Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

Sad

OK @3aza speaks truth

ATTN young professionals who think they are being cute by mocking older tech workers:

We were once you. We were once fresh faced young single professionals who had limitless amounts of time to focus solely on our careers and begin climbing the corporate ladder. We too mocked the older generation of tech workers of our day.

In time, you also will become the next wave of middle aged tech workers. Your outlook on life will have changed drastically from this point of time in your lives. You may have settled down and learned about marriage, having children, owning a home. You may also have to deal with financial hardships, health problems, divorce, midlife crisis, death of friends or family members.

But make no mistake, there will be a fresh new batch of young professionals entering the job market who believe they are better, faster, and smarter than you. They will perceive you as old, outdated and legacy because work is no longer your #1 life priority.

Enjoy your youth while it lasts, don't get too c**ky. You will become us eventually.

I think companies are good to employees when companies grow. Once growth stops it starts to get ugly - companies seek efficiencies, plug holes, push people more, there is less opportunities for growth, promotions and advancement.

I've been with Cisco for 25+ years and I can tell you that every year when we had STRONG growth was a great year for everyone... Today, we are struggling and it is not good... It's been like this for a while now...

Amazing how many people forget that the only loyalty a corporation owes /you/ is 2 weeks severance. And even then, if they can get away with it, you'll get nothing. But woe be to those who don't show up cheery and bright every damn day to stroke the company c—. The HR happy-happy dog and pony show at Cisco is a huge pile of b—s—, and only the C-level execs win.

Ok Boomer

When you're young and bright eyed. You work really hard, ambitious to climb and are naive of layoffs (unless you're plugged into the great new information you get nowadays).

As you age to 30 and witness/be a part of it, you immediately see what a WASTE of time it was to work so hard on empty promised (by mgmt) dreams that never materialized.

Bottom line is to look after yourself from Day 1 hire, keep your skills relevant and MOVE every 2-3 years to the next gig. Hopefully you can make it into FANG where your pay will at least DOUBLE.

I remember the days when Cisco had once a year layoffs instead of the quarterly scare of thousands lost. There is no reason to subject yourself to this when the market is so strong! Gravitate your skills to software industry and move away from "dead man walking" hardware (unless you love it and it's Apple, Qualcomm, etc).

God Bless to all who lost jobs today. This will highly likely be a "lemons to lemonade" event where your future, in all aspects, will be a big improvement!

this is what happens when you work for Dunder Mifflin, hope they keep Taco Tuesdays!

What a darn bad story

There is NO reason why someone can be notified after they return from PTO. The decision does not change as a result. Just using some basic sensitivity is not hard - if you want to be sensitive.

The decision to tell people while on PTO or after they get back is a hard one and is a lose/lose situation. Some people don't want to know because it ruins their vacation. Others want to know so they can cut out any spending they don't need to spend, or possibly cut the vacation short if they can to cut costs. Even better would be to tell the employee BEFORE their vacation and make them sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) so they can either take or cancel their vacation knowing that they're going to suddenly be unemployed.

I had a company lay me off the Monday following Thanksgiving. I had taken Friday off to make it a 4-day weekend, so it didn't really bother me, but that company based it's 401(k) matching for current employees at year-end and made a lump-sum matching contribution the first week of Jan for all employees a/o Dec 31st. They notified me that they were laying me off on 11/28. I got 2 weeks severance in lieu of notice & an additional 2 weeks pay if I signed the agreement not to sue. If I signed, my employment ended Dec 28th and if I didn't, it ended Dec 14th. So I didn't get any of the 401(k) matching for that entire year's contributions. That is what I thought was really cold hearted of them.

To top it off, the office admin who was in the conf room with me while HR was conferenced in on the phone tried to tell me it was a "generous package" as well as providing me with a copy of the agreement I'd signed when I was hired agreeing that when I left the company I would not go to work for any of their customers, suppliers or competitors for a period of 3 years.

I thought it was hilarious when, 95 days later, the company closed the entire office and laid off everyone except the handful of senior execs. Turns out they had let just enough of us go at Thanksgiving (technically Dec 28th) so that they could let 48 people go on March 1st and avoid the WARN act's requirements of providing job placement services. Damn bean counters. I had to ask the office admin if she thought the package was still generous when she was the one receiving it and how she felt about the non-compete requirement since it limited her employment options.

I didn't give a c-ap about the non-compete. I interviewed with any company with an opening matching my skills and would let them decide if it was worth it to take me to court over it. Turns out it wasn't.

Does anyone remember the first layoff at cisco?
The payout was amazing i am told - now it is bare bones i am told
New grads that had not started work got a package

The comment at the time was cisco wanted to be as humane as possible.

There is NO reason why someone can be notified after they return from PTO. The decision does not change as a result. Just using some basic sensitivity is not hard - if you want to be sensitive.

If not laying off people on a vacation was a requisite employees would take a month long vacation whenever rumors of layoffs would circulate. large company. generic problem.

Well, it costs Cisco nothing either way - PTO is accrued.

sounds about right, but thanks to Cisco I got to paint my house, mow my lawn, go to gym and vacation without using any pto so when I quite I had 180 hours, left before they called my number , which was low. I do miss Cisco, not the constant fear of LR but the slack managers, V2momma getting fatter by the day, and spending all day chatting on jabber to see who got LRd. Work in the real world is exhausting, might go back to Cisco to go back on vacation.

2K views in 7 hours.

Tells you everything.

That’s terrible. I’m expecting it any day now as well.

If not laying off people on a vacation was a requisite employees would take a month long vacation whenever rumors of layoffs would circulate. large company. generic problem.

Nothing says we care like "Hey.....yeah, we know you're on vacation but we wanted to let you know you're laid off. Enjoy the rest of your vacation!"

Can you name tech companies that are not "great to me until it was not"?

Amen

• Cisco was great to me until it was not.

That is a hell of a line. Cisco was great to me until it was not. Very True. Very Real.

Thats bad, but not as bad as mine.
November 2018 I planned a trip to europe and was married, when I returned I saw my PTO that was scheduled for the holidays was rejected. I called my manager and asked him whats up and he told me he was setting a webex up the following day.
SO I come back from honeymoon and get canned, mean while prior to leaving for europe he was like have a great time, etc,etc. 24 yrs gone.