Slashdot Mirror
More Massive Layoffs at AOL
dawnzer writes "It looks like AOL read the comments from Slashdotters saying that 950 employees do not constitute a 'massive' layoff. Several news sites are reporting that AOL is getting ready to cut 5,000 jobs, or roughly 26 percent of their global workforce. Now that's more like it."
Does this mean that AOL is going away, because I'm getting excited just thinking about it.
Philosophy.
AOL is a dinossaur now. Their market doesn't exist anymore and they stuck upon their past until it was too late.
Your ad could be here!
Maybe some other notorious monsters of the net will help us get rid of them as well. Too bad about the people losing their jobs, though, don't get me wrong.
26%!!?? AOL is cutting their employees by AMD's marketshare. Intel's in bed with AOL! It makes perfect sense!
I'll bet you'd be a lot less glib about it (and way more pissed off) if it was your job on the line. Especially if you saw people making comments like that!
It looks like AOL read the comments from Slashdotters saying that 950 employees do not constitute a 'massive' layoff. Several news sites are reporting that AOL is getting ready to cut 5,000 jobs...
I wonder if this works for other things...
One year delay in Vista a "small" delay? Hell, back in my day when the Duke Nukem Forever team said small delay they meant it would only be a few more decades!
...one person just sent an email to everyone at the office that says "OMG I just got my pink slip" followed by thousands of replies that say "me too"?
Those people will now be employed doing something useful, instead of perpetuating the existance of AOL. Everybody wins!
Its never cool when any company does layoffs. If Microsoft did a layoff, I know people would be happy because "the tide is finally turning." That is very sad. You should never be happy when someone gets laid off... you don't know who they have to support with that income. It may be their family suffering now that someone got laid off, so be a little more of an adult and don't praise layoffs, from any company.
They are paying the price for offering crappy services.
Pftt, only 5000? You can do better AOL.
Invest now: http://www.aolmemorabilia.com/links.html
I saw a fish wall sculpture out of disks some guy did that looked pretty good. And never again will I be able to open my door and say, "I've got mail!" as one of their packages propped up by my mailman falls before me. Actually, the wood/pressed cardboard boxes they got into made nice remailers. End of an era.
Definitely layoffs are not fun; I was laid off from a web firm during 2001 and faced a stressful job search. However, I wonder if this news isn't necessarily as bad as it sounds. I suspect a good percentage of AOL jobs involve call centers, and I know from personal experience that these can be terrible jobs. Granted, (almost) everyone just needs a job sometimes... all I'm saying is that losing a really crappy job isn't as painful as losing a good one.
AOL is offering services for free that they used to charge money for. They can't afford to employ everyone they used to with that business model. If you work for AOL, I hope your resume is current. Still repeating myself...users have too many other options for ISP's to spend money on AOL without any real benefit. The non-techies don't need AOL anymore.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
It's just a shift to smaller companies or self-employment; we just don't hear about it. A company laying off 10,000 people is news. 1,000 different companies hiring those people the next day isn't.
I'm sorry but the article has misquoted John Miller AOL CEO. His actual statement went more like this:
Following last nights board meeting, the AOL directors would like to confirm the rumours that we have decided to move away from our core business, the manufacture and distribution of drink coasters and frizbees. We are now seeking to restructure the relevant departments and pursue a profitable business model of providing our internet services at no cost to non subscribers. [ Long Pauses ] As a result we belive that within 6 months anyone in our employ today with half a brain will no longer be with the company....*phone rings* ahhh, hello?. yes Satan... sorry I gotta take this
serenity now!
Here's AOL's most recent mailing to all of its customers:
Dear AOL Member,
I want to let you know about some exciting changes happening at AOL. Our service has always been an all-in-one solution for our members, consisting of:
1. Connectivity - a way of connecting to the Internet (through a dial-up or high-speed connection), and
2. Content and Services - bringing you useful tools and features like email, security and an entertaining online experience once you're connected.
Today we are announcing that AOL's software, email, and other compelling AOL features will be free to everyone who has an Internet connection -- including your Address Book, Screen Name, the Buddy List® feature and more. AOL will continue to provide a dial-up connection for you, and we will continue to offer several reliable and affordable options for getting online.
What Does This Mean for You?
