Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

Someones salty must need an h1b sponsor

@3dzy+1lN6Iny0, nobody likes a whiner.

You and the employees not impacted are just as much to blame for drinking the executive Kool-Aid being served to the masses. You were lied too, know of the disservice that has been done to us, and are also turning your backs on us.

When is someone going to speak up to the execs and to the investors? Most everyone is fearful of their jobs and not speaking up.

How am I to blame for your getting LR'd?

You had the same opportunities that I had to research Cisco as a company before applying to, and accepting, a job from Cisco. From the banner at the bottom of this page, this site has been around since 2009. Glass door has been around for a long time as well. You should have known what you were getting yourself into before you joined, and if you didn't, you certainly had time to figure out what was going on around you and leave before you were impacted instead of sitting on your backside waiting on the axe to fall. If you were impacted in the first year or two, then the severance package you received from Cisco was incredibly generous compared to what I've received from other companies so you don't have anything to whine about and if you've been with Cisco more than 2 yrs, you had plenty of time to figure out what's happening and leave on your own terms for a better place. So that's on you, not me/us.

I don't see it as a "disservice". I see it more as a bribe to allow Cisco to target people with impunity. I wasn't pi---d at Cisco for getting let go back in '11, I was pi---d at the manager who put me in the position to be let go because he'd made it personal. But, with hindsight, it was the best thing for me because my job function was gone w/in 18 months. They had someone try to cover my responsibilities while it was phased out, but no one could handle it along w/ their normal work, so they hired a contractor to replace me about a quarter later, and kept him for just over a year as he shutdown the servers/service I supported and terminated him.

My departure gave me an opportunity to work a 1 yr gig at a company that paid OT for every hour over 40 and I was working 50-70 hr weeks making bank before coming back to Cisco to work on a great team. Then Cisco did one of it's LR's where it was an across-the-board cut and they had to let 2 people go from our team. They cut me & another guy who were supporting the oldest technologies that the team supported. His wife was, and still is, a Cisco employee, so he's now back as a contractor and enjoying Cisco benefits via his spouse's coverage. This time, I was more shocked that our team, which was understaffed and over worked would have cuts, but it was what it was. That LR was the longest break in employment I'd ever had, even when the dot-com bubble burst and cost me my job back then. (Yes, I'm old.) But that dot-com job gave me 2 wks severance, plus 2 more wks and 1 wk/yr of service if I signed the waiver, so I got 9 wks total for 5 yrs of service. That's only 1 wk more than Cisco gives everyone regardless of length of service and not signing the waiver!

"I served in the military and we left no person behind, and Cisco is doing just that."

So did I; not sure how to correlate any similarity whatsoever between a military enlistment or commission; and Cisco.

Actually, I can think of one that is sort of the same overall principle.

Project 100,000 was set up in the 1960s; and today we have ongoing LRs.

Same principle, pool a bunch of people into a group to be used as casualties; one case for a war, and the other for LR cycle.

Low IQ potentially played a role in at least the first scenario; but potentially both.

I served in the military and we left no person behind, and Cisco is doing just that.

The social ills you're freaking out about are only solvable in a viable manner by governments and a somewhat unified culture, not individual private companies.

BTW, local, state and federal governments in the US have certainly left people behind in the form of layoffs. You obviously also forgot when we showed up in Iraq 20 years ago with the most expensive military in the world and the soldiers didn't have bullets for their g-ns, batteries for the night vision goggles or armor for themselves and their vehicles. Perhaps you meant "no corpse left behind."

When is someone internally going to stand up and start a petition to gain visibility for those of us that were impacted?

It sounds like you want a community organizer, or perhaps a union leader. Cultures that understand the employee and company need to meet in the middle do well with these. Cultures like the US where both sides try to take everything and give nothing in return don't. Everyone here is a capitalist when they're raking in a six digit salary to occupy space and convert O2 to CO2 in meetings and a communist when that salary goes away. You know this is true because no one here is complaining that they were forced to take six months salary when they got a better job for the following Monday.

Cisco favored laying off older workers.

This is as good a summary as any for your redundant points. As an older engineer I wouldn't hire 99% of Cisco's older engineers as Engineer 1s, and that goes double for management. If you worked at companies that can crank out generation after generation of complex systems while only needing a minimal maintenance budget and where customer found defects are rare you'd do the same. Cisco can just raise licensing fees to cover the maintenance and customer found defect costs and you misinterpret this as being competent. Your competitors with many ex-Cisco people can't which is why they're still a tiny fraction of the size of Cisco.

