Thread regarding Dell Inc. layoffs

I worked at EMC before leaving and going to dell. The EMC site was Legato when I started and EMC bought them. Before EMC bought them, the company was great and had a feeling of tramwork. A few years in we were treated the worst. Yes, the insurance was amazing but everything else, including the pay was SH-T. Leaving was the best decision ever. Started at Dell. My site was originally Equallogic and for many years we had a great culture and were treated like people. Along comes EMC and it turned into a Sh-t show. Nothing like being a number again.

Let's just pretend you didn't give us Adrian McDouchebag

EMC was run out of business then was sold to Dell.
Now you said it was a good company.

Let's be honest, EMC had a sh---y sales led culture. Bunch of towny sports bros way too far out west to attract anyone remotely interesting if you ask me... A lot of people forget we were still wearing suits in corporate until Dell came around FFS. It's true you had to seriously sc--w up to get fired (if you were non-sales) and the healthcare was better, but other than that it was a dead end as well as a non stop grind. Technology was certainly better but was already heading south at the time Dell came around. Also true that Dell is a commodity manufacturing business and hasn't been able to shake that DNA, and as a result, has further nuked the value of EMC IP - that's mostly JC's fault, but it seems efforts are being made to course correct (not holding my breath). On the other hand, Dell used to have a much better culture. They actively developed people and generally had a good time doing it. I was pretty shocked by the difference for the first couple of years post acquisition. People seemed to give a damn and went out of their way to nurture and develop talent. Thing is, Dell simply stopped giving a sh-t about anyone/thing around when the pandemic was winding down and realized they had over staffed etc. Right around the time when MSD started to spend too much time with Hock Tan and decided that EPS was the only thing that mattered to him personally. I think he no longer cares that much about Dell as a business (that includes the people that work there) and is solely focused on his net worth - though I guess that approach has worked out pretty well for him! Everyone else foots the bill - at least those below L4. The next spans and layers adjustment is going to be something though! I wonder if we'll even recognize the place in a couple of months - Dell or EMC! Ideally, MSD should GTFO at this point, preferably leaving the business intact for a new CEO (no, not JC). It's still a going concern with potential. Would be a shame for many of us to break it up in the name of ROI!

I got together with a friend who left about three years ago. She made me realize how much the company has changed in the past 24 months. Very sad.
She wants me to follow her to her new employer. There’s an opportunity and she can put in a word with her manager. Can’t think of a reason not to go.

i miss the benefits under EMC... in fact thats the reason i moved to EMC back in the day. after 15 years I'm afraid its time to look else ware. i was able to get a bunch of perks and stock options as well as great insurance. we use to be treated like people instead of a number. now they focus on cost cutting instead of innovating.

EMC was a far better company to work for than Dell

"Serious grifters and blowhards. Schemers too."

Funny how you used a perfect description of every LDell exec and employee I have ever had dealings with to try to disparage EMC.

Yea EMC was an actual technology company. I mean come on guys. Dell is operations and manufacturing. That’s it. There’s no technology here. And any company that MD bought he drove it into the ground. At the end of the day, Dell thinks everyone is manufacturing worker.

Listen, who’s in charge now? All Dell people. When did things begin to really go down hill? After the Dell people started pushing EMC leaders out.

The two company cultures are like oil and water. MD only wanted Vmware and that was the goal. EMC would have been crushed by other company technologies anyway. They were over priced and during the yester-years, yes they were good. But in today's market with all of the consolidation, standardization, etc, EMC would have melted if they tried to continue to operate under the same business model. PURE alone would have stunted their growth.

I just read about the Dell Leadership Initiative. Wow, our Dell leaders are full of themselves. The Dell LI includes inspirational videos by Dell Leaders.

There must be a bad ideas competition among execs. I learned recently the reason for the office WiFi name change to CorpEfficiency is to remind us to be efficient.

Perhaps. But you bequeathed us some the most god awful execs that came up through ISG. Serious grifters and blowhards. Schemers too.

So we don’t think you’re better.

Under EMC we focused on solving customer's problems AND making sure it didn't happen again. Since Dell took over the focus has shifted to making the problem go away as fast as possible then immediately closing the ticket. In the past when we needed L2 assistance the L2 would take time to educate us on what they were doing and why, so the next time we could fix it without their assistancs. No there is no teaching going on so when an L2 moves on or is layed off their knowledge is lost from the team. This way of doing things is unsustainable and will bite in the a-s at some point.

"Let’s be honest here. EMC was far more innovative and treated their employees substantially better than Dell."

Well hello there captain obvious.