Nothing about your service arrangement with us will change unless you want it to. Your current plan, which includes Internet connectivity, 24/7 customer support, unlimited email storage, your email addresses, and all the AOL content and services you rely on, will still be there for you.
If you do at some point choose another provider to connect you to the Internet:
* You can keep your AOL Screen Name and email address for as long as you want to use it, completely free;
* You can continue to use your AOL software, and you can still get all your favorite features and content, completely free;
* You will still get AOL's comprehensive safety and security tools, protecting you from online hackers, spammers and identity thieves, completely free.
All of this is free, no matter who provides your Internet connection.
Why Is AOL Doing This?
We're simply changing with the times. There are many options for Internet access, whether it's dial-up or broadband. At the same time, a lot of online content and services are now available on the Web free of charge because they are supported by advertising. So, while your Internet connectivity needs may change over time, what you love about the Web does not. We are now able to ensure that the familiar AOL experience, your Screen Name, your Address Book, your Buddy List, your Favorite Places, and other content and features you enjoy, will always be available to you for free.
In September, you will be hearing more about changes at AOL. Until then, you can visit AOL Keyword: New AOL for more information and to sign up for informative email alerts.
Sincerely,
Jon Miller
Chairman and CEO
AOL LLC
Anti-AOL, I'm superior blah blah blah eliticism aside. Isn't this obvious? It doesn't make sense to keep people on staff when the companies business model has changed from retaining paid customers to offering AOL for free.
Just off the top of my head I can see customer service and marketing employees jobs not being as needed.
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
As commented before, how does AOL think they will make money by more eyeballs viewing ads? the same question could be asked of television ads but is OT so i wont go there. I mean say is more people do indeed view a lot of AOL ads.. if they dont purchase anything then how are they making money? i mean sure the advertisers they are teamed up with will give them money but if said companies are getting sales off ads then eventually the money has to stop. just curious as its obvious that dont plan on making any money off subscribers. Even people with 'aol for broadband' are leaving in droves.
It seems like lots of companies are planning small to medium size layoffs. AOL is just one of many here in the states.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I manage a team of Retention Specialists in Reston (posting AC for obvious reasons). I'm not so sure about all this talk of layoffs. They need us more than they realize, and they would surely be willing to keep us around a little while longer for a slightly lower salary. I mean, if they really decide we aren't needed anymore, they can always reconsider and cancel our employment next month. I'm sure they'll find they really really really miss us after we're gone.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
Of the 5,000 layoffs, 4,999 are the people who send you AOL frisbees. The other is some guy who ticked off the boss.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
AOL could recover, but it is very doubtful that they will. To do that, it will require them to quit trying to compete head on against MS in MS's backyard.
They could roll a linux distro and even offer it on their own system. In fact, they could create the system and target the newbies or those with old windows systems. This would allow them to quit trying to compete with MSN under MS's rules. But I have always given them little chance of doing it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
halo, p0rn, heck anything my day just got brighter
... and slowly started the mouse cursor to move over the X. This my kids, will be the last time you will hear 'Goodbye'
It's one of the risks inherent in participating in a capitalist economy. The potential exists to do very well, but there is also the potential that things might slip in the opposite direction. Is it cool? Not really, because it does tend to disrupt peoples' lives. Do I feel sad for them? Not really, because it's all part of the game called "US of A". And let's not forget that there are other parts of the world where just getting a single meal is the biggest worry.
If after 45 days you are not completly satisfied with your Employment Service Provider, cancel at no charge!**
**You must call to cancel your employment status or will continued to be employed at the standard rate.
I want to be retired when I grow up.
.... As you're still going to get their CDs in the mail.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
If AOL has, what?, around 20 million subscribers, and each was paying on average $20/month, isn't that $400 million dollars a month that will be pumped back in to other areas of the economy? Given that 'only' 5000 are being laid off right now, I suspect that the increase in other spending on 'net related (or entertainment, or whatever) will, on the whole, be able to create jobs for those 5000 somewhere... I realize I'm talking somewhat in the abstract, but *damn*, that's a lot of hard cash that will be freed up on the consumer side.
creation science book
Now if a few other things were to happen, like AOL laying off the rest of their workfarce, and have Micro$hit, $ony-Bony, Adobe, Pretendo, etc. Were to follow suit by laying off their enitre workfarce as well, then my day would be even brighter.
humm i wonder if these 5000 are from the support line... can i cancle my membership.... please.... come on i asked nice... oh ur still trying to help me?
