Reports Coming In Of Mass IBM Layoffs Underway In The US (ieee.org)

Tekla Perry writes: Last week, IBM reported to investors that its workforce at the end of 2015 was almost as big as its workforce at the end of 2014 (within less than 1 percent), in spite of a year in which 70,000 employees left the company, to be replaced with new hires and acquisitions. Today reports are coming in that massive layoffs across the United States are underway, likely one-third of the U.S. workforce, according to one soon-to-be-laid-off-IBMer. In addition, a recent change in IBM's severance policy may leave workers with less cash than anticipated. IBM maintains that things are just business as usual, but this appears to be the day IBM Watchers have long warned about.

Comments

Hope it's in their sales

[Anonymous Coward]

They have to have among the worst sales I've experienced, one of their divisions has harassed me at work to the point I have actually banned their emails and their known phone extensions from contacting me.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Tablizer]

That's what IBM did wrong: set short term money/earning goals that were so aggressive that they burned long-term good-will to reach them.

Technology is such that one can often sacrifice the long-term to get short-term gains/features/improvements.

If you want to succeed in consulting for the longer term, then view yourself as a reputation company instead of a product/deliverable company. Measure your success by how happy your customers are at least as much as by current profits. If you make them happy, they'll go to you again for other projects.

You can use your good-will as a selling point in that you invite potential customers to interview current and past customers having similar projects. If your competitor(s) is a jerk, then the potential customer will find that out either when the competitor cannot provide sufficient references, or when their references tell the truth (Oracle, cough cough).

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Dunbal]

set short term money/earning goals that were so aggressive that they burned long-term good-will to reach them.

Story of any major corporation, be it a software manufacturer (fuck you, it's our computer now you're just the user), a fast food chain (let's replace all our ingredients with cheaper stuff and the customer will never know the difference), a consumer goods company (let's make the cheapest possible product we can in China who cares if it falls apart/doesn't remove stains/poisons pets - we have brand recognition and market share baby), clothing manufacturers (let's make clothes in Bangladesh that are so badly made they literally fall apart after two washes, and charge premium prices) and I could go on. It's the story of the world.

Some visionary busts his ass building a leading company in the business, and then he gets sick and dies and his kids fuck it up, or he sells it and some CEO fixes things for a record profit in a few quarters when his stock options become vested and who cares if it all comes crashing down the moment he cashes out and leaves the company, etc. It's a symptom of capitalism, really. Screw the customer for as much as you can, screw the employees as much as you can, grab the cash and to hell with anyone else. Actual success requires more than this.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Anonymous Coward]

... It's a symptom of capitalism, really. Screw the customer for as much as you can, screw the employees as much as you can, grab the cash and to hell with anyone else. Actual success requires more than this.

You got a better idea?

Centrally-controlled statism? BWAAAA HAAAA HAAA HAAA

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Dunbal]

Your impression that only pure capitalism exists and nothing else is false. The world is full of shades of gray. There is a set where profit can be achieved without destroying a) the environment b) the worker force c) the brand. When you realize that "maximum profit" usually means offloading hidden economic costs onto someone else (which usually comes back to bite you in the ass anyway), it becomes possible to accept less than maximum profit as a goal. Very few people who build successful businesses do it ONLY for the money.

Look at Wal Mart. Absolute lowest price in everything - so low they put everyone out of business. Paid their employees as little as possible with as few benefits as possible. Even then, they get into financial trouble. Well what are you going to do when Wal Mart came to your town, put everyone out of business and then leaves town taking the few remaining jobs with it? Success story?

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Tablizer]

Companies like Apple, BMW, Rolex, pre-Carly HP, etc. have a reputation for quality and customer service, and thus are more likely to survive and thrive in the longer term.

A consulting company doesn't have to be a "luxury brand", but at least strive to stand out from the average, and value reputation.

It may take a while to build reputation, but good things often take patience. Think of consulting quality as a sparse niche ready to be filled. There are too many consulting co's taking the quick-profit niche; it's full.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[gweihir]

Or in other words: They are selling the silverware to delay when their problems become severe. Of course, that makes the problems worse, long-term. The current layoffs are possibly just an effort to boost the stock-value while the C-level cabal IBM has in place of leadership can still profit from it.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[turbidostato]

"They are selling the silverware to delay when their problems become severe. Of course, that makes the problems worse, long-term."

Whom for? Not the executive board, with their golden parachutes, not the shareholder that moves his money to the next company when the shit hits the fan. Who else matters? we are capitalists, not pesky socialists or something like that, aren't we?

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Bing Tsher E]

Here in our town, WalMart came in, drove some of the worst gougers out of business (all those upper middle class store owners who have charged a ludicrous markup for years) and then when they outgrew the building they had built and started in, moved to a bigger building. Their old building has more new businesses in it now.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[lgw]

My better idea is "stop bailing-out failures, and let nature take its course". That's the other half of what you have to do to be capitalism. Most of the areas with the worst history of customer service have a matching history of bailouts.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[lgw]

The executives and the board are different groups. The stockholders don't get to move before the shit hits the fan, they get screwed too. The stockholders who don't get screwed are the ones who see the trade-off being made, and sell in the short term - but most shares of most companies are held fairly long term by mutual funds and pension funds. I've been at 3 companies now where all or most of the C-level people were fired because of this sort of nonsense screwing the business - the board and the stockholders do care.

The golden parachutes are a different matter. They remove the incentive for the CEO to care whether he gets fired for this BS. Why the Hell boards keep offering that perverse incentive is beyond me - they're not (usually) benefiting from it.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what IBM did wrong: set short term money/earning goals that were so aggressive that they burned long-term good-will to reach them.

Technology is such that one can often sacrifice the long-term to get short-term gains/features/improvements.

If you want to succeed in consulting for the longer term, then view yourself as a reputation company instead of a product/deliverable company. Measure your success by how happy your customers are at least as much as by current profits. If you make them happy, they'll go to you again for other projects.

You can use your good-will as a selling point in that you invite potential customers to interview current and past customers having similar projects. If your competitor(s) is a jerk, then the potential customer will find that out either when the competitor cannot provide sufficient references, or when their references tell the truth (Oracle, cough cough).

Former IBM employee here.. I can only add this:

IBM thought they were too big to fail, and it turns out they were wrong.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[kilodelta]

I couldn't agree more. I once worked for an InfoSec company that got acquired by Dell. Now one of the products we used was ArcSight - when they got acquired by HP, Dell walked away from the product and in the process $20 million in sales. Oh well.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[aspx]

My shop is transitioning away from IBM as soon as we realistically can, and we are about halfway through. We had serious problems with IBM that spanned multiple years.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Anonymous Coward]

... It's a symptom of capitalism, really. Screw the customer for as much as you can, screw the employees as much as you can, grab the cash and to hell with anyone else. Actual success requires more than this.

You got a better idea?

Yes.
1) Limit max pay to around $300k. The amount is arguable, but necessary to make (2) meaningful.
2) Other pay can be in the form of stock options, but you cannot sell more that $maxPay in stock in a given year.

In short, if a CEO tried to pump and dump, they would find dumping more than a small amount impossible. That means if the company goes down the tubes, so too does the stock the CEO is, by law, still holding.

Of course, making that a law is likely difficult, but, in essence you need to make CEO compensation depending not just on the next quarter, but the next so many years. It may not be perfect, but it should help.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the story of the world.

No, it's the story of speculative investing. The share market stopped being about waiting for dividends and started being about short-selling and endless, microscopic arbitrage via high-frequency trading.

Screw the customer for as much as you can, screw the employees as much as you can, grab the cash and to hell with anyone else.

True, but should such things happen, it is a sign of weak government, not of 'business as usual'. The fact corporations are deemed "too big to jail" means they have achieved nationhood, as predicted in the movie 'Network' (1976). Nothing can be fixed until that is changed. I don't have any answers to that problem.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Anonymous Coward]

"Charged a ludicrous markup".

Or just maybe, couldn't use monopoly-level purchasing power to bring you the Low Price Always [TM].

Maybe - gasp - they gave personalized service instead of just loading up customers like cattle at the cash register? Maybe they paid employees enough money to live on without government assistance?

Maybe a "ludicrous markup" is the price of being treated with respect instead of as a disposable commodity?

