Thanks to the lack of job security and worsening work culture, among many other things, the majority of the smartest people are already gone from IBM. Most of the people who are still here are either underachievers or IBM veterans who are a year or two from retirement and are just going through the motions. How can we expect to be anything other than average at best in these circumstances?
11 replies (most recent on top)
Actually, though the revenue of FAANG and even IBM is no joke... in some ways the whole industry is a bad joke.
We collectively keep making bigger and bigger computer messes, to my eyes. And, everything becomes it's own specialty. Things have gotten so messy and complex that specialists are needed to use this stuff... but the point of computers was to make things easier, not harder...
So not sure that we haven't lost our way in an engineering sense, despite being able to sell a lot of this stuff.
In any event, seems to me IBM's heyday was back in the day of back office automation and somehow we never really jumped onto the new waves of automation and are not navigating the switch from being a hardware sales company to services as well as we could have, given the deep market penetration we had from those days.
Not sure how that happened. But it feels a lot like how US auto makers got beat by the Japanese.
Let's put smart to work. Thank you.
"1/3 the people are retirement age and don’t care, 1/3 are just waiting for the H1B lottery and will leave as soon as they get to the US, and the remaining 1/3 are competent but demotivated by no pay raises or bonuses and are actively looking to leave."
I was in the first group and can speak for a lot of people I knew who were in that group.
It is not that we do not care, it is that we also have been demotivated.
We do not see pay raises, bonuses, awards and most are not even considered for promotions when they should be. The reason it may seem that we don't care is because we are the one group that can tell a manager to go pound salt when they are trying to dump their stress onto us. We have nothing to loose if mgt has a cow. And that is the part of we don't care that is true!
OP is right. I came here from a competitor and had no idea how bad things really were, but now it makes sense that nobody takes IBM seriously anymore. Try leading a team here - 1/3 the people are retirement age and don’t care, 1/3 are just waiting for the H1B lottery and will leave as soon as they get to the US, and the remaining 1/3 are competent but demotivated by no pay raises or bonuses and are actively looking to leave. I’ve witnessed this for 3 years and my peers say it has been this way since Ginni took over. My manager says she was the one who caused the eruption of infighting at the executive ranks too and that has caused “irreparable damage” (his words).
I coasted in my role at IBM and did nothing for years. Got paid damn well for it too. Suckers.
Just take the Office Space approach to your job and it’s not too bad.
Technology is always going to get farmed out so you don’t have a chance being relevant in that capacity so quit thinking you do.
There are good people left. Unfortunately, they cannot affect change in the company because it’s being run by bean counters in India. Get rid of the leadership and things will change.
- There are plenty smart people still at ibm who are successful and not d-mb and bitter such as yourself.
- Why are you addressing AK here. He doesn’t read this trash.
Stop complaining and just quit already. I love how you old timers constantly complain instead of doing something about it. We get it already... It’s not the same as it used to be, everyone is d-mb except you, young kids are mo--ns. Now just gtfo
How many posts on this forum are basically "Everybody here is an id--t... except me"?
IBM could easily dump every defined pensioner out of the company by dumping the defined pension option after a certain date. Yes lettered exec’s would have to get a quasi pass. Right now the defined pension guys have to be in their early 60’s or older. Offer up a healthcare bridge, and a 65 year old pension payment no matter what your age, and you would be surprised at who would leave. Allow folks to come back as temps if IBM needs them, but they would be allowed to double dip (pension plus temp pay) Good for the employee if you really have a skill IBM needs, and good news for IBM in that you just got rid of the highest paid part of the workforce that is shrinking quickly due to lack of need for their skills. I’m sure AK one of the Bain guys could make a spread sheet for you. If you bought Redhat to change IBM’s strategy to a new younger skill set, maybe you should concentrate on giving the remaining older legacy skill set employees an escape clause. It will save you money, and speed up the transition without having to have two skill sets compete against each other
You are absolutely correct though they are still a few good people at IBM but they are looking to leave.