(yes i know i suck at spelling fell free to correct my grammar and/or spellin i dont care, im still not going to change
This happens in every industry, for pretty much every company at some point in time. If a company has too many employees and the numbers aren't adding up, layoffs are unfortunately inevitable.
So you've never been laid off then, right?
Which employees are these?
The people who work at the AOL booths giving away coasters(CDs)?
The Mexicans who work customer support in Spanish?
Coders and network admins?
Because the article doesn't give much details.
You're talking about displacing 5,000 other people from their job, their primary source of income (most likely), and you think that it warrants a "now that's more like it"? I'll bet you'd be a lot less glib about it (and way more pissed off) if it was your job on the line. Especially if you saw people making comments like that!
Actually, this is a prime example of why capitalism beats out other systems. Yea it sucks for those 5000, but it is the best thing in the long run. AOL is a dinosaur that has no place in a high-speed internet world. Why should they linger? Why should 5000 people work on something as useless as dial-up modem support when they could be much more productive to society doing something else??
In other systems, AOL might be a state-owned company filled with politician's kids and propped up past its time with tax-dollars from actual productive companies. Capitalism *FORCES* people to make the tough choices. The federal government could NEVER fire 5000 workers even if they are completely useless and are wasting resources.
If it were my job on the line, I would *hope* I had the foresight to realize that my days working for AOL were going to be numbered. I'm not saying it's a good thing more tech. jobs are being lost in America -- but the majority of these were "bottom of the barrel" jobs doing phone support and sales. It's really only a couple steps above the "bad old days" of telemarketing. Most of 'em are still reading off of scripts, and don't really know much about what they're trying to sell/sign people up for.
I can't say for sure, but I think it's a good guess to say the more skilled people doing systems administration or coding for AOL probably got transferred to other places in the company.
Despite all the AOL bashing, a considerable amount of work had to go into the constant refinements and updates to their interface. I remember when AOL didn't even know how to do a decent job of handling a broadband connection vs. dial-up, and when many types of email attachments weren't handled properly at all. In the latest version, it's obvious they put a lot of work into improving those areas, among many others. That stuff doesn't just code itself.
When I interned at Ford in 2002 the worldwide employee population (salaried+hourly) was near 500K. As I left the company in January of this year it was lower than 330K with a major revitalization program on the way.
I'm sure there's more examples like that to mention. Although everything is relative to the size of the company, but, the numbers are way more telling.
AOL is Web 3.0!!! Where do my eyeballs sign up for this pay-per-click multilevel marketing bonanza. Both of them missed the first two bubbles. They blame me; instead of blogging like I was supposed to I wasted (am currently wasting) my talents getting modded off topic on slashdig. We want some of that Web 3.0 cash. Now. Referrals. My eyeballs might like Roland Pickypail if he kicked down. We want referral fees for my teflon eyeballs. How many frogclick ringtones did my clickthroughs sell for you? APIs!! APO's!! IPI's! PAP's! Frog click. Frog click bad. Class action.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
It would seem that AOL is still in reorganization and are trying to find it's niche in the broadband market. And the AOL software will change as a result. AOL Explorer is probaly the beginning of that change.
\
i see more ads for aol on indian billboards here in bangalore recently.
fifteen jugglers, five believers
I've been waiting for the symptoms of AOL's impending doom for years upon years. All I can say is: Good fucking riddance, you CD-spamming, English-torturing hellspawn of a company. You took my precious CServe forums from me, and now you will perish. I do, in fact, believe I've been saving some champagne for when AOL finally dies. I'll go dust it off in anticipation.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Most of the layoffs are expected to be in either Member Services, Marketing or the Access business. This is in line with the direction of where AOL wants to go. It really doesn't mean anything to AOL's future except that they are a) selling off the European business and b) they don't need to have the same marketing machine that they needed to before to sell access.
This does NOT mean that AOL is shutting down shop on the current customers. They will be supported as long as they want to pay for access. But the joke about the CDs is actually probably spot on. Yes, this move means the CDs pretty much go away and yes, the some of the people being let go are the people who sent the saucers.