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Anonymous Coward]

You got a better idea?

Centrally-controlled statism? BWAAAA HAAAA HAAA HAAA

You read an Ayn Rand book and can't understand that failure is also a part of capitalism. Tee Hee!

We've lived in an era of corporate welfare for so long, Randroids and Milton-bots think advocating that failing companies fail is "statism". Let me guess; the rest of us moochers just need to fork over so you "wealth creators" can go on fucking your shit up indefinitely? And that is exactly what you think, because like all ideologues, you have allowed your ideology to overrule your common sense and now can only see the world in balck and whites, in "capitalisms" and "statisms", in "free markets" and "communism", in "wealth creators" and "looters".

In order for there to be success, in capitalism or in any system, there must also be a form of failure. The GP described long term failure modes of companies. Or at least traditional failure modes. In today's era or financialisation, media propaganda, and globalised corruption, such companies do not in fact fail, but are ultimately bailed out, along with their executives pensions, one way or another, by a transfer of wealth from the public ("the looters") to the people who ran the company into the ground ("the wealth creators"). You're probably totally unable to see this and will rationalize such acts away as "too much government", or "protecting jobs", because to you "capitalism" is about 'John Galts good'/'moochers bad', 'business good/government bad' and any een slightly compicated situation will break your ideological world view.

For the record, personally I think the root fo the problem is limited liability. I'll bet your worldview will have a problem with that.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Zak3056]

Losing the $20M in sales might actually have been the smart play. Just think of all the crap that Microsoft got when they bought hotmail: "hahahaha windows and exchange suck so much that you run your email service on BSD!" Running your main competitor's products has some serious marketing issues associated with it.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Grishnakh]

Some visionary busts his ass building a leading company in the business, and then he gets sick and dies and his kids fuck it up, or he sells it and some CEO fixes things for a record profit in a few quarters when his stock options become vested and who cares if it all comes crashing down the moment he cashes out and leaves the company, etc. It's a symptom of capitalism, really.

I have a solution for this: the ultra-rich capitalists need to invest a bunch of money into anti-aging research, so the visionary who busts his ass never gets sick and dies, leaving the company to his dumbass kids.

Imagine how things would be now if Hewlett and Packard never died, and still controlled HP, or Sam Walton still ran Walmart. Or look at Koch Industries: it's the 2nd-largest private corporation in the US, and would be #17 on Fortune 500 if it were public. Like them or hate them (and despite the fact that they're the sons of the founder, the founder got lucky I guess to not have kids that were morons), the Kochs are a good example of how a privately-owned company run by people who really care about it (rather than having a golden parachute) is a lot better than how most public corporations are run now. David Koch is 75 now, so he's not likely to be around that much longer; I wonder what'll happen to the company after he and Charles croak.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Grishnakh]

Or maybe they really were charging a ludicrous markup because the alternative is a 30-mile drive the nearest competitor. That canard about "personalized service" is just that. Mom-and-pop shops run the gamut, and a lot of them truly are horrible, with terrible customer service. Walmart pioneered the liberal return policies we enjoy today; with the old mom-n-pop stores, once you bought a product, you were stuck with it, even if you never opened it and realized you didn't need it. I for one don't want to go back to that time.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Tablizer]

Examples? I see the worse customer service in oligopolies, bailouts or not. In oligopolies you can suck because because your other 1 to 2 competitors also suck, and you wave to each other as you pass by them with a wink-wink and give them the Golden Parachute solute.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Tablizer]

You are holding it wrong, remember?

If another brand had the same problem, it would likely never make news. Everyone would expect it to suck.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[pnutjam]

The company is self sufficient, it will run itself and send out hunter killers to get rid of anyone in it's way. Think skynet.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[Hasufin_Heltain]

The company I work for -- we have a couple of IBM products. They bought Big Fix from Trend Micro -- that's what our organization uses for patch management. We also use their Enterprise Service Bus software. We're trying to get a monitoring solution for the ESB software...... and of course they make such software. However -- it is such silo'ed shit.. you can't just buy 1 product to cover your NOC / Tier 2 Support use cases like our other ESB software....... they have such common use cases split across the product lines that you need 4 products. That........ is....... shit. Delightful marketing. The other thing -- they have *so many* products; their own sales people don't even know everything they sell.

Re:Hope it's in their sales

[lsatenstein]

That's what IBM did wrong: set short term money/earning goals that were so aggressive that they burned long-term good-will to reach them.

Technology is such that one can often sacrifice the long-term to get short-term gains/features/improvements.

If you want to succeed in consulting for the longer term, then view yourself as a reputation company instead of a product/deliverable company. Measure your success by how happy your customers are at least as much as by current profits. If you make them happy, they'll go to you again for other projects.

You can use your good-will as a selling point in that you invite potential customers to interview current and past customers having similar projects. If your competitor(s) is a jerk, then the potential customer will find that out either when the competitor cannot provide sufficient references, or when their references tell the truth (Oracle, cough cough).

At one time, I was pro-IBM. I knew my customer rep, he came along with new literature, or with information that was important to my employer's needs. But suddenly IBM recognized that their hardware was way way way too expensive, when compared to alternatives with Linux/Unix. Thus, AIX and smaller more powerful systems were eroding the mainframe, and as a consequence, the IBM tech support. Out with the obsolete (no retraining) and in with the new.

And of course, MBA's are taught that do only short time actions. Do not do long term planning, and only in reaction mode. IBM's policy seem familiar?

business as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

so...1/3 of IBM's US workforce is being replaced with H1Bs?

Re:business as usual

[naris]

IBM will most likely not replace 1/3 of the workforce with H1Bs. They will probably move most of the positions to India, Brazil, Hungary, where-ever so there would be no need to H1B for all positions, just a few H1Bs to "coordinate" with the off-shore team.

Re:business as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask Boeing.

Re:business as usual

[ShanghaiBill]

They will probably move most of the positions to India, Brazil, Hungary, where-ever ...

IBM has had a strong presence in India for more than 30 years. Global companies hire globally. Get over it.

Re:business as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM will most likely not replace 1/3 of the workforce with H1Bs. They will probably move most of the positions to India, Brazil, Hungary, where-ever so there would be no need to H1B for all positions, just a few H1Bs to "coordinate" with the off-shore team.

Former IBM employee here, It is funny that you bring up H1Bs, you really have no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes on the H1B issue with IBM.

I worked for nearly 3 years for IBM global service delivery division and single handedly provided gold standard support to 150 on site customers and 5000 worldwide employees and what happened is chapter and verse what should not have happened if they IBM and the customer wanted to remain in a stable and profitable 'work relationship'. IBM used to be my dream company to work for, but now I wouldn't work for them if they hired me back at 10X the pay.

I can break this down for you quite simply here:

1- Buy low and sell high -
- At the location I was working, nearly every end level user reported and documented on a regular basis that the brand and product I delivered was "gold standard" SLA's were met on time with time to spare and under budget across the time that I worked. This didn't stop the customer from re-negging on the agreement (the contract was for service delivery from 2010 to 2014) and hiring Tata consultancy services (TCS) in 2012 and firing the service manager who had just moved his family across the country for the job from Arizona to Chicago. A real dick move if you ask me. It gets worse... read on.

