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IBM Says 'Couldn't Fire 150K US Workers If We Wanted To'
theodp writes "In an e-mail worthy of the Dilbert Hall of Fame, IBM execs responded to Robert X. Cringely's Project LEAN layoff rumors, reassuring employees by pointing out that they've already wiped out too many U.S. jobs to be able to lay off another 150,000. Big Blue's employment peaked around 1985, when it had about 405,000 workers who were acclimated to a long tradition of lifetime employment. IBM puts its current global workforce at 355,766, with a 'regular U.S. population' of less than 130,000."
Silly Cringley! We're Hiring negative 20 thousand employees!
I have no problem with Cringley being called a hack. But like the old saying goes, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Whether or not he's got his numbers exactly right, if you've got any doubt there are massive layoffs occuring at IBM, read the comments attached to Cringley's articles:
0 70504_002027_comments.html0 70511_002058_comments.html
s .php
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20
Not to mention reports from other IBMers here:
http://www.allianceibm.org/jobcutstatusandcomment
Also, consider that IBM's employee headcount doesn't include contractors. I don't know how much including them would effect the headcount, but it's certainly by a substantial amount.
Being an idiot doesn't necessarily preclude his occasionally being somewhere in the ballpark of the truth.
One can only wish, but I wouldn't hold my breath. After all, we still see Dvorak drivel making the front page. One would have thought that after the "my idle process is hogging 95% of the CPU cycles" whine, that would have been the last any tech-savvy site ever links to Dvorak, right? Well, dream on.
/. gave up on the whole class of "computer pundits" entirely. It's an easy job, and it's really about entertainment not computer expertise, ok? It's just a glorified SF version of the astrology columns in some newspapers. It just requires a thick enough skin to pretend it never happened, or that you were misunderstood, when 99% of the predictions don't come to pass. Better yet, phrase your predictions in a way that (A) gives them a time or an event, but never both, so it can't really be disproved, and (B) in the tried and tested "why X should do Y" way, so if it doesn't happen, it's obviously only because X is more stupid than you.
TBH, though, much as Cringely _is_ just a hack, I'd rather
Briefly, it's not just about Cringely, but the whole caste is little more than a bunch of entertainers, and not one iota more reliable than astrologers. Linking to any of them, not just Cringely, as if they actually predicted something about to happen, is akin to linking to an astrology site. "The great Mr Psychic says this is your lucky day, go do an interview for a job if you're a Capricorn. [Read more...]" No more, and no less.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Whether or not he's got his numbers exactly right, if you've got any doubt there are massive layoffs occuring at IBM...
It appears IBM didn't dispute claims of mass layoffs either. They only discounted Cringley's numbers. IBM seems to be using Cringley's number problem as a red herring agaist the existence of coming layoffs.
Table-ized A.I.
I've always wondered why they don't just move all of the IBM employees and their families into one big town.
It's called "Bangalore".
Table-ized A.I.
Sadly, he did write that, and no, it doesn't look tongue in cheek at all. Catch: XP Decay.
Genuine quote from the great pundit: "When I hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, I see that the System Idle Process is hogging all the resources and chewing up 95 percent of the processor's cycles. Doing what? Doing nothing?"
I've read the article again, just in case there might be some subtle sarcasm I've missed before, but it looks as serious as it gets, if anyone asks me.
The whole list is framed between:
- "This week's column is about exploring the commonly observed problems that crop up with each new release. Maybe Microsoft should patch the patches once in a while. Here are a few of my gripes - most of them a result of excessive patching." which doesn't really sound like the start of a joke, and
- "And please, will the characters who "have never had a crash or blip" in 10 years of "heavy use" not contribute. I'm sick of these people. They're full of it." Which, again, would indicate that not only he's not joking, but he thinks that anyone who hasn't had those newbie problems is, in his own words, "full of it."
Speaking of which, the rest of the complaints sound... shall we say, computer illiterate. And that's putting it mildly. He sounds like the average Uncle Osric or Aunt Emma, who are terminally stumped as to why would their computer suddenly be sluggish or takes a while to connect on the network. It must be all those MS patches, really. Not like the kind of expert who fixes such things for fun, and/or knows exactly what worm was hogging the network.
Believe me, I've tried finding some trace of tongue-in-cheek irony there. I've hoped it would be an April 1st article. Nope.
But, hey, judge it for yourself. If you can detect some trace of sarcasm there, please tell me.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.