So, ultimately, these layoffs are meaningless to the overall picture. If AOL had suddenly morphed into Google or Yahoo, the same thing would have happened. Google doesn't sell access and Yahoo doesn't sell dialup (although there are broadband deals they have been associated with). So, if AOL is to become successful in the same way, they would be shedding those very same employees in some manner.
What will be the real predictor of AOL's demise? Look to the new VideoSearch initiatives in particular. That initiative is being pushed from on-high, and there are some people's jobs at AOL which are quite safe because of that initiative. If VideoSearch works out, AOL will be hiring more people, not less, because the current staff working it is already overworked. Should success be apparent, the 5,000 jobs lost by October could be all rehired for Streaming and Video.
Do I think it *will* work? No idea. Needless to say, no one currently employed at AOL is naive about the possibility of failure. At the same time, Video and Streaming is pretty big and it's about the only place AOL seems to be in a position to lead in, so success is possible.
AOL employees are quite well aware that AOL isn't providing anything other than repackaged things that other people have done first, and usually better. And some of the senior management know that this is the case too. There has been more than one meeting where a VP was asked, "what are we doing that is original?", and the exec sort of stood there, thought for about a minute and eventually said "nothing I can think of other than Video". Scary, but at the same time, it's rather heartening that they didn't try to tell us that something like the new Netscape site (aka Digg) was going to propel us back to a leadership position. It won't.
I've survived layoffs and I've been laid off. I love business and I understand its part of our economy. I don't have a problem with layoffs. I have a problem with people being happy about layoffs just because they don't like the company.
Did anybody at AOL ever stop to think that people are leaving AOL and avoiding it like a dead skunk because it has become nothing more than a giant Ad Service? It's just more than a bunch of advertisements masquerading as an ISP, and AOL hasen't figured out that they can make alot more profit from paying subscribers than from a bunch of sweetheart advertising contracts.
-----
Sig Sauer
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
People forced to leave a job that they use to support their families is never a "good" thing. It may be a necessary thing, or it may be an inevitable thing, but it is nothing worth being happy about. I am disheartened, but unsurprised about the almost gleeful reaction of some posters in this thread and the other. It's the same sort of drivel you get when you take anyone who is more concerned about their idea for "improving humanity" than actually caring about humans.
Of course, if this happened to a relative of yours or a friend, I doubt that you'd be so cheery. Happily, in this case, you've got an axe to grind and you have no personal stake in the lives of the people affected. Congradulations, you have scaled the moral high ground and can now lob down spitballs on the people beneath you without worrying about friendly fire incidents. I bet from all the way up there, they just look like ants anyway.
Stay tuned for the posting of the layoff dates so that you can be ready to show up at your nearest AOL office and jeer the people being escorted out by security. I'm sure they deserve everything they get because they worked for AOL. Make sure and wear your "Don't be Evil" T-shirts for maximum effect.
This just goes to show how truly powerful slashdot has become...
Employee Inbox tomorrow morning......
You've Got Mail!
Who will guard the guards?
At the risk of sounding like a libertarian (which I'm not), that's how capitalism works. A crappy company goes under, and in the process some people lose their jobs. Then some other company rises and those people get another job.
Note that there's no need to get doom and gloom about it. I know that for the average citizen unemployment and inflation are signs of the apocalypse, and politicians use them as such in campaigns... then proceed to forget that they promised solving both. That's because they're not. Read something about keynesian economics, which is how the economy works nowadays, and especially about the Phillips curve.
In a nutshell, there's a corelation between the two, and if you push one down, the other one goes up. And what governments can do is pick a point on the curve and try to keep the economy around that point.
What does this have to do with this? Well, it's darn simple: for the last 60-70 years (depending on the country) everyone had the unemployment basically where they wanted it. In spite of the constant "waah, another company lays off 5000 workers, our country is doomed" scares, that's never actually been a long term problem. So some other company or several smaller companies will figure out "hey, look at all the workers we could hire in city X" and proceed to do so.
Incidentally that kind of a correlation isn't even just an effect of the last century, but you can see effects as far back as, say, the 1300s and 1400s. The plagues and resulting utter lack of unemployment for, say, peasants, caused a massive inflation and were in the end the cause of the Renaissance.
And you can see the same economics at work on a smaller scale in the limited domain of IT in the dot-com bubble, where lack of enough workforce caused the salaries to spiral up out of hand, and the cost of any resulting program reflected it. There the impact was absorbed by the rest of the society, but imagine the same economy-wide. If for every job there wasn't a pool of unemployed workforce, and companies had to pay a premium even to get receptionist, you'd see the prices rising accordingly.