2- screw the employee over-

- once the IBM manager had been fired the team form IBM was retained (basically to be given the option of keeping their jobs, but were basically given a hostile work place where the people they were training to do their jobs, barely spoke english and they went through 3 service delivery managers who couldn't speak enough english to find a bathroom in an english speaking country, in a 3 month period.) The former IBM employees were interviewed and given minor pay raises, but were given steep performance deadlines for equipment to be delivered for new hires while a lot of "Fake" tickets were being filed to provide an excuse for getting rid of higher paid and experienced employees who were then blacklisted when they either left or were fired. I know some moron is going to come up and say something vacuous like "oh well maybe your Gold standard is pyrite standard". I have always kept tight records on service delivery and copies of tickets and definitely complaints that came through on both what was requested and when, when it was expected and what was done and how the tickets were closed. The tickets that complaints about me were filed about were the fake tickets, and I know this because the company required, 28 laptops to be ordered and imaged for new hires, yet put out a "IT purchase freeze" and required an exception form to be filed for all replacements and denied all requests despite the fact that they had been signed and resigned and resubmitted by the (former) executive vice president. This was just one issue. A property manager borked her laptop and then filed a complaint after it was fixed that she was "Missing data" and was a little too slow to realize that all of her data was backed up and meticulously put back on her replacement laptop (seriously how did she get a replacement when a freeze was put on all IT purchases? I call shenanigans here, and also I have it on good authority from non-IT employees that she spread a rumor that I was quitting when she went to other IT support people from IBM trying to say that she still had the same issue with her laptop not working and wanted "fresh eyes" on the problem (and of course the problem was just passed back to me before the bogus complaint about the missing data. She had the exact same number of bits, according to my check sum of the backup image, that she had before and just an FYI according to company policy, backup of her data was he

Re:business as usual

[kilodelta]

Wow - that's a horrendous story. I'd be hiring an attorney and suing the fuck out of the bitch who did you in and anyone else who crossed you. Particularly since you have the documentation.

Re:business as usual

[Coisiche]

They will probably move most of the positions to India, Brazil, Hungary, where-ever

Yep. The IT team I used to work in got to train up IBM support teams in Poland and India to take over a company's UK IT support allowing IBM to redeploy us. I took voluntary redundancy a year ago which has turned out to be good timing because I've heard from former colleagues that the headcount reduction with reduced severance terms is happening in the UK too.

Re:business as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the obligatory "get over it."

Re:business as usual

[wasteoid]

IBM is simply doing the needful.

IBM Layoffs. Been bad times and union is gone

[Zeio]

I know some folks who currently work at and worked at IBM. It is not "B". It is taking people who put a lot of time in and are very good at their job and not even giving them the opportunity to lose some salary to keep their jobs. I heard a story from one friend who was at IBM where they were excited to be working with a new team to support them in India but then suddenly being laid off with the Indian team taking over their jobs. So its a train-and-dump scheme a lot of the time.

What IBM isn't realizing is that a lot of these folks will be relearning the know how without the benefit of those who were knifed in the back and also that in other cultures being an engineer for 10-20+ years is not the goal, they _all_ want to be in management and gain "rank" rather than experience and technical know how.

Invariably you get a bunch of freshers with no real experience being lead by the bureaucrats. Its really unfortunate to see very smart very talented people be summarily fired after training what are supposed to be supporting teams and engineers. I also bothers me they are not given the opportunity to meet new terms to save their jobs.

What is not realized is in other cultures the competitors often build up a presence near to or sometimes next door to a place like IBM and poach engineers and intellectual property. And given IBM is all about decent (not trollish) intellectual property this is not a long term good strategy to be using scabs to replace true blue engineers.

You can also read some stuff here about the former IBM union http://www.endicottalliance.or... - they were not a strong or unreasonable union but you can get a feel for how many good long term employees are facing the firing squad.

In 1985 IBM had 230,000 employees mostly in the USA. Now its 71,000 in the US or so - and who knows where everyone else is employed, not here.

Re:IBM Layoffs. Been bad times and union is gone

[rtb61]

It is really bad language to say IBM did this and IBM did that, IBM is a fabrication, an economic structure, it does not think, it does not do anything, it is a label and most definitely not a person. So basically a team of psychopaths have colluded to gain control of IBM and are seeking to maximise their short term profits ie bonus by reducing costs and inflating profits margins in the short term, even though, they know full well they are crippling IBM in the long term. They do not care if they bankrupt IBM as long as they make millions personally by doing it. These ass hat bean counter bonus pumping plans all sound good because a whole bunch of information is left out ie all that information associated with medium and long term consequences. Interestingly enough as it collapse so more psychopaths gain control, blaming everyone else for further failure as they seek to personally strip mine the company for anything they can, hmm, much like the US government is currently run. Total disregard for consequences all more money now, more, more, more and not for the company just for the plotters and schemers.

This is how company fail by far the majority of time, every thing is fine for decades with management team after management team cycling through and then blam, they get the psychopath team, one out of the many, just one team once and blam, the board have just put a gun to their head and pulled the trigger, the company goes down. Healthy corporations should mandate psychopath testing for it's executive team existing and new, if they want to survive. Unhealthy corporations, well of course they wont, remove the cancer and the corporation recovers and the cancer is not about to volunteer to self terminate. Psychopath plans might look good on paper but they always blow up in everyones faces because those plans only really ever have one goal making those psychopaths richer and screw everyone else, screw the employees, screw the customers and screw the investors (screw them the hardest they have the most money).

Re:IBM Layoffs. Been bad times and union is gone

[ark1]

Excited to work with an Indian team? Should have been a huge red flag right there.

Re:IBM Layoffs. Been bad times and union is gone

[timholman]

This is how company fail by far the majority of time, every thing is fine for decades with management team after management team cycling through and then blam, they get the psychopath team, one out of the many, just one team once and blam, the board have just put a gun to their head and pulled the trigger, the company goes down.

IBM's decline didn't start with the most current crop of managers. It began a long time ago. I was working for IBM at the Essex Junction fab back in 1990 when John Akers did a corporate-wide broadcast and told everyone, "IBM remains committed to its full employment policy .... unless, of course, the business environment forces us to re-examine it." That was all the clue I needed. By the next year I was out the door and back in graduate school working on my Ph.D. The company-wide layoffs started a few months later.

That was more than 20 years ago. What you're seeing now is just the end game.

Re:IBM Layoffs. Been bad times and union is gone

[supremebob]

IBM never had a real union... just a handful of angry employees who posted flyers in the lunchroom. They made for amusing reading, but they never got any paying members. Most of the younger employees (like myself) were just there for a few years of experience before getting a REAL job, and the older employees were just trying to hang on long enough to reach retirement age before being RA'ed (Resource Actioned, AKA replaced by someone overseas who makes 1/5th of your salary).

I've heard that the remaining members who haven't already been laid off (Because bitching about your employer is a GREAT way to get a good PBC rating, guys!) now have a Facebook page. I wonder if their HR manager gets an e-mail if they're dumb enough to visit it while in the office...

Re:IBM Layoffs. Been bad times and union is gone

[Anonymous Coward]

The turn over rate in an offshore group I worked with was 6 months. That is people would come in, learn the system and 6 months later they are gone and new people need to be retrained.

Trump, you're our only hope

[Sir_Eptishous]

Workers are also reporting work is being moved offshore to Hungary and Brazil.

Donald Trump will wave his magic wand and force all American multinationals to keep jobs in the US.

Re:Trump, you're our only hope

[Tablizer]

Donald Trump will wave his magic wand and...

That "wand" is called "negotiate better trade deals" instead of the lopsided deals we keep ending up with. I don't believe in him for many things, BUT negotiating better trade deals is right up his alley. Put some pressure on other countries to be consumers instead of just exporters. Whoever wins prez hopefully will find a way to leverage his negotiating skills.

Re:Trump, you're our only hope

[gweihir]

Probably with the same type of "success" his "university" had at turning people into successful entrepreneurs: Namely, none for them, but quite a nice bit of cash for Trump. Will be interesting to see whether the US electorate is stupid enough to vote a con-man into office. I fear they may be.

Re:Trump, you're our only hope

[dryeo]

Well it would sure be nice if these trade deals weren't so lopsided in Americas favour. Shit, even if America honoured her treaties things would be much better.
Between illegal tariffs and American companies suing my government due to losing profits from not being able to dump poisons here America has come out ahead, not to mention all the out sourcing that America was happy to accept.
The next treaties are just as bad for everyone else with the insane IP clauses designed to lock in Americas position

Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[bangular]

Why do your friends stay at IBM? This is an honest question. It seems crazy to me to sit around and wait to get laid off. I couldn't imagine getting up every day and wondering if you'd still have a job at the end of the day for years on end.

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[tripleevenfall]

Moreover, TFA describes people getting 90 days of working notice, 30 days of severance, and $2,500 to GTFO.

How would you like for IBM to be your vendor and some of these 90 day people to be working on your project?

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[fluffernutter]

That describes 95% of tech jobs these days. If you are not in such a job, then good on you.