When is someone internally going to stand up and start a petition to gain visibility for those of us that were impacted? Maybe someone that is planning to leave anyways??

It doesn't need to be negative, just stick to the facts, as Cisco exec actions are digging their own grave this time. This has to make the news!!! People need to know. So what if my Cisco shares fall in value? Stand up for what is right! I served in the military and we left no person behind, and Cisco is doing just that.

1. Cisco said it was not about reducing costs. Lie. People were let go as they were higher cost.
2. Cisco said it was about workforce transition and they wanted people in growing areas. Lie. People in security were let go and some other growth areas too.
3. Cisco treated long-timers with Cisco like cr-p with no early retirement. Fact!
4. Cisco favored laying off older workers. Fact! Just look at the average age left go vs not impacted.
5. Cisco lied to shareholders. Fact! (Was reducing costs in growth areas too).
6. Cisco treated every LRed person like cr-p, removed badge access, much system access, etc...
7. Cisco lied to employees: Best place to work. Fact! We even got the award on the day of the last LR.
8. Cisco made up a new phrase to brainwash their folks that this was a good thing.: "Workforce Transition Options". Fact! Yes, it was a "transition", but "out the door", and only three bad "options" for most: Now, 2 months later (with less benefits), or a lower paid job.

When is someone going to speak up to the execs and to the investors?

You forgot your customers who bear massive costs testing and working around the bugs in your products.

...but stop blaming us who we’re impacted.

See above.

"How does Fran and Chuck sleep at night after doing something like this?"

Fran & Chuck would be classified as psychopaths/narcissists. They have superficial charm and the ability to manipulate people with no empathy. Corporate America is filled with psychopaths at the executive level... it's a requirement

I agree with you about Cisco executive leadership, but stop blaming us who we’re impacted.

You and the employees not impacted are just as much to blame for drinking the executive Kool-Aid being served to the masses. You were lied too, know of the disservice that has been done to us, and are also turning your backs on us.

When is someone going to speak up to the execs and to the investors? Most everyone is fearful of their jobs and not speaking up.

How does Fran and Chuck sleep at night after doing something like this?

Is Kelly Jones ignorant or now part of the corrupt executive leadership too???

"To all those that signed away and didn't fight back on the blatant illegal actions of the company, you are pathetic. A few months of pay isn't worth your lack of self respect you will experience over your life."

Really?!? I agree with all the other things you ranted about, but the above statement is unnecessary. Most of us have bills to pay and need healthcare....maybe you don't.

"So they moved you to one of the most high-tech-employer dense areas of the United States with your informed consent that you were working for a company that has had continuous layoffs for 22 years"

Cisco should provide larger severance packages for employees impacted that relocated. Also recruiting shouldn't flaunt the Forbes Best Companies to Work For awards during recruitment.

Cisco relocated people to the Bay Area and laid them off. It's not cheap to move while unemployed and quite stressful. Although the Cisco ELT really doesn't care.

So they moved you to one of the most high-tech-employer dense areas of the United States with your informed consent that you were working for a company that has had continuous layoffs for 22 years. Those ba5tards!

It's not a corporation's responsibility to cure the social ills for the people who have truly bad circumstances or the far more common "people living beyond their means." First world countries have something called a "safety net" and part of those cultures is an expectation not to abuse it. Countries that can't establish that expectation are failing (in the US the blue states pay more than they get to the federal government and the red states pay less than they get from the federal government and the counties that went Trump in 2020 are 29% of the GDP. Guess who Drag Queen Ronald Reagan's Welfare Queens are?)

Cisco relocated people to the Bay Area and laid them off. It's not cheap to move while unemployed and quite stressful. Although the Cisco ELT really doesn't care.

Cisco Cares. LOL.

If you were at Google in the middle of a healthcare appointment with your primary care doctor at a company health facility you'd have immediately lost access to your primary care doctor right then and there. Cisco carried people for months as employees and paid for a decent amount of COBRA afterwards. When they did Early Retirement you got paid for a full year of salary and health insurance costs even if you went to a new company and used their health insurance. Not just other tech companies but most industries in the US would have given you a far worse deal. Note the use of the word "most": a few counter examples won't disprove this.