It may seem calous and lacking empathy to say that someone has to be unemployed for the economy to work, and it partially is, but that's how it works. Rebelling against it is like rebelling against gravity: not very productive. We have to work with what works, not with what would be an idealist utopia. All we can do to make it more palatable is to offer some unemployment benefits and some government demand for work and move on.
And at the risk of going off topic, that's another reality that we have to live with: that governments actually have to do that kind of thing. In spite of bullshit pseudo-economic theories idealizing lean governments and some idealized image of unrestricted 19'th century capitalism, it stopped working that way in the Great Depression. That's when the economy of scarcity ended. The countries that got out of the crisis fast were the ones whose government overspent: be it FDR's New Deal, or Germany's and Italy's spending on armament. The countries which didn't, got to enjoy a jolly good depression until WW2: e.g., Canada.
Funny what things you get to learn when you take your economic theories from real economists, instead of from novelists. (*cough* Ayn Rand *cough*) But that's another discussion for another time.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
how many if any of these people get offered jobs at time warner.
...in Europe, so Slashdot doesn't care.
Though it is important to note that AMERICA Online doesn't sell very well in EUROPE.
On the upshot, after 14 years of AOL, my parents have made the transition to DSL and real IMAP email access. Days before they cancel, they find out that all the hassle of making sure people had the new email addresses they get to keep them. Thats good customer service, being good to customers even after they stop paying you.
US AOL==SOL && UK AOL !EOL
Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who
AOL REPRESENTATIVE "JOHN": Hi this is John at AOL... how may I help you today?
...the ones in India? ...years.
AOL HUMAN RESOURCES: We wanted to terminate your employment.
John: Sorry to hear that. Let's pull my account up here real quick. Can I
have your name please?
HR: Vincent.
John: I've had this job for a long time.
HR: Yup.
John: I work here quite a bit. What was the cause of wanting to terminate my employment today?
HR: We just don't use you anymore.
John: Do you have outsourced or subcontracted employees elsewhere?
HR: Yup.
John: How long have you had those...
HR: Years...
John:
HR:
John: Well, actually I'm showing a lot of hours of this employee.
HR: Yeah, a long time, a long time ago, not recently...
John: Okay, I mean is there a problem with my performance?
HR: No. we just don't use you, we don't need you, we don't want you. We just don't need you anymore.
John: Okay. So when you use me... I mean, use my services, I'm saying, is that for business customers or for... for home users?
HR: Dude, what difference does it make. We don't want you working at AOL anymore. Can we please terminate your employment?
You get the idea...
-Steven
Well, i noticed a palette with 3 boxes of AOL cds the other day at walmart, each box had something like 100 cds. I wouldn't say they are going away just yet.
.... allow me to introduce you to Miss Irony.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Why are they not contracting?
Or heading their own bussiness?
Sorry pal, the jobs are out ther, but it is only for people with some skills and determination.
If recrutiment is so draconian that even your credit rating is scrutinized in order to get a new job, then one should move to a different state or country.
There are options, but people want the easiest one, which is not necessarily the best one.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Nobody's family starves to death just because you lose your job, specially in developed countries (where most /.ers are located).
/.ers paint.
/.ers have about bein jobless.
A paycheck is not necessary to feed your family on these places. Is to what any self respecting individual aspires, but not having one is not a tragedy of the sorts many
It may be an unpleasent experience but by large is not a life threatening one for anybody but the mentally ill (depression, etc).
You want tragedy?
I have friends in both Beirut and Basra. Being a techie there puts to shame the little complaints most
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... labour laws are crap.
In civilized countries workers get some compensation to help them while they find a new job.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Prop up a company that lost the clu-o-meter 10 years ago?
Sorry pal, we can't have it both ways. Most people, rightly, dislike AOL, this reflects and lower marketshare, lower profits (or both) which eventually impacts the workforce.
People in general gloath about AOL problems, not about the individuals affected by this measure.
Come down from your high horse, you have no reason to be riding it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"I think we reached terminal September when that knight guy, Tim Burners, invented the graphical usenet at CERN."
I have a good friend that no longer has a net.connecion. She said it was all over the day they added pictures.
