I used to be proud to work here. Not anymore though...
Management seems to only know how to make cuts and nothing more. Small correction - they don't even know how to make cuts, because they mostly cut people they should be trying to keep at all costs.
What do you think are the key bad moves that brought down DST?
Brought down DST? DST sold for $5.4 billion. $84 a share in cash! One of the biggest success stories in the history corporate America. DST was not brought down it was a golden goose.
The "Toms" of DST did alot of succession planning. Speaking about how to moneytize DST and what to do.....and they decided on the current path. So yes the Tom's are FULLY RESPONSIBLE for the direction DST went and the fact that the Broadway Building now sports a huge SS&C sign out front instead of DST. Whom else would you care to say is responsible? The Abominoble snowman?
oh the 'Toms' nutter is back, it's raining so it is all the 'Toms' fault
The "Toms" ruined DST. They knew they would retire in their 60's and made plans to basically dump the company to a party related to BFDS and take their cash and stock options and leave. Probably go to Aspen and buy a huge house with heated driveway or buy a boat at the ozarks and do doughnuts with the dual engines! Leaving the company and downtown KCMO in the dust as DST disappears and all the tax rev from DST goes to the east coast.
The innovation campaign? How about building a simple online auction site like eBay? How about just a site with pics of people and comments (like Facebook). But no, we could not think that far out of the box! Not allowed!
Do you remember when those id--ts had the 5 mil in 5 year challenge (or something like that) where they challenged staff to come up with innovative (shudder - remember the 'innovation' campaign...) ideas that would generate "needle moving" dollars for the company?
So of course every officer ran it down to their directors who championed the idea to staff. The results were hilarious. Most of the responses were somewhat genuine, then you got the insane people responding (you know - those folks who were just batshit crazy, but hadn't been laid off yet) with ideas like "put a wind turbine where the Broadway fountain is so it can generate power for the lights in the circle". Yes - this was one of the brilliant suggestions. And because DST didn't know how to shut id--t ideas down, it ended up being included with options to be evaluated all while the mo--n who suggested it felt they had credence and continued to champion it.....
Oh the good old days.
Don't miss that place at all. BTW - I wasn't laid off, I left that pony ride on my own.
If you layed off, the management can and probably will go thru your voicemail box to see if there are any important pending company business that needs attending to. If you have personal voicemails from friends etc, they can listen to those. Its their system after all! So delete those racey voicemails you have been saving!
Long before I left, I deleted all personal emails, copies of documentation I had drafted on my own, my personal set of daily procedures, reminders, my task lists with years of activities listed and all my saved paper desktop calendars i took home as they were covered with personal notes. Much of the old paper records that dst wanted tossed when we went paperless i had saved. Threw those away as dst had requested too. When I left, my coworkers were literally calling me each day for help. I didnt return their calls. They fought me on every promotion and so I was not about to call them back. Tax reporting was pretty tough for them that year!
You used to be proud to work at dst? Not me! It was a known sweatshop and the last place in town a headhunter would submit you. Anywhere but dst.
Apparently it's common for managers to get access to the fired peoples computers to get access to critical documents and code. I saw it happen every layoff for years now. And no one asks what I have on my computer, what "critical" processes I run, they have no clue! There will be a fair bit of panic when I go!
Yes, DST could have sponsored a company "technical contest" for new technology and offered 50K to the winning team. Don't you think some guy on his lunch hour could have penciled out the plans to sell things online like eBAY? After all, a part time programmer founded eBay to sell a broken pen he had and was shocked by the bidding for that 1st item. But no, everyone was so over worked and fixing old code that was decades old running on MVS. No future thinking management is why DST is gone now.
Cheap money and absurd overall stock evaluations made it possible for SS&C to buy its way into growth. Now that the tide is turning, it is likely the house of cards they have created will collapse on them.
The "Toms" are responsible 100%. You do know some huge companies offer employee buyouts? Where staff buy and run the company! But DST would not do that. Cause the Toms wanted the fast cash and fast exit. The Toms missed the sub-accounting trend-it went over their heads, Toms offered contract discounts on mainframe downtime, which was a huge money loser, Toms ignored competition like Sungard, ignored staff that could have developed "ebay, facebook, myspace" applications in their spare time! Even crypto could have been developed at DST as a way to validate checks and certificates. IT ALL WENT OVER THE TOMs HEADS!