IBM is in the process of laying off hundredths of people who support its largest account: AT&T. I was told I have until August 31st to find a job before I’m terminated, and so did many others. Others get another month or so on the bench to look for jobs that are hardly available at this time. This includes people from just about every role, from developers, to senior delivery managers. As it so happens ...
IBM also has a contract with the New York Department Labor, to support call centers for unemployment benefits. With one day’s notice, hundredths of AT&T account resources (along with some other accounts) received an invite to join a call with no background. All we had was a meeting invite with subject “NY DOL”, welcoming us to the project. I assumed they were looking for some project managers, as I’m sure others thought perhaps something in their job category was needed.
As the call starts, we start hearing in shock (I was talking on Slack with some of my peers) that they were assigning us to a Call Center job. They weren't asking if we were interested. The call was to welcome us to the team, and within a few hours I already received my team assignment. Apparently the NY government just asked IBM to ramp up another 1,000 operators, so what was IBM’s brilliant idea? Let’s put those employees we are about to fire in there. And it gets worse …
The job started the next day! 7:30am-4:30pm Monday through Friday. So all that talk about having time to get trained, and look for a new job in August, was a lie. That’s gone. We will be chained to a phone all day. Based on the questions all around, nobody had any idea what the call was for. IBM, and the AT&T Account in particular, just sent a bunch of unsuspecting lambs to the slaughterhouse. Not even our managers knew the details. We were just a bunch of names thrown on a list, and told to show up. That was the treatment given to a group of people with 10 to 20+ years dedicated to IBM.
It’s not just the lack of respect to the employees that is appalling, but also the lack of respect for the client, and the end customer. Imagine I’m a poor guy in New York, and I lost my job. I call my government line, hoping to get a sympathetic voice to ask about my unemployment benefits, and I get … a disgruntled IBM employee, about to be fired! That’s nice IBM. Way to go, making a buck out of people’s misfortunes. I’m sure the NY Government didn’t sign up to have you dump a bunch of upset soon to be ex-employees to handle unemployment calls.
The only silverlining is that I don't feel as bad for losing my job at the end of the month. Who wants to work for people like this.