Fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the future of the company is having visible and palpable effects on morale. It might not be obvious to upper management but the lack of information regarding the IPO/sale is a huge drain on energy and motivation. More and more, the collective angst and depression is discussed openly. And, no, the AMA didn’t help.
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A couple of former SAS instructors teach at WakeTech.
"The Education division I remember"
How many people remain in Education?
"Quality doesn’t matter just quantity. How many videos, blog posts, etc., can you churn out?"
Are "GEL" and the EDU division the same thing? Never heard of "GEL". The Education division I remember under SO'B maintained a high quality standard. All analytics instructors were PhDs, or MS with former consulting backgrounds. Programming instructors were top notch. Quality was never in question
"The salad days are gone SAShole blah blah blah"
Just chillax, all that bitterness is extremely unhealthy for you!
"video or virtual training accomplishes the same goals without the expense of travel and hotel stays."
EDU sales way down and EDU staff being laid off can only mean that failure is not an "accomplishment".
@asnl+1tokM4EP
Thank you. You get the gist of the original Community College comment.
WakeTech has a Business Analytics program. There are 4 or 5 core courses that use SAS Studio as the programming base. A course is roughly $500 per semester. Completing the series represents an investment of 16 - 20 months, plus $2000 - $2500 in tuition. All in SAS Studio, learning SAS syntax.
Is this a good use of time and money? Is practice in SAS Studio and learning the SAS syntax, a transferable skill? I argue that it is not. In my opinion, if they substituted Python, R, and Tableau for SAS Studio, then it would be a transferable skill and a good use of time and money. Students needs some level of sophistication to see and understand this, otherwise, they are making an unwise investment.
my kids went to 4 year schools, but took some community college classes to get some general credits. also helpful during the pandemic. all kinds of people take those classes. if we had to generalize, the common thread is there are many kinds of people who do not know what the trends are in analytics and data science and technology whatsoever, but thought this topic sounds good, wanted to learn, so signed up for the class. most people do not already know everything about everything, and some of them want to learn something new. to the extent that demand still exists, the community college and some teacher should want to offer the class. but that demand is altogether different in nature than the declining corporate demand and budget for training on "legacy" languages.
“Community College serves many sectors, but mainly it is unsophisticated folks or first generation Americans who lack resources.”
There maybe other reasons why people choose community colleges vs universities.
They may not want to commit to a 4-year degree, they may need just vocational training and not university so community colleges are good enough for that, they may lack resources (money) regardless of any generation Americans (I've seen 6th gen or later choosing community colleges), some may even have well-off parents that don't want to pay for colleges/universities for their children (hard to believe but true), and some less well-off parents want to pay but can't afford to pay so people have to work while going to school and get student loans on their own.
Customers can't get travel approved for training. It's not that hard to understand. And yes as much as you would like to pretend it's not true, video or virtual training accomplishes the same goals without the expense of travel and hotel stays.
The salad days are gone SASholes. The days of kicking back while customers spent freely to send their people to HQ for a week of pointless training are over. We hope you enjoyed your years of doing nothing whilst enjoying cheap health insurance and padding your 401ks so they're good and plump. Start readying your exist strategy because the chop is coming for you. You will be found and booted out. It's only a matter of time. People like you are rotting this company from the inside out and that's why it's in trouble.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
The climate is right for some laid off former SAS employees to go solo. Example? The recently laid off instructor could easily do a solo gig. She is a very smart person.
"Teaching is becoming less and less important and content creation more important."
Customers no longer want to be taught? Really??? That can only be because the software is SO SO SO easy to learn. Just give them a few videos, that is all they need. Sarcasm off.
“Community College serves many sectors, but mainly it is unsophisticated folks or first generation Americans who lack resources.”
Wow….
Post from TheLayoff.com
SO’B decided education “subscriptions” and videos is the way to go a few years. The videos are supposed to be stand-alone but can put in an order to make a “class”. Teaching is becoming less and less important and content creation more important. However the quality of the content doesn’t matter as evidenced by the layoff of the proofing team earlier this year. Quality doesn’t matter just quantity. How many videos, blog posts, etc., can you churn out?
Probably the biggest issue with morale in Education is the fact that JM’s GEL team has only lost two admin folks that helped coordinate their internal courses and communication. No one, none, zip, nada, of the technical folks in GEL have been laid off in two rounds.
Community College serves many sectors, but mainly it is unsophisticated folks or first generation Americans who lack resources. Folks getting an Associates in Business Analytics may move to a Business program at a 4 year school. Alternatively, they may get some administrative role using SAS to build reports.
A BS in computer science, computer engineering, applied math, or electrical engineering (with programming skills) is going to be preferred in any reputable tech company.
However, if you are exceptionally talented and have done a lot of extracurricular work to become a true expert in one or more computing frameworks or technologies, then getting hired is certainly possible.
There are lackluster employees with degrees from top tech schools and there are unicorns who have no degree, at least not anything resembling the work they are doing in tech.
Does SAS or any tech company ever hire people with 2-year Associate degrees from community colleges in 2024 for software engineering jobs or do they prefer at least a BS from universities?
"EDU is being mu---red slowly from the inside"
Murmured?
EDU is being mu---red slowly from the inside so with the new "quality" (no editing for one thing, the hyenas in the pride lands for another) of training coming out I'm figuring we'll all be on the block before 2026. Morale? We don't know her.
WakeTech uses SAS Studio as part of the Business Analytics courses.
