After 5.5 years of loyalty, hard work and no pay raise, I am glad to be one of these layoffs! I went to work at IBM thinking I would be secure in a future of employment!
I am disgusted in the downhill treatment IBM has given to those of us who aren't valued but merely a number with an expiration tag and replaced by outsourcing .. Shame on you IBM!!!
As a former "old guard" employee hired in 1967 at the height of IBM's ascendency I am so saddened by this news. Company family picnics, late hours but appreciative management, great results because everyone cared, and best of all, working for the international company with assignments overseas. And now, this ugliness. In 1994, I was a mid-management level employee in Marketing and began to see the beginnings of IBM becoming just another corporation. Squeezing staff and first line management into small cubicles, the beginnings of layoffs - unheard of before - and the poor treatment of everyone; high performers, etc. So I took the first available package and found something else. IBM is taking advantage of our awful economy by making employees second class citizens. Where can you go after all? An enthusiastic and highly motivated staff can do miracles, they can go the extra mile and achieve great results. This action will accomplish exactly the reverse. My prayers to all who have been affected. I am particularly unhappy about that lady returning from maternity leave. Don't let your children become cowboys as the song says....and now add IBM'ers.