Thread regarding DST Systems Inc. layoffs

DST has been planning these layoffs for years, ever since they started the Bangkok Offshoring Center. Many U.S. employees (all mostly over 40 years of age) were unceremoniously dumped in 2009 because of alleged low employee evaluation (Associate Engagement/AER) scores. This practice is called Rank and Yank and is used by 20% of corporations (from what I've heard) in order to thin the ranks. This was nothing but a witch hunt and they f**king know it. I had friends who were given low AER scores because they always sat in the same chair at meetings, because they didn't talk enough in meetings, or because they mis-spelled something in an email; the DST managers looked for anything at all to lower your evalation score, and if the score was below 3.0%, then you were put on "the plan". After 3 months of yet more evaluations (always low-scored), you got terminated. You have to be young and/or kiss a lot of ass to keep your job there. Now they cite the "unprecedented downturn" in the economy to dump more U.S. employees out onto the streets. I was working ten hour days this past year at DST in one of their fastest growing departments, yet we lost almost half of our programmers in a one year span either because of low AER scores or the layoffs. The people in charge at DST are crazy and out of touch with reality. Do they really think they can farm out all the programming to Bangkok and still get the job done correctly and on time? So many times I had to correct simple juvenile mistakes that came from the BOC. DST was once a nice place to work, but they will burn you up and turn you out when they're tired of you and then give your job to a much lower-payed person in Thailand.