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi - I've worked for IBM for decade and a half, and I can offer you my perspective for why I stay:

1. People can have two different perspectives on their company (IBM, Oracle, VMWare, Google - any company). Some people think of their company as a faceless, monolithic corporation which makes bad decisions and doesn't have your best interest at heart; and that perspective is valid.
Other people think in more immediate terms - when I think of "IBM", I think of 15-30 people around me - co-workers and immediate layers of management - who I know, enjoy, and trust. This perspective is also valid.
If *neither* of those perspectives offers a positive view, then certainly, it's time to go! But time & again, my management has stood up for us in face of market and HQ adversity. Will they always be able to do so? Possibly not. But I trust them to try :)

2. Skillset confidence: I believe I have 'dynamic job security", which means that I have faith that if IBM were to fire me tomorrow, I'd be able to find a job in the market reasonably quickly based on my skills, capabilities, experience, and reputation.
Having such faith, I extend it to my current position: I firmly believe that I am good value and provide good work to the company.
If my management ever believes otherwise - it could be because they're wrong, or it could be that I'm wrong. I keep my skillset current, I look hard to be useful beyond just "doing what I'm told", and generally try to be integral if not indispensable.
But point is, I don't think I'm about to be laid off, and I'm perhaps arrogant enough to believe I would see it coming with reasonable distance.
Did others feel exact same way, just before the hammer dropped? Possibly. Only they can tell, in the heart of their hearts, if they genuinely believed their job was secure and their performance/value sufficient. I certainly believe there are tons and tons of cases where companies do the wrong thing and get rid of people they shouldn't.

3. Fun
I genuinely enjoy what I'm doing, feel productive, and proud of the work and product we're creating. People may disagree (for decades, uncharitably, I've wondered if anybody was _proud_ to be working on MS Windows, for example;), but that's how I feel nontheless.

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[aardvarkjoe]

Why do your friends stay at IBM?

Well, they pay me a decent wage and are located where I want to live.

If (realistically, when) they get around to cutting my job, I'll find something else. But I could lose my job anywhere I go. Why should I lose sleep over it?

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[gweihir]

You could try to hire them. I know of several cases where that happened.

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[luis_a_espinal]

Why do your friends stay at IBM? This is an honest question. It seems crazy to me to sit around and wait to get laid off. I couldn't imagine getting up every day and wondering if you'd still have a job at the end of the day for years on end.

If you play your cards right, and you have enough network connections/have mad skills/are very adaptable and resilient, you can simply work there, earn a reputation via the company's name and get a nice severance package. Those people who are paying attention at the right details, they already have their plans A, B and C all lined up.

In this time and age, you, the generic you, got to have your plan A, B, and C ready to go, with your bug-out bag and all. Then getting laid off becomes simply a financial transaction to your benefit. You time it right and you might even start working somewhere else within weeks (and still enjoy the severance package.)

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[luis_a_espinal]

Why do your friends stay at IBM?

Well, they pay me a decent wage and are located where I want to live.

If (realistically, when) they get around to cutting my job, I'll find something else. But I could lose my job anywhere I go. Why should I lose sleep over it?

Exactly. I've always found that people that loose sleep over things like this aren't worth a damn in this industry.

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at IBM. I will tell you why people stay there, it is because articles like this that pepper slashdot are woefully inaccurate.

The thing people on /. do not understand is how big and sprawling IBM is. If you read through the people complaining in this story, you will see a trend - they are all in global services. Global services is the "outsourcing" arm of IBM - it is a body shop. GBS bids consultants out at the lowest possible dollar - they have to, because if they don't they will be underbid. GBS people are also, for the most part, interchangeable and expendable. GBS does things like call centers, Level 0 and Level 1 support, IT outsourcing. It is *NOT* cream of the crop people. GBS however is not all of IBM - it is just a part.

I work in IBM Security for example IBM security is not laying off people in the US, or anywhere else. In fact we have 1,000 job openings right now. We pay VERY well and are growing like crazy. IBM Security is now the largest enterprise security vendor in the world by revenue - we are larger than Symantec, larger than McAfee, larger than Cisco. But you know what? We're only ~ 10,000 people. That is out of the 350,000+ at IBM.

Think on this for a second and put it into some perspective - the largest enterprise security company in the world is only 2.8% of the IBM workforce.

IBM Security is just one of many very large business units in IBM - there is cloud, commerce, analytics, infrastucture, mobile, data, outsourcing, and Global Services. Every one of these is a multibillion dollar company all by themselves. People who work for IBM range from low level call center employees to software architects to nobel prize winners in physics to airline pilots. IBM is a MASSIVE beast and it is literally impossible to take any singular person's experience and try to extrapolate it across the whole company.

Posting as anon because I don't speak for IBM.

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[technomom]

This.

If you start writing your resume the day you get laid off, you're waaaaaay too late.

You should **always** be looking for your next job. It's just common sense in today's market.

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also profoundly unhealthy. Maybe that's what we should be doing, but there's still every reason to object to it.

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. I became a part of IBM security as a part of an acquisition they made in 2010. The culture that IBM imparted on our team was horrible. Stack ranking, bureaucracy, Bluewash it was all horrible and affected the team morale in a bad way. It's an old stodgy company that is very set in its ways.

Granted there are still many very smart people working for them. But they are also few percentage wise in the vast sea of dummies.

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[0100010001010011]

Onli if that someone that hasn't spent the last 10 years continuing education such they have "faith that if IBM were to fire me tomorrow, I'd be able to find a job in the market reasonably quickly based on my skills, capabilities, experience, and reputation."

Even in tech and engineering jobs quite a few workers always learned the bare minimum because "learning sucks". They learned enough to pass the test in high school. They learned just enough to get their degree. And once they got a job they said "Wheee, I don't ever have to learn again" and somehow thought that they would work the next 45 years doing the exact same thing.

If you are set to retire in 2016 it means you entered the job force in ~1970. C wasn't invented yet. Python wasn't invented yet. There was no such "personal computer" let alone the internet as it exists today. I've found that most people learn the bare minimum to keep their jobs but are never actually proactive in continuing education. "Learning" isn't just something you do until you're 20 and stop for life.

If you have 1000 guys with masters degrees in engineering that only know how to draft by hand and drop them into a 2016 work environment with CAD you end job shortage because the skills they have are no longer useful or in demand. However if you were to ask them why they were getting laid off they would insist they are "Highly skilled" workers and that it's the H1B's stealing their joerbs.

When I was a fresh faced grad I was sympathetic to everyone being replaced. I was terrified that I was going to be replaced by a H1B a year or two into my job. Now a decade out I'm sympathetic to all of those being replaced's coworkers. The ones that have had to work with these guys for the last decade while trying to do more with less dealing with co-workers that refused to learn anything new. Most of these guys are the 21st century equivalent of switch board operators, punch card operators, and human computers. Corporate dead weight that for various reasons were just easier to keep on board than get rid of.

I wish I got a bonus for every time I heard "Nah, I already know ${old lang}. Sure it takes me 5x longer than you to do something in ${lang}, but I don't want to learn something new". If you aren't going into work every single day trying to replace or automate yourself, someone else is. Eventually that is going to catch up to you. It's also something that is not unique to IT. Engineering, medicine, farming, are all progressing with society. If you're someone that insists on doing something the 'old' way, society is ready to leave you behind. The fact that it doesn't take 50% of us out in the field doing manual labor just to eat sort of illustrates that.

And you see both sides of it constantly on Slashdot. In one thread you have a bunch of people wondering why they're being replaced by cheaper, faster labor and in others you have old timers insisting that 4th graders don't need to know Python because they couldn't possibly grasp O(n) problems or do a bubble sort correctly.

What most of these IT guys don't realize is what took a 1990 BS, a 1980s Masters or 1970s PhD to do is now a skilled trade. You can give a highschool student hands on training akin to how electrician and plumbing apprenticeships and have them doing the same work for cheaper, faster and better. The problem in America is we sort of forgot about trades, shoved everyone into college so they're backfilling those positions with Visas. If I was starting a new company I would be hiring 1 PhD. 1 MS, 1 BS and a handful of trainable, intelligent voctech high school students over 20 bachelor degrees, they cost way too much.

