once had a reputation for lifetime job security.
Part of the rationale for spinning-off their printer division as "Lexmark" was so they didn't have to break the no-layoff tradition themselves.
This statement is only true for some professions, primarily engineering. There are many many professions where lifetime employment is expected.
It did, up until 1992, when Lou Gerstner took over.
Now, IBM divides its employees into four performance quadrants, and nearly half of the bottom quadrant ("4 performers") is shown the door every year.
This is the GE Model: Prune the bottom ten percent of your business every year.
IBM figured out that it had to become a performance oriented sales organization in order to survive. When I left in 1995 (with a very lucrative buyout), IBM was still too reliant on hardware.
I have a lot of admiration for the company, and still own a bit of stock, though I got rid of most of it when it was 140.
So instead of actually competeing, they're just going to sit on their behemoth fat arses and chew-up or spit-out smaller companies as the bottom line indicates?
How dull and unimaginative.
I never made any REAL money until I left IBM in 1995 after 18 years carrying a bag. I basically traded some level of security for a mediocre compensation plan and the prestige of the logo.
Never again.
As I understand, this deal was IBM selling it's communications unit to AT&T (Largely from a sub-company called ADVANTIS), and AT&T selling it's computer people to IBM - plus the stated 4 Billion to IBM.
You need to look at IBM's growth. Not only is it competing; it DOMINATES every market it's in, with the exception of PCs.
Yes, IBM will unload a non-performing division, as it did recently with mainframe disk drives. It also unloads its bottom ten percent in terms of production. That keeps everybody on their toes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah...
Just wait until they start "diversifying" their portfolio.
I understand that Hershey Chocolate is on the sales block...
With IBM's marketing department, they'll probably find great "synergies" in making the acquisition... hoping the chocolate bars foul their keyboards and stimulate the replacement market.
Non-competitive is exactly what outsourcing is. It's giving up, admitting someone manages their business better than you. And, being un-American, they don't stand up and compete, they roll over.
Pathetic little candy-a___es!
Play to win, or let someone else get the stock-options, corporate jet, and morally challaged OAs.
Of course! .... I follows as an employee "aged" his or her performance "fell off." And I'm sure everyone stays awake days at a time to ensure the resolution of "difficult processing steps." Man, in India they must stay awake for months at time to get over those "difficult processing steps."
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