SAS is still taught in Community Colleges. Maybe not all but certainly not zero. Maybe students have a preference for something else but it is still taught.
https://www.waketech.edu/course/sef-3001ka2
"SAS is still taught in Community College"
Not in 2024. They prefer R and Python even in community colleges, not just universities.
Also, this article was written in 2019 and still true now :
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/college-students-rejecting-sas-learning-r-i-am-seriously-monika-wahi
What is the current role of the Education Division at SAS? Most of the training centers have closed. Viya is a flop so nothing to teach there. V9 is a declining asset.
Is there no demand for SAS education in general? Or is there no demand for the type of education that SAS Institute provides? Maybe the answer to that question can be gleaned by looking at health of SAS education providers that compete with the SAS Institute.
Specifically, is Destiny Inc doing okay and picking up biz?
SAS is still taught in Community College. Good luck with that.
“They already got rid of the winter party, picnic, and daycare”
What happened to daycare? Or are you simply referring to it being outsourced to (IIRC) Bright Horizons?
A couple of people have gone from the same group this year. It’s becoming more difficult to get universities to teach SAS so no new users. It’s not just the layoffs that are unsettling it’s the lack of transparency and communication.
There are no laws (state or federal) that prohibit you from walking around in public with bare feet, but private businesses can refuse you service or entrance to their businesses. "No shirt, no shoes, no service".
Driving a car barefoot is not illegal either. Riding a motorcycle (or bicycle) barefoot is not illegal either. Is it wise? No, but not illegal.
As of November 2023, Alabama is the only state in the United States where it is illegal to ride a motorcycle barefoot. Section 32-5A-245b of the Alabama Code states that "No person shall operate or ride upon a motorcycle or motor-driven cycle unless he is wearing shoes".
@5iym+1tokM4EP
What makes you think "snacks" is a red herring topic?
It could be a legit discussion if they are trying to cut more costs.
They already got rid of the winter party, picnic, and daycare, so why not snacks.
Discussing getting rid of snacks and more people could both be true if they want to cut more costs.
That's an excellent summary!
This site is hysterical. Respond to a topic with some red herring like "snacks", somebody runs with it, it takes some weird directions, and everyone argues about it to get their point in. It's like many of meetings at the company. There are no firm agreements nor any meaningful progress.
If there were a secret VP meeting, it was not about snacks. My guess is they discussed who to cut in the next round.
@5vaq+1tokM4EP I call both guys and gals “dude”. My apologies.
And RD groups are also tight. That isn’t just an EDU thing. I feel for whoever it was and the folks around the person.
But the post leading into it said “ More layoffs today too. It’s incredibly unsettling.”
That was either a dramatic rendition of what happened or perhaps we don’t know and there were more. But it was pretty pointed on layoffS.
“There were layoffs. But it was only one dude in EDU”
No one said this was a dude.
And to R&D folks 1 person may seem insignificant, but EDU has always been a fairly tight-knit group, and losing even 1 long-term Instructor is a a big deal
"Is that guy that unicycles to R wearing a skort still around?"
No, he's been gone for many, many years. And I think it was a kilt.
Is that guy that unicycles to R wearing a skort still around?
feet and snacks. great.
@5jbo+1tokM4EP If creatures with feet bug you perhaps you should consider a career change focused on ichthyology.
I’ve yet to see a barefooted person at SAS outside of the locker rooms and natatorium. But in those cases I was also utterly repulsed so maybe you have a point. I don’t know what it is but…. You should start a movement to ban the miscreants with bare feet.
Call all 2 of them out by name.
I can see people kicking their shoes off in their private office and that's ok, but bare feet in public spaces outside one's own private office is unhygienic.
Don't even think about walking in public bathrooms with bare feet at SAS or anywhere else.
Walking around barefoot in the public spaces of a professional business crosses a line. People doing that creates a drag on the morale for everyone else because such behavior means that management now has to create an official dress code policy to deal with people who lack basic sense.
Regardless of someone's talent, a lack of common sense (street smarts, self awareness, ability to read a room) has a negative impact on everyone else.
When I joined SAS many years ago I had to dress way down to fit in a tech job.
If I wore anything nice or professional looking clothing even if not formal and only business casual, my boss would get nervous and ask me if I was going for an interview (elsewhere). He wore jeans, t-shirts, shorts, and flannel shirts when weather was cold.
So I stopped wearing business clothes at SAS and it was much more comfortable and easier to get dress going to work and saving me money too.
I can say with confidence that some of the most effective geeks who built SAS (and are therefore ultimately responsible for the jobs of hundreds of others in support and customer facing roles), were often sloppily dressed, wearing shorts, T-shirts, sandals, barefoot and not infrequently in various states of less-than-optimal hygiene.
The fact that they were less concerned about appearances (often correlated to corporate political ambitions) and more concerned with using their brains to build software could be considered a strength.
"common sense should apply"
I wholeheartedly agree. Decades ago when one of the first HR directors was still around, he told us that 90% of company policies are created out of the need to deal with the behavior of specific individuals.
To me, "always wear something on your feet when in public spaces of a professional business" is common sense. Not everyone agreed.
Unless you're in Sales/Marketing and have to meet customers, often there is no need to dress up too much working in tech companies. Developers spend their time coding and testing and some work long hours so they need and want to wear comfortable, casual clothing including shorts in the summer in NC when it is hot and humid as heck. Common sense should apply to try to look formal, or business casual when needed or semi business casual other times because sadly people do judge a book by its cover if you wear clothes people deem inappropriate or unfashionable or beat up or rumpled/wrinkled.