This forum is a literal cesspool of the same 3-5 posters who post the same unrelated trash over and over again. IBM is not a amazing company and has a lot of faults, especially with age discrimination being a big one. but some of you are so bitter and crazy. you are all stuck in your same echo chamber, looking for the next thing to hate whether that be millennials or just now for example, Indians. It's not an IBM problem at this point, it's a you problem. you should just LEAVE if you're THIS miserable. it seems like half of you aren't even making an effort to get out or at least quit. IBM isn't holding a gun to your head telling you to stay.
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Grow up people. The topic here is layoffs, often the worst experience in someone's life. Do you really expect a layoff forum to be lilies and unicorns?
Except that "...sometimes vent" is the norm. Ruins it for everyone else just lookin for info.
"Using this layoff forum to vent is unacceptable. This isn't an AOL chat room."
Hahaha. Wow .... AOL? This has to be a wind up.
Unacceptable to whom? Thousands of forums here, all considered workers come here to check the news and rumors and sometimes vent. Mods let them as long as they respect the site rules.
Using this layoff forum to vent is unacceptable. This isn't an AOL chat room.
Don't believe this liar. There are hundreds of posters to this forum and I know many of them. Many have left and many stay for their own reasons. I respect both decisions.
One of the reasons that people post here is so the truth will be told. IBM and people like 10WQviid aka "cesspool" love to distort the truth.
Liars don't want the truth to be told.
@4xzx - "..........there are plenty of places where IBM is the only tech show in town........" Unfortunately, this arrogant, outmoded perception lies at the heart of IBM's problem and is one of the reasons their cloud solution is years behind the top players. Furthermore, such "IBM shops" are diminishing exponentially, compounded by a lack of truly innovative solutions/services thanks to a diversion of R&D cash to stock buy-backs (not forgetting the bloated salaries and bonuses to the lucky few).
- 8olu "Lets put smart to work !"
First all of the IBM cheerleaders and spin doctors found Fishbowl. Looks like they’ve found this forum now too. It’s been nice knowing you guys. Not sure where I’ll find out what actually goes on in the company anymore, because I sure won’t get a straight story from my management.
A literal cesspool? Literally?
Figuratively.
Truly.
Honestly.
Sadly.
Really.
A literal cesspool? Literally?
@4xzx nails it...
IBM chopped 100,000 people who then told another 100,000 people about how horrible IBM has become. The 100,000 talking heads has turned into millions, wake up, IBM is truly that bad and Waton is rolling in the grave.
I worked for IBM in the Nineties, and I occasionally read this forum out of curiosity, just to see where the company went. It was pretty horrible during the Lou Gerstner era, and it sounds like everything has gotten worse. B–ching is a normal, healthy reaction to corporate cruelty, and IBM is a particularly rich target because there was a time when it was reputed to be the greatest company in the world for employees. It now seems to be an industry leader in thinking of new ways to screw people over. If you don't want to read complaints, maybe don't read a forum devoted to people complaining about layoffs. And one other thing - it may be easy to find a new job in Silicon Valley, but there are plenty of places where IBM is the only tech show in town, and people who own houses and have kids in school may not be ready to pack their bags and move across the country to work for some startup.
I agree, people should just quit. Nothing is going to change, and all the criticisms are very valid.
I left. So should everyone else with marketable skills..get out before the stink sticks,
First time poster:
The OP doesn't seem to understand that IBM is in trouble due to problems described on this site. Incompetent executives are hurting all of us. Older workers are obvious targets but no one is really safe.
IBM is too big to fail so long as it keeps paying a dividend. The Red Hat acquisition may change things. IBM may implode faster than anyone expects. RAs remains the best way to protect IBM's essential dividend.
To Post ID: @10WQviid. This forum servers a couple purposes. First it notifies those still within IBM what may be happening; which is a good thing. The second is a little venting; which is to be expected considering losing ones job is a life changing event. To your point ... yes if people are complaining and not looking for gainful employment elsewhere that's their fault. Why anyone isn't looking ... no matter what band level they are ... is beyond me. The bigger issue for this former IBMer, who found a wonderful position four years ago is how this age "discrimination story" is going to unfold. You can't ignore what they've been doing on that front and moving work to India and elsewhere. Age discrimination my friend is the big cancer in the room and IBM isn't the only culprit. It's going to take a big company to get nailed on this. Once again age discrimination is against the law.
Glad the GBS fan boy has disappeared too.
Always mentioning that GBS had a 1% pimple of revenue growth the last qtr so their jobs are safe.
Newsflash: you were wrong
I find the info here helpful. There was one poster some time ago that would keep rattling on about "Bain mgmt consultants", but he or she seems to have disappeared now. Sure you might not agree with a comment or point of view, but thats the spirit of a discussion thread. Some of the comments are pretty damm funny too.
It's a consequence of any on-line type form and no different to the hundreds of fake positive Glassdoor reviews that IBM PR/marketing are constantly posting to offset the ever increasing negative press. They're easy to spot - invariably "Recommends", "Positive Outlook" and "Approves of CEO", a generic list of vague 'pros' then some innocuous "cons" just to make them look more authentic.
I don’t know about that. Much of what I read here is from people who have left. Now they want to spread the word about how awful this company is, get out while you can and so forth. Seems reasonable.
If you don't believe the stories you read here, just wait a while. You will be next.
I don't know about posters. It is likely the same handful of people who downvote...
Just wondering how do you know it is the same posters?
He used Watson Analytics™ with its industry leading neural classification engine that beats a random number generator 50% of the time!
If IBM is so wonderful, why are you here?
It is not the same posters. Just he same stories over and over.
Does that make the stories true? Gotta wonder.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me countless times, shame on you IBM.
Yes some people go too far and say things that are nasty and irrelevant. But other information here is helpful for people who wonder when RAs happen. So I just skip the nonsense and take the good information. If OP can't do that feel free to stop reading this page.
For some folks waiting is a better play (if you are close to the end of your career). For others hopping makes far more sense as the industry is changing. IBM is in transition, and they have failed to lay out to their employees where they want to land, and that is causing a lot of consternation. IBM’s problem as I see it, is they make a pile of money from legacy so they need older folks to stick around. They see Redhat/LINUX as the future, but it’s not providing the margins they would like so they have to pay less. Blending the two models to support both go to market strategies is approx 180 degrees out of phase with each other, so a lot of folks have zero idea what the future holds
@jwe so basically, what i can see is that you are all going to keep on complaining and indirectly supporting IBM by continuing to work there instead of actually taking initiative and leaving. Got it.
Just wondering how do you know it is the same posters? Not disputing, just wondering how one would determine that.
Nah, people should drain every last drop out of the IBM payroll. You're smoking the blue bud I think.