To all those who elected to take the early retirement package or received notifications your jobs are at risk...
We already miss you! There is a tremendous void left where you used to so effectively do your jobs and keep the business running smoothly. It will take a year+ to recover from this loss of tribal knowledge.
Congratulations on your retirements. To those of you who were notified, I wish you all the best and hope you will find yourselves in meaningful careers in the very near future.
This is one of the more realistic and balanced posts and replies (mostly).
I too couldn't resist a second package after a previous layoff. I think Cisco very generous and kind to offer me the ER in my case.
I loved the people I worked with and believe Cisco will carry on. Sure it will lose more folks and might morph to join up with someone like GCP or something (not just a loose partnership). There's going to be some big corp changes over the next year or two. I worked at IBM years ago and it was interesting to see how that has suddenly changed.
Good luck to all my fellow leavers and good luck to the others staffing the ship. Wish us all well!
best job ever. just attend the meeting requests you are sent, volunteer to take on tasks, and play video games the rest of the week. it doesn't matter if you actually do the assigned tasks because somebody else will end up doing it and you can take credit for it. meanwhile people think you are awesome. if you have to make a powerpoint just use someone else's and change your name on the title slide.
I took it because my career was stuck. I need something to be excited about again. I got depressed talking to my colleagues clinging onto the jobs they don’t necessarily like that much. Inertia is a powerful thing. Just because a job is comfortable doesn’t mean it’s good for you.
Frankly, with 12 months of pay and other Retirement bennies, it was an easy decision.
I won't look back.
I'm not one of the elders that will be missed. That's a comfort.
I've milked the company for every little penny, in my opinion.
They haven't milked me.
Speaking for myself and my friends that took the ER, we ARE retiring now, thanks to Cisco’s package.
I joke that Cisco is paying me 14 months of salary to “go away”, but in reality I was going to retire the end of 2021 anyway. So now I get to do it anyway, without the stress of wondering for the next year if I’m going to be laid off.
Much more positive situation to move on with life by choice. I’m probably in the small minority of being very lucky and happy.
While I’m not retiring to save the job of others on my team, I do feel good that the younger people I work with with small children or children heading to college may have a greater chance of keeping their job with me happily leaving.
Good luck to all. Cisco is not such a terrible place, but it is a far cry from the great place it was 20 years ago.
Very few eligible for ER wanted to leave but they had HR and higher level management insiders telling them off-the-record that they were already on the LR list and would be foolish to decline ER
plus hardly anybody has "retired"... they just cashed in and shall take their experience to a competitor. at this stage Cisco's operational model has been digging it's own grave. it shan't be missed 5 years down the line.
Sad to see so many long time Cisco employees exiting the company all at once. As noted, the tribal knowledge developed over years of experience will be hard to replace. I thoroughly enjoyed my 26 year run, but the package was too good to pass up, given the uncertainty of the business environment Cisco operates in.