I'm early into my career but have already accepted that my eventual replacement hasn't learned to wipe his or her own ass yet. It also means I have a good head start on preparing for the job of 2060. OR, I could keep my mouth shut, not update my resume and maintain my current work for the next 10-15 years and then sit around and bitch that it's somehow someone else's fault that I'm no longer employable.

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for IBM Security and Privacy years ago and they laid off over 125 of us so don't think it can't happen to you.

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[ErichTheRed]

"when I think of "IBM", I think of 15-30 people around me - co-workers and immediate layers of management - who I know, enjoy, and trust. "

^^^ This! I know no one will see this but thought you deserved a reply. Everyone chooses their work environment for different reasons. If people are happy _and_ growing in a workplace, so much the better. Not everyone is a 20-something hipster working for a social media startup and hopping jobs every 6 months for 20% salary increases. I just turned 40 and have 2 little kids -- stability is way more important to me now than when I was 25 and on my own. I feel like I'm in a good spot, even while knowing I'm not being paid top dollar for our local job market.

I work for a medium-sized faceless corporation, but the group of engineers I work with is a refreshing change from the rest of the company, which I freely admit is a mess. We get lots of work done, products built and problems solved even while working within the massive bureaucratic disaster that is the larger company. I imagine it's like this in some of the more interesting arms of IBM (Research, etc.) People who succeed at our location are capable of tuning out the mess and focusing on what we can change. We have gone through more than a few new hires who just can't accept the fact that they won't change the overall culture of the company. What they don't realize is that the company leaves us alone for the most part because we do good work. When this changes, I'll be one of the first to go, but for now life is OK.

The thing that sucks is that a lot of people don't take the time to develop themselves after falling into a safe comfortable spot. I really hate it when I see someone in their mid 50s get tossed out years before retirement age, and know that they're not going to find new work easily because they spent the last 20+ years doing the exact same thing. My goal for the second half of my career is to stay useful. Lots of people advocate climbing the corporate ladder, but that's only good if you're suited for that sort of thing, Plus, lots of your effort gets wasted on navigating that particular company's politics and bureaucracy. That's only useful within that company's structure, and leads to a lot of "lifers" spending more time reading the tea leaves and politicking than doing useful work.

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[luis_a_espinal]

This is only feasible for well socialised extroverts who know how to schmooze well, and whose 'networking' attempts result in people being interested in them rather than alienated. The few remaining jobs will go to them. The other 80% of workers in the industry will have to rely on minimum wage slave jobs or cybercrime.

That might be true, but then, what do you opt for yourself? And, what you call schmoozing, I call it being a normal human being in a social setting.

Re:Why would anyone still want to work at IBM?

[luis_a_espinal]

It's also profoundly unhealthy. Maybe that's what we should be doing, but there's still every reason to object to it.

Why unhealthy? It is unhealthy only if you let it be. We can always opt for the alternative, which is to do nothing and expect karma to benevolently fall from the sky as Nadela suggested.

What I see here in this country is a complete lack of perspective. You have no knowledge of what true poverty is like, what it is like to be born, live and die in a world that will never give you a chance to do anything other than scrape a living of malnourished and illiteracy. What you call unhealthy is a dream for 5 billion people in this world. 3 million alone live with less than $2.50 a day. Can you imagine that?

When you get some perspective like that, you realize what we have is not that unhealthy at all. We are recipient of undeserving wealth and opportunity regardless of whether we have a cushioned 9-5 job till retirement.

single position

[SkunkPussy]

People who have been laid off as part of the elimination of a single position are going to be rather pissed off, as they got shafted.

Then who do you recommend?

[Okian Warrior]

Donald Trump will wave his magic wand and force all American multinationals to keep jobs in the US.

If not Trump, then who do you recommend I vote for?

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[MightyMartian]

Someone who isn't a Nazi

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Okian Warrior]

Someone who isn't a Nazi

Trump isn't a nazi...

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Anonymous Coward]

If not Trump,

Are you fucking kidding me?

Trump is a selfish demagogue. He's held every position on every subject. He gleefully advocates war crimes. He's whipping his supporters into sickening frenzies. Once a mob of racist fucks gets moving it's hard to control them. For fucks sake, he's quoting Mussolini, and pretending not to know who David Duke is. Yet here you are, suggesting he is a sane choice.

Seriously, WTF America?

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[NicknameUnavailable]

Flamebait/10

Re: Then who do you recommend?

[alvinrod]

You can vote for me as I've decided to throw my hat into the ring and I have a great plan to solve the debt crisis. Since I'm just a nobody the odds of me being elected are at least a trillion to one, which means a few wagers on my self should cover a lot of the current US debt.

But here's where my brilliant strategy comes into play. Since it looks to be Trump vs Clinton at this point, it's a battle of which candidate do you hate less. I will legally change my name to Neither (just Neither, no first name) which means I'll likely get a majority of votes in any state where I'm on the ballot. I secure a win and pay off the debt in one fell swoop.

And for my encore, peace in the Middle East. I'm already working on a news letter you can subscribe to.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Okian Warrior]

Neither a Democrat nor a Republican be.

"And to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man."

I'm neither a D nor an R, I advocate voting against the incumbent in almost all cases.

This election I'm making an exception for Trump and Sanders, because both of them are non-mainstream.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Plus1Entropy]

What you say is true, but at least he's not planning to continue the failed policies of the sitting president. He doesn't pander to Planned Murder, the feminists, or the homosexuals. Those are points in his favor. Donald is refreshing precisely because he's a loose cannon. We need a non-establishment man in office.

Sorry, I'm confused... What exactly is "refreshing" about an anti-gay, anti-women, anti-abortion, anti-immigration, pro-war Republican?

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[StevenMaurer]

If not Trump, then who do you recommend I vote for?

A Democratic member of congress and Democratic national senator from your state.

Just FYI, we have a pretty damned good President now who has for five years asked Congress to do basic stuff, like not give tax credits to companies for their exporting American jobs, and instead give those tax credits to companies bringing jobs into the United States. No go from the Republicans. They listen to people like Carly Fiorina.

So stop focusing so much on the presidency. No matter who is President, if we have an old-school Republican congress, American workers, including American IT workers, are going to be screwed.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Pascoea]

I advocate voting against the incumbent in almost all cases

I'm confused. Are you advocating voting against the incumbent because they are doing a bad job, or because you don't think they should be able to have multiple terms?

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[MightyMartian]

Fine, head Brown Shirt then.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Archangel Michael]

Someone who isn't a Nazi

You can't mean "Hillary", can you? I would rather drive a nail through my scrotum than vote for that ____________ (fill in the blank insult)

And if you say, "but at least she isn't as bad as ________" ... she is just as bad, maybe worse in just about every category that actually matters.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Sir_Eptishous]

Donald Trump will wave his magic wand and force all American multinationals to keep jobs in the US.

If not Trump, then who do you recommend I vote for?

Thats a silly question. Its your vote.

My point is, the people who hold Trump up as some kind of populist savior for the working class are deluding themselves on an epic scale.
Trump would not(as Obama has not) stop the flow of jobs to cheaper overseas labor.
Trump would not be able to renegotiate trade deals(NAFTA, etc).
Trump would not build a wall on Mexicos dime.
Trump would not send 10 million illegal immigrants out of the US.

These are delusions meant to impress the easily delusional.

When presidential candidates start telling people exactly what they want to hear in grand, sweeping statements, my bullshit detection system goes off.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[mrchaotica]

Sanders.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Deadstick]

Of course not. He salutes with one thumb, not all five digits.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Curunir_wolf]

Sorry, I'm confused... What exactly is "refreshing" about an anti-gay, anti-women, anti-abortion, anti-immigration, pro-war Republican?

The only accurate label you have included is anti-abortion (and, yet, he is pro-Planned Parenthood). He's running for the Republican nomination, but is hardly a Republican (in fact, not long ago he was a Democrat). In fact, he's simply lighting a match to the tinderbox that the Republican party made themselves into. Let it burn, baby, let it burn!

Now THAT is refreshing!

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Okian Warrior]

I advocate voting against the incumbent in almost all cases

I'm confused. Are you advocating voting against the incumbent because they are doing a bad job, or because you don't think they should be able to have multiple terms?

Both, actually.

Politicians are given a chance to work for the people, and when they don't I vote against them.