Need Mercedes parts ?
I have been, twice in fact, yet I agree with the GP's sentiment. Layoffs are part of doing business in a capitalist economy. I didn't *like* it, but I understood it and even went back to work for one of the 'offending' companies by choice (I had another job when they called).
Not everyone is a 'poor me' whiner. Some of us understand that life can throw you curveballs. You adapt, improvise, and overcome. That's the only real choice.
They can always adopt the tactic of their customer "service" department, refuse to leave, and become insulting and abusive whenever their management try to make them.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics considers anything over 50 employees (over the course of five weeks) to be a mass layoff: http://www.bls.gov/mls/ (first paragraph)
but will the severance packages be paid in AOL CDs?
You can't handle the truth.
It's a feature, not a terribly flawed cashflow model.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Actually AOL does serve a function, and quite a useful one - security.
For one aspect, as someone mentions in another thread, AOL has been aggressive about keeping spam under control.
For another side, a co-worker uses AOL simply as a more secure through-point for his family. They offer the multiple accounts with 'parent' and 'child' privileges, and allow the parents to set the criteria and for the children. I'm under the impression that there is also some other security filtering going on for mail and browsing, as well.
One more learned may scoff at the idea of AOL as a security provider, but for Joe 6pak it's a heck of a lot better than going out on the net naked, security-wise.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
1. When I lost a job (contract not renewed) I DID get money while I was looking for new work.
2. I would rather have recieved that extra money when I was working.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Ha Ha!
Youre the only one on slashdot who uses AOL!
What's with all the cry babies bitching about the people happy about the layoffs? The world isn't black and white, people. AOL is a terrible company and part of a terrible media conglomerate. Hurting AOL is worth hurting AOL's employees, especially if those employees were the guys on the phone who won't let you cancel your account. Or if the guys they fired were responsible for the mass AOL install CD mailings or for arranging that AOL is put on every preinstalled copy of Windows in the world. I hope the guy who said "You've got [sic] mail" got canned with this batch too. These people and their jobs sucked. Enjoying that they're not doing that shitty work any longer doesn't make you a bad person.
Its a fluid thing. If Microsoft laid off 5000 people, that's 5000 people who are qualified to work well in a number of MS enviroments who would be snatched up by companies who may otherwise be unable to get that sort of talent in that price range. For AOL, you've got a number of networking people and high traffic network programmers who will probably make a great living somewhere else.
Its really nothing to be upset about. The people who have it worst are probably customer service/accounting types. Developers are a hot commodity these days.
You sound a lot like a man who has never been laid of...
(not that I have either, but I have seen friends go through it, it affects a great deal more than just your bank account)
It will simply make it more difficult for AOL users to cancel their account.
Having sympathy for someone else's problem isn't a 'poor me' attitude, it's called empathy, you'all should try it sometime.
I just want to point out that AOL has been marked the WORST tech product ever according to http://www.pcworld.com/article/125772-2/article.ht ml# PC World Magazine.
This is truly a sign that people are starting to realize this. But speaking as a benchman who actually gets to see the computers this TOTAL CRAP is on, and the people bringing them in proclaiming their undying love for it makes me think that AOL will continue to have a presence for a while until someone can figure out how to get the old people (and I mean it, more elderly use AOL than any other client that ever comes in) off of it. Either that or sadly, we'll have to wait for them to die before AOL finally goes out as well.
AOL is a wretched tool, I'm glad they're finally starting the trek into internet oblivion. I just feel bad for all the people they screwed in the process, client and employee alike.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is just business as usual. I've been working in IT for a large Fortune 100 bank for 8 years now, and I'm familiar with the long-term cycles of announcing some news (dropping sales, shifting markets, missed forecast, mergers announcements, whatever), then doing some layoffs. After seeing for a long time how the politics and the employee review process work, I strongly suspect layoffs often aren't as much about a company being economically unhealthy, as about periodic shedding of employee dead weight. In AOL's particular case it sounds rather more economic, but that's atypical.
