Bankers can prop up the numbers, buyers beware:
"SAS's declining ability to compete in the analytics market; inability to attract and retain talent; flawed product strategy in relation to Viya; countless examples of bad decision making at the most strategic levels
It all adds up, and paints a picture of an organisation facing a precipitous and accelerating decline. And whether it's an IPO, a private sale, or something else, a day of reckoning will come before long."
21 replies (most recent on top)
BH came about due to an acquisition. Both BH and JP are capable of running hot dog stands.
Wait, are you saying that BH is a love child?
"At SAS, we're family!"
"My most important assets drive out the front gate each night..." (and employees thought he meant them.)
Hidden in plain sight?
None of us are here to watch your misery. We each have our own.
Folks who left SAS voluntarily are lucky. But there is pain in watching the decline of a once-great company where you worked hard. You regret wasting your career under poor management, and you worry about the friends you left behind.
Folks who remain at SAS live under uncertainty. That’s terribly stressful. You know that the axe will fall — but you don’t know whether or when it will fall on you.
Folks laid off are in the worst position, especially those in their fifties. The tech job market is tight, and it rewards youth, not experience. Being laid off, when you have kids and a mortgage and need SAS health insurance — that’s the worst pain of all.
It can be therapeutic to vent, or “whine”, in a community of others who’ve shared a painful experience. Some people also post helpful advice on this forum. We should all recognize that we’re coming at this from different places, and try to help each other.
this is the best oddball theory I've ever read/heard. truth is stranger than fiction, but it would make so much twisted sense.
I will forever believe that one of JG's off-the-books progeny is running a high-level organization at SAS. From my experience, and in my opinion, they are not qualified to run a hot dog stand. But yet there they are, acting as a highly paid pass-down mechanism for specific leaders. Could it be a Corporate Conservatorship for an odd child?
It's good work if you can get it. Shorter hours, loads of vacations each year, and everyone thinks you are "so nice!". But once you come to see and believe this about how the organization operates, how do you stay motivated? How do you take the organization seriously?
You don't. Unless you are one of their hand-picked direct reports, you realize that the joke is on you.
It didn't help that SAS had this thing of promoting incompetent people to manager positions. My experience in Customer Intelligence was eye opening. I saw so many bad middle managers making terrible decisions and then try to pass blame on the rank and file. The software was bloated and unnecessarily complex especially the event modeling code. Eventually the department head ran away from the mess and they struggle to get anyone to lead over there now.
@2quj+1rA6BOM0 You say misery I say whining.
As I said previously I came here for more pure reasons. But you can’t be here without drowning in all the whining. So you are all drenched.
Give me some downvotes…. But you know it has a whiff of truth.
So, admittedly, you’re here to soak in the misery of others.
I had a mix of your experiences.
Over 25+ years, I lived through many mind-boggling decisions by middle-to-upper management. I tried to dodge them, moving about the company, sometimes from the frying pan into the fire.
Several years ago, bad decisions began once again to directly affect my project and my friends. Our project became an embarrassment, the sort of work you didn’t want your name on. And I never saw people treated as inhumanely as my friends were.
The decisions were so bad, so irrational, to no one’s benefit — not even the people who made them. Another poster called SAS “a colossal mind-fu-k” and that term describes my experience.
I left without a VBRP. I obtained a better job and better mental health.
Many of the folks spoken of in your final sentence did more to build SAS and create its historical revenue stream (the part still paying salaries) than virtually any shorter term employee at SAS today.
Many long term “SAS veterans” continue contributing to keeping significant parts of that revenue stream rolling on. Among those folks, SAS can find who is ready to go out by simply offering another VRBP round. I suspect the uncomfortableness and uncertainty of SAS’ current situation would motivate many eligible participants to take it — while others continue to play a “longer game” knowing they can extend their SAS employment a while before ultimately receive decent severance based on their many years-to-decades of service.
No one should be blamed for acting in their own self interest. Corporations traffic in doing so.
Signed,
Former long-term SAS employee who spent years frustrated with observed mediocrity/lethargy and ultimately left on my own terms apart from a package.
During the latter part of my 35+ years at SAS (I took a VRBP), I can recall many, many times when I struggled to maintain a positive outlook regarding the company’s prospects after yet another mind-boggling decision by middle-to-upper management. It was one such decision, with direct (and fatal) ramifications for one of my products, that bumped me off the VRBP fence to the “accept” side.
A lot of people commenting here already left and are explaining some of the organizational failures, not complaining about individual job woes. But don’t worry. Everything is clearly fine as far as you know. #saslife
I literally said “good folks”. By good I meant good at their jobs.
Sure there is dead weight that is happy to collect a paycheck. But I’d still rather see you miserable complainers go first. I don’t care how good you are or aren’t. The negativity is a cancer.
But the whiners won’t leave voluntarily no matter how miserable the seem to be. All talk no action.
If the whiners were any good they would have left by now or perhaps they just enjoy being a cancer.
"If you hate it so much the do everyone a favor and have the courage of your convictions.
Leave and lower the headcount. If all you miserable people do it then maybe you’ll save those of us who want to be there the misery of being laid off.
It makes me crazy thinking some of you still work here while some good folks who want to be there have been sacrificed…"
Yeah no - a lot of the "good folks who want to be there" are the ones that need to go first but are likely the last ones to leave... they are happy with their mediocre salary and 35 hour work week.
Bring on the voluntary layoffs/packages and "free" the unhappy remainers!
@wuz+1rA6BOM0 Exactly.
If you hate it so much the do everyone a favor and have the courage of your convictions.
Leave and lower the headcount. If all you miserable people do it then maybe you’ll save those of us who want to be there the misery of being laid off.
It makes me crazy thinking some of you still work here while some good folks who want to be there have been sacrificed…
Yikes! I hope you don't currently work here. If that's your opinion and you are currently on staff, you are bringing that negative energy with you into work. Who wants to be around that? Go work somewhere that makes YOU happy and/or have a more positive outlook.
Whoever said it, is absolutely on the money.
Citation…. John Doom-N-Gloom circa 3/17/2024
Trust him.
Citation?