In almost all cases this means voting against the incumbent. It's not a D or R thing, although in any one election I advocate for one or the other(*).

This tends to avoid the "no real choice" argument, or the "throw your vote away" argument, or the "lesser of two evils" argument, all of which are inherently flawed.

It also sends a message to the sitting politicians: help the people or you won't get reelected.

Simply vote on the *history* of the politician in question: if they helped, give them another term.

(In 2000 I was pro-Bush, and *boy* was that a bad idea! Then in 2008 I was pro-Obama, and *boy* was that a bad idea! In-between times I was against whoever was sitting at the time. Even though both Romney and Kerry were poor choices, would they have done worse than re-elected Bush or Obama?)

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Curunir_wolf]

If not Trump, then who do you recommend I vote for?

A Democratic member of congress and Democratic national senator from your state.

Just FYI, we have a pretty damned good President now who has for five years asked Congress to do basic stuff, like not give tax credits to companies for their exporting American jobs, and instead give those tax credits to companies bringing jobs into the United States. No go from the Republicans. They listen to people like Carly Fiorina.

So stop focusing so much on the presidency. No matter who is President, if we have an old-school Republican congress, American workers, including American IT workers, are going to be screwed.

I can't tell if you're trolling, or if you really do get all your information from your Facebook friends...

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, WTF America?
 
You may not like hearing this but you're part of the problem. An easy 95% of fucks like you out there like to tell us what's wrong but you don't have an answer or even a clue of what's right. I'm no fan of Trump but the talking heads running around bitching about Trump are the same kind of fear mongering fucktards that they claim to be against.

So tell us, who's your choice. Tell us why. If you can't do that then you're just another whiner who has nothing to offer. Move along.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[reboot246]

Nice flamebait there.

Being against illegal immigration does NOT make one a xenophobe. Methinks you are against Trump because he's a capitalist.

Sanders is still a socialist at his age - that's pretty fucking pathetic. All that time for growing up and he just . . . didn't.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Okian Warrior]

Just FYI, we have a pretty damned good President now who has for five years asked Congress to do basic stuff, like not give tax credits to companies for their exporting American jobs, and instead give those tax credits to companies bringing jobs into the United States.

Holy Christ on a Cracker! Where have you been for the last 8 years?

He flip-flopped on a campaign promise for more campaign money, he ordered the assassination of a US citizen without trial, made the "law" that justified that act secret, ordered his 16-year old son assassinated two weeks later (via drone strike of an outdoor restaurant, killing 8 others), told the justice department not to enforce certain laws, made a completely new law by executive order...

And that last bit, the one giving amnesty to illegal immigrants, would have dropped 2.5 million job-seekers into the workforce overnight!

Obama is every inch as bad or worse than George Bush.

I'll never vote Democratic again!

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Koby77]

Kind of like how Obama opposed free trade and said he wanted to make changes to NAFTA, but then once he got in office we can see how that turned out.

http://www.politifact.com/trut...

And don't get me wrong, this isn't a Republican vs Democrat thing. This is an outsider vs Professional-Politician-Insider-who-is-Bought-and-Paid-For-by-the-Banks thing. You can rely on Hillary, who has made tens of millions of dollars at the behest of the banking cabal, rely on her selling out the most American jobs to overseas operations.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[ADRA]

"would have dropped 2.5 million job-seekers into the workforce overnight"

Wouldn't these grey/illegal migrants already be in the workforce (illegally)? If anything, it hurts scumbag employers unable to exploit those that have no other options.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Anonymous Coward]

>A Democratic member of congress and Democratic national senator from your state.

Hilarious. Ha Ha.

http://www.senate.gov/legislat...

Senate vote on the immigration reform bill of 2013. (s.744) Lot of changes but its ultimate purpose was to raise the cap on H-1B and L-1 workers (It didn't pass the Republican controlled House)
This bill was heavily lobbied for by Zuckies FWD.us group; a lobby organization made up of tech companies including Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, etc. Passed 68-32, but nays are all Republicans. Of course, afterwards Obama, in his usual dictatorial way, signed an executive order which prevented the deportation of 4 million visa workers by issuing a permits for them, effectively bypassing the will of the people.

Destroying the American tech workforce with visa'd worker is largely a Democratic support effort. Of course, Clinton support H-1B, as well as Cruz, Rubio, and the workers hero: Bernie Sanders.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[gweihir]

He is just a very good con-man. He will say whatever gets him votes. Of course, after he has your cash, I mean vote, he will take it and run. Not that actually making good on his promises would be too much trouble, the problem is he has never even thought about doing that, so he cannot. But expect grandstanding and great gestures to no positive effect at all while he is in office.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Bing Tsher E]

The flames will and are spreading to the Democratic party. It's all really just one big amalgam anyway.

Burn, baby, burn.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[chthon]

So Trump is more like Mussolini, then?

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[gweihir]

No. Nazis are true believers in their cause. Trump believes in nothing but himself.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[AmiMoJo]

Yeah, but in the scheme of things his predecessor started multiple illegal wars, imprisoned people without charge or trial indefinitely... Obama is a saint in comparison, even if he has murdered people.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Plus1Entropy]

I was responding to the statements made by the AC, not necessarily to Trump's own views. Either way, are you fucking kidding about not being anti-immigration? Or pro-war? Maybe it would have been more accurate to say he's pro-war crime?

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Plus1Entropy]

Hey, I should run for President! Plus1Entropy 2016!

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[AmiMoJo]

./ for entertainment, SoylentNews for intelligent discussion.
--- Curunir the Crackpot

Okay, you are *definitely* trolling.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Curunir_wolf]

I was responding to the statements made by the AC, not necessarily to Trump's own views. Either way, are you fucking kidding about not being anti-immigration? Or pro-war? Maybe it would have been more accurate to say he's pro-war crime?

Well he's certainly anti- illegal immigration. But he is pro-immigration for "good guys", and wants better screening to keep out radical islamist terrorists. I'm real anti-war, but I don't see anything pro-war in what he actually says. Clinton is WAY more pro-war than trump, and so is Rubio. He makes a lot of off-the-cuff remarks, and the media always uses the worst snippits to "discuss". But when he talks in-depth about stuff his position seems pretty reasonable. Especially compared to where the others actually stand. My favorite in this cycle is Ben Carson, even though he's actually more pro-war than Trump, I like him on everything else. But, he's not doing very well.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Gryle]

I've read some speculation that Trump is running a false-flag campaign to keep the Republicans from mounting any real centrist opposition to Clinton. I'm not convinced, but it's an interesting idea to ponder.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[Anonymous Coward]

He even supports that they receive the same pay level as the American workers that they replace

Which would mean presumably that companies would have *no* incentive to replace American workers with H1Bs just to save money, i.e. this policy would weed out all the 'bogus' H1Bs - a good thing surely?

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[MightyMartian]

It's only a Godwin if the person in question isn't a Nazi. Trump is a racist xenophobe and a fascist, and if you support him, so are you.

Re:Then who do you recommend?

[wyHunter]

Such as Mrs. Clinton.

Awkward

[A10Mechanic]

So, the banner ad at the top of Slashdot is an ad for IBM, with Princess Leia. Awkward.

Re:Awkward

[phantomfive]

Should have taken a screenshot :(

Re:Awkward

[antdude]

Why aren't you using an ad blocker? :P

Trump vs the clean slate

[Okian Warrior]

If not Trump,

Are you fucking kidding me?

Trump is a selfish demagogue. He's held every position on every subject. He gleefully advocates war crimes. He's whipping his supporters into sickening frenzies. Once a mob of racist fucks gets moving it's hard to control them. For fucks sake, he's quoting Mussolini, and pretending not to know who David Duke is. Yet here you are, suggesting he is a sane choice.

Seriously, WTF America?

True, all true.

When you compare Trump to a blank slate, the blank slate will win every time.

The blank slate has never advocated war crimes, never flip-flopped on an issue, and never done anything dishonourable or ill-conceived.

If the blank slate were running for president, I'd vote for it!

Now answer my question: Who do you recommend I vote for?

Re:Trump vs the clean slate

[imgod2u]

Far as I can tell so far, Hillary Clinton stands for nothing (that isn't popular by the polls). That's pretty blank slate if you ask me.