Large corporations tend to be constantly hiring and growing, unless a hiring freeze is actively on--and even then they make strategic exceptions. All mid and upper-mid managers are ever hungry for a larger team because that boosts their power and profile over time within the company. The whole hiring process in a large corporation is usually a lot less self-aware then in a small business--they don't know who or what they really need for the long term good. So, it can only be so efficient--a lot of screw off and/or incompetent and/or unpleasant-personality people end up getting in to large corporations by putting on a reasonably good face during the interview process. After getting in, they're entrenched. They float around at a few projects underperforming and being disliked, going under a variety of different managers until nobody want to deal with them any more. I've seen some employees do this for years and years. It tends to be damned hard to get rid of them because no lower-level manager wants to have to personally deal with their firing. For HR legal reasons, unless they blatantly break a major company rule or kill someone, you have to painstakingly document exactly why they cannot do their job to fire them for cause. Not to say that everyone who gets laid off is bad, but a lot of times their section has more bad people then not so they get swept up departmentally.
After several years, the barnacle-class of people accumulates until they comprise about 10% to 20% of the mass population. Upper management then periodically recognizes that the company needs to shed some unneeded employees, but know it's perceived as unfair and politically unpalatable to demand personalized firings, so they come up with a neutral reason... a company-wide "slowdown". It serves as a good unchallengeable excuse to get rid of extras and undesirables. To try and do it without using trumped-up news and mass waves invites a constant bunker mentality and an excessive amount of infighting, paranoia, and company politics.
Sympathy wasn't what I was talking about. I was referring to people who ascribe nasty motives to corporations that do layoffs. Their motive is profit, as it should be if they are a publically traded company. If that means laying people off then that's just life. Do I feel for the individual circumstances of people? Sure. Do I feel sympathy for people who won't get another job? Nope, and yes I say 'won't'. There are always jobs out there. They might not be the kind of job one wants, but they sure do give you a paycheck while you look for something better.
When the Needham office closed almost nine years ago, I decided to not move to Dulles. Looks like I got out in time! *whew*
Posting AC to avoid the public ridicule for having worked for AOHell.
Well, I'll tell you why the whole economics lecture. Because judging by the invariable doom-and-gloom posts, I'm left with the impression that the whole inclination to act like it's some major irreversible tragedy, is precisely based on not understanding economics. People act as if 5000 people out of job is some permanent thing, akin to 5000 getting buried alive in a landslide, or at least 5000 that'll be for ever unemployed.
What that whole economics lecture is telling you is: "Not so, grasshopper. For every 5000 who lost their job, there'll be (approximately) 5000 who'll get a new job. A lot of them will be the same people too." In other words, hey, show some empathy and cheer for those, will you?
And, perhaps a lesser point, but it has to be said anyway: because lamenting the practices of capitalism (e.g., layoffs) while reaping its rewards, is akin to mourning the turkey while eating it at the Thanksgiving dinner. A bit hypocritical.
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is that it implies that Americans get to eat because they're capitalists, and because of their massive natural resources and the stablity of having weak countries at their boarders. Hell, they're not even capitalists. You've got socialism for the rich (subsidies, bank insurance, S&L buyouts, defense contracts, etc) and capitalism for the poor ( who just have to suck it up when their jobs get shuffled around ). Your problem is your assuming the game is still being played. The rich fucks of the world have already won it, so much for a middle class.
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Bull.
I want you to show me one classified job listing that pays minimum wage. Here's the local job listings for the city I live in, Grand Rapids, Michigan. There's over 1,300 jobs listed in that link and I bet it would take you a long time to find one of these minimum wage jobs.
Michigan's economy is shit compared to the rest of the country. Grand Rapids' major employers are bleeding out and laying off people left and right for upwards of 4 years now. Last I knew we had the only Army recruiting center that hadn't yet missed their quota since the start of the Iraq war. If that isn't indicative of a crappy economy I don't know what is.
Did you hear about the episode of 30 Days where the two hosts lived off minimum wage jobs? They couldn't get a job that actually paid minimum wage.
That doesn't add up... They couldn't find a job at minimum wage because all the illigal aliens in the country currently occupy those jobs.
> Today we are announcing that AOL's software, email, and other compelling AOL features will be free
> to everyone who has an Internet connection -- including your Address Book, Screen Name, the Buddy
> List® feature and more.
I read this sentence as, "we're going to give your Address Book, Screen Name, and Buddy List to everyone with an internet connection, for free."
This doesn't sound like a positive development for their customers, but perhaps things aren't changing as drastically as their CEO would have you believe. As an AOL Customer, you are likely used to this.