I disagree. 20 years with Dell in many departments. It gradually turned to sh-t the more EMC leadership positioned themselves in roles previously held by legacy Dell leadership. Place actually had a culture and morale before that. We actually did parties, celebrated holidays, had potlucks, had offsites. I daresay it was fun and there was a strong sense of comradery.

Today, ISG spends more time checking boxes, dotting i's and crossing t's than actually helping customers. Tell Dell was responsible for some major positive changes in my first 10 years and for some of my older peers before me. Today its a joke.

We don't hire or champion technical people anymore, let alone hire people with enough customer service experience to handle a difficult customer. We hire people who can warm a seat and follow a Solve procedure rather than think outside the box.

We don't champion smart people anymore as the new IT mandate is 'no homegrown tools'. That was literally part of our culture for decades. If you had the technical knowhow to create a tool or a process to help you and your peers, that kind of thing was championed with all manner of awards. Today? IT blocks most of them and their ultimate goal is to eliminate homegrown tools and cloudify everything. No more projects; just do your job and stay in your box. It amazes me talking to many of the legacy EMC folks I know who do not share your high opinion. Field Service Engineers for example who've never had a promo in 10-15 years. Many are finding their way into ISG support roles with a lot more upward momentum.

The backline support folks in ISG are the weakest they've ever been. L1 used to feed L2,, which used to feed L3. Today, L3s are in the USA, L2s don't exist and L1s are almost exclusively hired in Panama, Bangalore and Costa Rica.

The days of me auditing agent calls and cases and hearing customers rave over how we solved a VMware issue VMware couldn't solve, a Microsoft issue Microsoft couldn't solve or a Linux issue Red Hat couldn't solve are over.

Today, nearly ever department I've ever worked for is headed by legacy EMC folks, not legacy Dell folks and they're style of no transparency leadership with a focus on staying in your prescribed lane is frustrating. Everything is become homogenized and poorly skilled people dependent on Solve and NBA are the rule rather than the exception.

EMC was far better than my Dell experience.

Let me tell you from the Dell side when we merged and were placed under EMC leaders everything went down hill fast. The EMC leaders could care less about metrics and managing by data. It was all seat of the pants feel good decisions. Kind of like the current crop of liberals and democrats do what feels good not what needs to be done. I've seen the teams under older Dell leaders do very well while EMC just seems to fade away. I wish they would fade away faster and get back to data based management. Things would be better. I'm not an EMC or Dell hater or advocate. I just call it like I see it.

Depended who your manager was. I had one $hitty manager after another at EMC.

EMC is dead - get over it. There are cr-ppy leaders here and now from both legacy sides. Stop being a loyalist , it's pathetic!

On the Dell side it feels like we were better before EMC. I have interacted with so many EMC people who work more than 40 hours a week, work on their days off, work on their vacation and push for others to do the same.

You want to know what the real issue is? Everyone seems to be emotionally attached to the job, the product, the company. Now if it was really yours...meaning you invented it, marketed, built it, sold it...sure makes sense. But, this is just a job. The loyalty doesn't ever go both ways, obviously. You depend on the paycheck to live, they maybe..have some small dependency, depending on your job, on you to get product out the door. When you work for a small company, wearing lots of hats, it makes a difference. Large companies....not so much. You were hired to do a specific job. If it seems there is never an upside to trying to excel, then do the job you were hired for. Thats it. Leave the job at the job. Divorce yourself from any emotional attachment. I used to have an emotional connection to the company, the job, the product. Learned the hard way not to.

Currently I work in R&D at a large company. I take pride in my work, I want to see the designs I do succeed and make them money, and help the world in what my products do. But, if they came today and said this project is cancelled, I'm ok. Whats next? No emotion. What would you like me to do next is the question. And when I retire, I can look over the past 40+ years and say I had a hand in this...and this...and stuff I can't tell you about. And I walk away....

I just read about the Dell Leadership Initiative. Wow, our Dell leaders are full of themselves. The Dell LI includes inspirational videos by Dell Leaders.

Both companies had good and bad leadership but most of the good ones left. Current leadership has created such a toxic environment making it hard to enjoy work.

Yes. EMC had industry leading storage and data protection products. Starved of innovation, Dell has squandered their once leading market positions by allowing these products to wither on the vine. And yet the “leaders” responsible for these deacons still remain in place today.

Yep. Once the EMC leadership started to get pushed out everything went into the sh!tter

Yup. Can confirm. New to dell last 2 years and EMC people are much easier to deal with and not full of themselves. They definitely seemed more sophisticated than Dell employees.

Dell 10-20y lifers are insufferable. Most talk like they parted the red sea working at dell.

The EMC product cycle included extensive test until failure, and realistic time tables for product release dates

We used to go to lunch on a regular basis until the pressure to be productive from 8::00 to 5:00 came about.
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