Re:Trump vs the clean slate

[shawn2772]

Now answer my question: Who do you recommend I vote for?

In the primaries? Republican or Democrat? If Republican, I recommend Rubio. If Democrat, I recommend Bernie.

In the generals? If Trump gets the nomination, vote Democrat. Early and often. Even if you're a Republican. Maybe especially if you're a Republican.

Re:Trump vs the clean slate

[twmcneil]

Ha, ha, ha! You said "flip-flopped". How 2008 of you!

Really! Today, our candidates for President call each other "Pussies".

C'mon, nut up bro, get with times.

Re:Trump vs the clean slate

[AmiMoJo]

It comes down to a choice between Clinton and Trump. Trump definitely doesn't give a fuck about you. He uses immigrant labour to build his empire, and will definitely screw you over. So that leaves Clinton.

Yeah, she flip-flopped, she had that dodgy email server etc. But she's not as bad a Trump. She will at least lube you up before screwing you. So given two shit choices, she is the lesser evil.

The other thing to consider is the issue of the next SCOTUS appointment. Obama might be blocked, and if that happens it will be the next president who gets to pick. You don't want someone picked by the GoP to be an agent of big business, working against you. Of course you can't trust the Democrats not to appoint someone like that either, but at least there is a chance they won't pick a complete asshat.

Don't vote for Hitler just because you are disaffected and all politicians lie.

Re:Trump vs the clean slate

[wyHunter]

No. HIlary stands for corruption, war crimes, destruction of reputations of innocent people's reputations, and overall sleaze.

Re:Trump vs the clean slate

[wyHunter]

What you say about Trump is true. What you say about Trump is ALSO TRUE ABOUT CLINTON. You are an idiot.

Re:Trump vs the clean slate

[houghi]

Who do you recommend I vote for?

http://isidewith.com
Now, that was easy. Yet people still vote with emaotion, not reason. Most I hear is 'I will not vote for X, because he is the wrong party' and that in a country where there are pultiple parties and not just 2.

I want to work with humans....

[e**(i pi)-1]

I'm a cognitive system. I want to work with humans to outthink challenges ...

International business machines isn't lying

[turkeydance]

4.4% of world population is US. IBM will match that with their US employment figure.

In other news, they have American employees left

[Salo2112]

I am an IBM customer, and I am trying to remember the last time I spoke to an American on the phone when calling IBM. Outside of the on-site technicians who physically replace broken parts, I was unaware IBM had American employees, and I figured it was only a matter of time before even they were H-1B-ed out of a job.

Economy

[fluffernutter]

Good thing the economy is so healthy! People should have no trouble finding positions at equal pay. Furthermore, I expect a suspension of the H1B program until all these people are employed again.

Not so Big, but definitely Blue

[rmdingler]

It's a great question, but you have failed to put your self in the shoes of some of these longtime employees.

An Uncle of mine owns a paid for house in Nashua, NH and has worked for IBM near there for decades. Some folks are just going to settle where they are, and where they are doesn't offer a a f*ck ton of alternative employment opportunities.

It really just depends on where you are in your career, I suppose.

Re:Not so Big, but definitely Blue

[fluffernutter]

I'm very surprised no one has answered with the usual rhetoric that we should bow down to our corporate overlords and move to some city where our mortgage is double and we live three times further away from work; practically abandoning any family quality time in the process.

Re:Not so Big, but definitely Blue

[rmdingler]

I agree with the statement that

family quality time

and a successful career are often at odds with one another.

Don't forget to ask yourself this before you decide each option's weighted value:

When you are finally dying of something money cannot fix, will you ask for your collected gold and silver to be sent to your bedside?

Re:Not so Big, but definitely Blue

[fluffernutter]

Without a family to nurture with the salary coming from the work, I really don't see a point of a salary.

Re:Not so Big, but definitely Blue

[Anonymous Coward]

The ugly truth is that without gold and silver there is no family.

For all the lip service given to work-life balance, money is still the number one cause for divorce by a large margin, and even the most naive are aware that their future marital bliss is on shaky ground with a 30% pay cut. Everyone else can read the handwriting on the wall and grind away at jobs with the delusion that they are something more than a pack mule. The reality is far less appealing.

Re:Not so Big, but definitely Blue

[rmdingler]

It sounds like an no-brainer to pick loved ones over wealth, especially considering the question's phrasing.

We are then forced to consider what forces might be in play that make so many of us apparently opt for the other selection.

One possible explanation is found in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which places Safety ahead of Love/belonging in his well known pyramid.

Re:Not so Big, but definitely Blue

[ErichTheRed]

"An Uncle of mine owns a paid for house in Nashua, NH and has worked for IBM near there for decades."

I remember reading somewhere that IBM's former strategy during the golden years was to put their engineering and manufacturing operations somewhere removed from the big cities, but not too far removed. The idea was that they would be insulated from some of the worst of the HQ politics while still being within a short flight or drive of one of the major installations. Nashua's a good example, Burlington, VT and Rochester, MN are other good ones. It was kind of a "nearshoring" program because they would be able to hire educated engineers who would be able to afford a house and make a good living on less than they would have to pay in NYC/Westchester County.

That said, the term "company town" comes to mind. Binghamton's not doing so well these days, not sure how many System i customers are being supported by Rochester residents, and the Burlington chip fab was sold off to GlobalFoundaries along with their other fabs. The problem is that when the good jobs from one or a couple of employers dries up, there has to be something there to take their place.

Re:Not so Big, but definitely Blue

[rmdingler]

I cannot attest to the quality of the jobs, but Burlington, Vermont has made the list of top ten lowest municipal unemployment (nationwide) a few times recently.

Re:Not so Big, but definitely Blue

[khallow]

It's worth noting that wealth can help with many of those needs (all the way to the top), not just safety.

Re:Not so Big, but definitely Blue

[khallow]

You have some peculiar fallacies in play here. First, just because wealth isn't useful in accomplishing a sliver of the higher level needs, doesn't mean that it isn't helpful at all. For example, a fulfilling job can help with the need to belong and esteem. Some wealth is often required in order to have the tools or infrastructure to support that job. Or an education, which again requires wealth to some degree, can contribute to esteem and self-actualizing.

Second, just because wealth can be misused to fail to fulfill a higher level need, doesn't mean that it can't be well used to fulfill that higher level need. It's like claiming we can't use a hammer for its proper use on nails because someone hits people with one.

Re:Not so Big, but definitely Blue

[khallow]

Except I didn't say wealth isn't helpful at all. My first post said wealth helps MOSTLY in the first two layers.

And then you proceed to say absolutely nothing about how wealth would help in the higher levels of the hierarchy and plenty about how it doesn't help, several times in absolute terms such as your very first sentence "No, not all the way to the top." Or later on, "Wealth also doesn't help with esteem." Or "Then finally there's self actualization, which includes things like morality and creativity. Wealth again doesn't help here." What am I misreading here?

Then there's my original quote:

It's worth noting that wealth can help with many of those needs (all the way to the top), not just safety.

I already allow for things that can't be acquired with wealth ("can help" is not a particularly absolute claim, right?). What's the point of telling me that money can't buy love (and the other stuff)? Who hasn't heard those cliches by now?

Just look at the quote way back when that kicked off my original reply:

When you are finally dying of something money cannot fix, will you ask for your collected gold and silver to be sent to your bedside?

It's not ancient Egypt any more. Not only do we realize that we can't take it with us, but we for the most part no longer measure wealth in terms of gold and silver (for example, all the gold ever mined is roughly 140k metric tons which at $40.80 per gram, is roughly $6 trillion, perhaps 1-2% of durable assets and capital in the world today). Why ask a tone-deaf rhetorical question that is so far out of whack with our modern era?

Didn't you know, you have a 'recovery'.

[roman_mir]

Didn't you know, don't you listen to your POTUS? You have a recovery, didn't you know? You have 'low unemployment', didn't you know? Your economy is the best, first in the world, didn't you know?

The hundreds of trillions of dollars in debt ... don't exist.
The structural problems with the economy due to massive central planning, government regulation, money manipulation ... don't exist.

Re:Didn't you know, you have a 'recovery'.

[dgatwood]

You sound like Sarah Palin, don'tcha know.

