I was part of a previous layoff a couple of years back. I was always a team player. Went to lunch with the guys (and gals) attended company picnics. I even attended some co-workers family parties etc. I really thought I had become friends with many people working with me. I was SO WRONG. The people who were fortunate to keep their jobs (many of them undeservingly) quickly toted the company line and abandoned friendships. When trying to touch base with them after the layoff. Many emails went unanswered. So The lesson I took from it was always lookout for yourself because the "so called friends" you think you have at WD are not your friends. The love of money and greed will always outweigh human compassion etc. I worked for wdc for over 12 years and I was given 10 mins to pack a box (by a manager "friend". So when I hear these people are being "let go" I get a nice little smile on my face and think "what comes around...goes around: HA HA
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Hey you can always lick some brown eye, like a bunch of low lives already do
I can relate to the original poster. Once you're not in the 'club', you don't exist anymore.
SV= Silicon Valley
OC=Orange County/Irvine
Miss you guys.
I'm an OC 4-15 victim. I had a great team, just clueless product direction (Branded). People have lost the skills and ability to be and make friends. It is something you have to work on all the time and many would rather just do their job and go home and see their family. It is pretty sad. When the family thing goes wrong and you divorce all you have is work and I'll tell you - if you don't open up to those around you you may not survive work either. This layoff climate is aweful. The best way to deal with it is to open up to those around you about your stresses as well as build your support network now - let people know your skillsets, get personal contact info. Bring the company phonebook home so you can remember names if you have to later. Make a profile on linkedin. Go to lunch with someone new as often as possible. Working harder or longer hours is a grave mistake. Just do what is necessary. If there is an all hands meeting speak up and if a VP tells you to shut up tell him the same. When you do finally get laid off you'll be proud you tried to make a difference. Next place you go I hope has a better environment but in talking with my contacts it seems there is just no positive energy in anything dealing with electronics around here. Is SV worse than OC? You SV guys seem to be more bitter and cold.
@2ncx - this is so true:
Stop beating yourself, please. There are no friends at work. Everyone are judgmental A-holes. Thanks to foreigners of certain type, hiding information and knowledge has become the norm in the SV. The sense of team work, helping each other to rise together are thrown out the Window. The second people are hired they are ready to step on your throat. What a Joke. I don't like it but I do it, to survive. I go to work with my bow and arrows, shield and spear.
Stop beating yourself, please. There are no friends at work. Everyone are judgmental A-holes. Thanks to foreigners of certain type, hiding information and knowledge has become the norm in the SV. The sense of team work, helping each other to rise together are thrown out the Window. The second people are hired they are ready to step on your throat. What a Joke. I don't like it but I do it, to survive. I go to work with my bow and arrows, shield and spear.
Seagate had some WD guys join recently, those guys are mostly entitled a--holes that were let go by the hgst guys because they realized keeping them was the same as keeping a gangrene limb.
Sorry, only true friends will ever respond to you once you are separated. All others are simply fair weather friends. Use you and exploit you and throw you out with the bath water. If you have been vocal about anything, you are on their list. Now that HGST has taken over WDC, it is not scalping season for those who dared to stand up to WD mgmt for the wrong decision they had made in the past, especially if certain WD Mgmt personnel survived through BS'ing their way to a box. They will use those who are vocal in the past and eliminate them so they can take credit.
It's a sad state of affairs at WD right now. For those who have become victims, move on. As the Borgs say "resistance is futile". RIF's are never fair but what can one do about it. The politicans will always win! For us who are victims, we have to cheer them on so the stock prices will return and we can sell them at a decent price. Otherwise, we are doomed for sure.
Good Luck Everyone!
Looks like people like 1clv possess the quality to make letgo hurt and dont even know they are hurt and why. Well, this kind of thing/person is part of life. Be strong!
i dont work at WD, but seeing these posts are entertaining, that person posting below me obviously didn't get let go. we need to be "transparent" at work, thats a load of crap.
iono bout your company but the secretary over at my org here is FINE..
You guys sound hurt. You don't make friends at work, you make acquaintances. Make friends somewhere else. You don't date at work, you don't bring people from work home. That clear cut separation profession and personal life becomes blurred only if you own the company.
It happened to me on other disk drive company. One of the guy (manger) actually work for other disk drive and offer me a job if I would like to join him. After I got laid off and gave him a call and never answer my call or email. I told him not to bother about the job but just to keep in touch with him as I always done in the past. these people don't have a life and don't understand about life. most disk drive engineers couldn't get another engineering job anyway. some of them been a single screw part owner or top cover for years don't know noting else.
Wow, it's sad to see that you derive joy from other's misfortune.
A small number of my friends at WD remained friends. Others definitely distance themselves from me now, but aren't unfriendly. Some vanished immediatly. I feel I didn't know who my true friends were at WD until I got laid off !
i feel you bro, been a team player since i started, havent been in this bizz for nearly as long as you, but understand where youre coming from. I tell the new hirees to be careful, separate your friends from colleagues.