If you live in a third world country like the United States there is a near 50:50 chance you voted against the kind of health care that would help you. It's disingenuous to blame Cisco for this. The census data shows Obamacare and Medicaid expansion took us from 15.5% without insurance in 2010 to 7.9% in 2017. The orange guy made changes which kept that percentage above the 2017 figure from 2018 through 2021 which is the time frame covered by his "budgets." With a quick use of the Google machine you can see 66.5% of bankruptcies are because of medical costs and 58% of debts in collections are for medical bills. This isn't how the first world non-richest countries on earth work.

I have cancer and I am dying.

My wife tried to ki-l herself. She is threatening to try again.

We are losing everything. I wanted to leave my family and my son something, at least get him into his first year of college.

Cisco Cares. LOL.

So, yes, I have "issues."

Good Bye.

"Put up or shut up. Give us the court case number and the court it was filed in of your action against Cisco."

Cisco quietly settled with a university hire impacted, unethical layoffs don't always go to court.

To all those that signed away and didn't fight back on the blatant illegal actions of the company, you are pathetic.

Put up or shut up. Give us the court case number and the court it was filed in of your action against Cisco.

Companies have been doing background checks on prospective new hires for over a quarter century, so if you are going to court you better be sure you can win because it will end up in your background check and in your own words, "good luck with that!"

To all those who think you can just take the money and be back quickly during an imploding economy, good luck with that!

Not luck, skill. Plenty of people found jobs quickly in what was the largest recession since the great depression in 2008. When the Early Retirement packages were offered the competent old people had jobs the following Monday and pocketed and entire year's salary plus a big bucket of money to cover health care costs despite widespread age discrimination because their value was evident.

I've always said - and still say - working at Cisco is a job not a career. Once you understand that, you can be grateful for whatever you got out of it, and move on to whatever's next.

Csco is an efficient layoff machine. Perfected the layoff protocol for decades now. Move on.

Fight back and do what? Waste your time and energy to go against Cisco team of top lawyers? Good luck with that. A better option would be to just take the package and either invest in yourself or try to find another job, you don't need Cisco trust me.

To be honest, as bad as Cisco has been doing layoff every year I kinda understand why they have to do it. There are so many BUs out there with useless products and full of high paid folks who are just sitting on their as--s doing nothing collecting paychecks. However instead of laying off regular employees, they just need to focus on getting rid of the infinite layer of managers. Why are there 5 or 6 different managers and directors when the entire group only have a total of 20 people lol.

Wow. you give new meaning to self-loathing and brokenness.

Took my large money bag a few years ago and got another job right away. Bo-m, biggest windfall in my entire life!

The best part is that I'm 100% certain that I'm much happier in life than the OP.

The only person I know to challenge Cisco on a layoff was a university hire. It turns out the university hires did not have the ability to transfer roles internally and were used to pad age discrimination stats.

Jesus- so bitter. You’ve got a lot more problems than Cisco.

I understand your frustration. But I'm not sure Cisco did anything illegal. Yes, the layoff was probably not needed but that's just how business works. Literally, their only concern is making the most profit possible. No matter what they tell you on all of the woke check-ins, they do not care about a single employee. Once you learn that's how corporate America works, everything makes sense.

So my question to you is, did you expect for us to get laid off and also turn down tens of thousands of dollars in this current economy? And then file a lawsuit against high powered attorneys for the small chance of getting slightly more than you would have gotten without the headache and hassle of said lawsuit?

@OP+1lN6Iny0

Sorry on your (assuming) LR. I am now five years out from my own. It will get easier to digest. Eventually, you may look at it as one of the best things that ever happened in your career; I do.

I care enough now about working; to know that I wholeheartedly don't care. Yes I care that money is coming in, and can provide for my family. I care that I get paid a realistic and fair wage for honest work. But beyond that I don't care.

I choose not to pay attention to the social fluff, baloney awareness programs (and attempted mental programming); and focus on the work.

The nice thing about technology as a career field, is at its core; it is truly what one knows and how to implement their knowledge.

I have focused on the true ability to fix things and buckle down and really learn hands-on technology.

That is the problem with Cisco. More and more people, placed in positions that really aren't necessary, spouting energy towards promoting baloney that shouldn't even be part of a technology company's "portfolio".

Tough times are coming for the economy and our country. All the fluff, baloney, and cause culture awareness at work will melt away the more stringent business survival becomes.

There is a place to care about things important to society, like free choice, and acceptance of all; but the workplace is not one of them. Think about it. It is a distraction from core work and business efficiency and excellence.