Re:Im not big on unions but...

[Rockoon]

Im not big on unions but, this sort of behaviour is exactly why workers need unions.

During layoffs, only the most senior employees need a union.

Thank you!

[Okian Warrior]

http://www.senate.gov/legislat...

Senate vote on the immigration reform bill of 2013. (s.744) Lot of changes but its ultimate purpose was to raise the cap on H-1B and L-1 workers (It didn't pass the Republican controlled House)
This bill was heavily lobbied for by Zuckies FWD.us group; a lobby organization made up of tech companies including Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, etc. Passed 68-32, but nays are all Republicans. Of course, afterwards Obama, in his usual dictatorial way, signed an executive order which prevented the deportation of 4 million visa workers by issuing a permits for them, effectively bypassing the will of the people.

Destroying the American tech workforce with visa'd worker is largely a Democratic support effort. Of course, Clinton support H-1B, as well as Cruz, Rubio, and the workers hero: Bernie Sanders.

Thank you!

That was the roll call I've been trying to find off-and-on for the last several months, it's the smoking gun.

Neither the Democrats *nor* the Republicans work to the benefit of the people.

For even *more* H1-Bs?

[Okian Warrior]

Sanders.

Bernie Sanders voted to increase H1-B visas.

Advocating Sanders to people who were (just now) replaced by outsourcing is a bit disingenuous, don't you think?

Re:For even *more* H1-Bs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see anything in that act directly relating to H1-Bs. The only language I see about employment visas is either agricultural or about paths to citizenship through them. Neither of those would relate to outsourcing.

But what about STEM

[Dcnjoe60]

IBM is laying off 1/3 of it's workforce at the time kids are told to pursue education for careers in STEM. Seems one of those things is incorrect.

Re:But what about STEM

[technomom]

Other than one guy who got quoted in IEEE Spectrum, where's the evidence that 1/3 of IBM's workforce is being let go?

Re:But what about STEM

[TroII]

No, those two things complement each other perfectly. In a few years time the American labor market will be so flooded with IT professionals, we'll be even cheaper than the Indians. The companies will bring the jobs back onshore and we'll be the ones competing for the opportunity to work for $100 a week.

Re:But what about STEM

[0100010001010011]

STEM careers of 2020 aren't STEM careers of 1990?

Sounds like IBM is culling dead weight.

Re:But what about STEM

[Sir Holo]

IBM is laying off 1/3 of it's workforce at the time kids are told to pursue education for careers in STEM. Seems one of those things is incorrect.

Precisely. All of this talk of a great need for more STEM education is just a way to depress the wages for the upcoming flood of new engineers, scientists, and so on.

BTW, a lot of industry 'Trade Groups' are always beating this drum. Same purpose. Sure, students can be members for $15 or whatever, but the big money for (some trade groups & professional societies) comes from the companies looking to keep the market saturated with fresh-outs.

Cheaper workforce!

Well you're sorta right

[rsilvergun]

now remove the visionary and replace it with a tonne of gov't funded research. Mix in the occasional accident like the internet and you're back on track.

Oh, and it's not about screwing the customer. It's about buying _everything_. We let a small group of folks (dubbed the 1%) pretty much own everything. Like parasites they suck 30-40% off the world GDP. God only knows why, with a world full of so many democracies, we allow this...

Um... what decline?

[rsilvergun]

they're stock price is over $130. They're doing just fine. Turning themselves into an H1-B and Indian offshore farm has been wildly profitable.

They're not there to provide you with a good, meaningful living. They're there for the shareholders. If you want jobs either start a company yourself or ask Washington to protect you from the global race to the bottom. Don't have the capital to spin up a new business? Tough. There's plenty of gutters to die in.

Re:Um... what decline?

[timholman]

They're not there to provide you with a good, meaningful living. They're there for the shareholders. If you want jobs either start a company yourself or ask Washington to protect you from the global race to the bottom.

Or ... go back to school, earn a Ph.D., and start a new career .... which is exactly what I did.

IBM never owed me a living, and I never owed IBM my loyalty. I moved on when I saw what was coming. But my point is that what's happening at IBM right now has been a long, long time in the making.

Re:Um... what decline?

[rtb61]

I was pretty clear about short term profits and bonus's with long term failure. Yeah they money looks wonderful right now back if you invest in them and fail to divest when they are at their peak, than kaboom, yeah you will end in the gutter with what is left of the staff as they collapse. It is just the nature of modern corporate capitalism. There is no morality, no future, just more money now by the executive team and the will hugely, grossly attempt to over inflate profit margins to pump up their bonus and boom, collapse there in after. Suck it up, it always eventually happens corporations, eventually because the board does not test for it, get loaded up with psychopaths and boom, the psychopaths wander off with golden parachutes and the company collapses, not once but every single time.

Or he could just, you know, use Tarrifs

[rsilvergun]

they worked for hundreds of years, and they're still working in China. But hey, he put the dog whistle down and said what the Republican base _really_ means when they're talking about minorities, so let's just discount everything the guy ever said. I'm sure Mark Rubio'll take good care of you when he's in office.

Um, he's not even close

[rsilvergun]

for one thing, he didn't let a city drown. He also didn't get us involved in Iran and calmed that shit the heck down. You want to put a stop the the drone strikes and murders? Stop sending right wing wack jobs to your State Legislatures and the National House and Senate. Give the man something to bloody work with. Given the fucked up state of our country right now he's doing what he can. He's made some terrible mistakes, but Jesus, what the hell do you do with the loon balls he's working with every day?

Re:Um, he's not even close

[wyHunter]

Um, the current extremely left wing President has done more drone strikes than the previous right wing President.

Re:In other news, they have American employees lef

[Bing Tsher E]

My father worked for IBM for 30 years, starting in 1956. But the 'I' in IBM has stood for 'International' for much longer than that.

Re:Typical for hired-gun CEO and board

[turbidostato]

"morons with MBA degrees but no clues about products try to build themselves golden parachutes..."

Are you implying they fail at building those golden parachutes for themselves? If not, maybe "moron" is not the adjective that best fits them, after all.

It's a dupe!

[kamapuaa]

I remember this exact same post from the same time last year!

Re:It's a dupe!

[Neo-Rio-101]

Well that's great. Good to know it's a yearly thing.

Perhaps you can get hired by them again - or maybe another company like HPE, then get made redundant and take a package.... then get rehired after a year back at IBM, then get made redundant again and take a package.

Currently, my "career" seems to be collecting varied forced redundancy payouts... much like the above.... which, when all is said and done,.... is not bad at all!

Re:Abolish H1B in its current form

[technomom]

......which, of course, won't do much for IBMers.

That "I" in IBM stands for International. They've been an International company for about 100 years now. H1Bs are only a part of their employee base. Instead, they simply hire people to work from their own home country in one of the many international research and development labs they have strewn about the planet.

IBM can always move their HQ out of the USA if things get too hot here.

Hollow

[h8sg8s]

IBM management hollowed out IBM to boost their compensation and share price at the cost of customer satisfaction, employee stability and ultimately, sales. R.I.P. Another corporate suicide.

Re:In other news, they have American employees lef

[Sir Holo]

I am an IBM customer ...

I hope you are not paying for Lotus Notes. Wow, did they ever turn that into a steaming pile.

Off-topic: My former employer's C-levels ordered a study to find the cost of migrating off of Lotus Notes. Their conclusion? "It would be too expensive to migrate."

They actually put it writing! I expect that IBM noticed this, and raised the subscription fee substantially at the first opportunity.

Re:Stock market LIKES this

[Sir Holo]

Market is generally down today; IBM is up

For how long?

After their next quarterly report, with the corresponding share-price spike, I will be shorting IBM as a long-term wedge of my investment pie.

Pocket personality?

[rmdingler]

When I was a younger man, I used to frequent a hole-in-the-wall, after work, beer joint with a jukebox and a couple of pool tables... (To be fair, I was friends with the jukebox and one of the pool tables since childhood).

There was an older gentleman who always sat at the bar. He received what can jealously be reported as more than his fair share of attention from the lasses. He was always pleasant, confident, and great company. Irrationally happy, if you will.

I asked him what the secret was one day. He winked and told me to always keep a little jingle in your pocket.