Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

Perhaps it would be easier if the US went over to the EMEAR system.

There's a lot about the EMEAR system we benefit from, like labor protection laws that prevent LR's from happening w/o fair notice.

Not sure what part of EMEAR you’re in, but most countries don’t work like that. I think I had about 20 carried over last year and about 18 this year.

Perhaps it would be easier if the US went over to the EMEAR system.

You get x days per year, that have to be used within that calendar year.

You can carry a max of five days over and they have to be used by the end of March in the following year.

If you don’t, you lose them.

Simple.

Sometimes people need to take PTO at a different time -- say a literal trip to Mecca. I had co-workers who did so and had to go negative in order to take a long trip outside of the shutdown period.

I could tell stories about the good old days, including respect for PTO before 2009, but then I'll just sound old. Now where is my cane?

I get that. I had a co-worker who's wife was Chinese and he saved up his PTO to take a month-long trip to Beijing for the 2008 Olympics--damn, has it really been that long ago?--and stayed w/ her family. Lots of people take month-long trips to India spaced out by 2-3 yrs so they can make the best use of their PTO and travel money as a lot of time is wasted on the travel time of the trip itself. Where's my walker? I need more than a cane.

I wish the ELT would be more transparent about how many hours we can bank, on average, as employees before they need to force the extra shutdown on us. And furlough red-badges! I hated it as a contractor w/o PTO that I was punished when Cisco employees weren't using their PTO and the ELT would extend the shutdown and furlough us too. We're not part of your OpEx liability costs you're trying to fix. This extra extension of the year-end shutdown in order to burn 24 hrs of PTO out of everyone's "bank" would be more acceptable if they'd make us burn 3 days at our convenience during Q2 or Q3. But the cost/overhead to "manage" that exceeds the cost/overhead of just sticking onto the end of the year-end shutdown programmatically and you don't have to run reports to ensure that all teams/BU's get it done. Another option could have been to allow employees to decide if they wanted to take 3 days before the year-end or 3 days after the year-end. I'd rather have had the 21st-23rd off and the 20th or Jan 3rd as the Day for Me.

Everyone tries to "game" the system. If I can "bank" 220 hrs, why wouldn't I? If banking 220 causes me to have to take unwanted dates off, but banking 160 hrs allows me to game the system, I'll bank 160 hrs and use it on the dates I want. Then everyone's happy. Just tell me/us what the threshold is.

I'll be the first to admit that I used to game the system in the service. We got 30 days each year, and you could only roll over 60 days on Sept 30 to Oct 1, so you had to make sure that your end-of-year balance was no more than 57 hrs going into Sept because you earned 2.5 days per month. I carried over 59 days into my last fiscal year and between Oct 1 to June 1 I earned another 22.5 days, so I had 81 days of "terminal" leave built up for my separation. Another thing about the service was that you couldn't be refused leave if you were in a use-or-lose situation, so having a lot of leave built up meant you could pick your dates pretty much when you wanted except for when they conflicted with deployments.

With Cisco, the "bank" is a limit and not a "rollover" date, and my 1st manager didn't let me take the new-hire orientation because I was a red-badge conversion. I thought it was a rollover, so I'd planned my big PTO break such that I'd have less than 220 hrs come Jan 1 and hit the 220 hr limit in June. I had to then take one day off per week every week to keep from forfeiting PTO hours and still take my planned Thanksgiving week and 2 weeks at Christmas off. He said I demonstrated poor time management around PTO and I said "No, I planned and managed my time very carefully, but I was working under the wrong set of requirements because you didn't let me take the orientation and didn't understand how the process worked." From that time on, I pretty much banked around 160 hrs and used them such that I could take a week or two in the summer, a week around Thanksgiving if I only took one in the summer, and two weeks at year's end and let it get over 160 so I didn't drop below 120 when I came back in Jan. Having 4 weeks pay as additional severance in the event of an LR is nice.

Every other company I've been laid off from has had bad-to-decent severance packages, but none have come close to matching what Cisco offers, so I've always "banked" as much PTO as I could stand to bank just to give myself that little extra severance package.

Coming back to Cisco, it's going to take me a while to accumulate 160 hrs or more of PTO again, but I'm going to do that just so that I have time to deal w/ year-end and extra mandatory PTO usage and still have my summer week and 2 winter weeks.

i checked CEC and there is no notification that PTO is extended a week

Sometimes people need to take PTO at a different time -- say a literal trip to Mecca. I had co-workers who did so and had to go negative in order to take a long trip outside of the shutdown period.

I could tell stories about the good old days, including respect for PTO before 2009, but then I'll just sound old. Now where is my cane?

Sorry, but this is stupid logic. I used to be a contractor/consultant for many years. You are not an employee, so if you are running week to week on your incoming revenue to live your life, then you are an id--t.
A consultancy is a business. You need to match your revenue to the business outgoings - such as salary. You are like a flower shop that thinks every week’s takings are the same as Valentine’s Day. This is a very weak argument.

I am, and have been a contractor/consultant for many years. I keep between 9-12 mo income (revenue) as liquid assets to keep my business (me) running when the business slows or stops (sudden furloughs, unexpected contract terminations due to client budget cuts, or gaps between gigs).

I just pointed out how the commenter who whined about his PTO being stolen was being petty because some people had their income taken from them unexpectedly. Sure, it's the risk of being a contractor instead of an employee. Used to, back in the '80's and '90's, contractors made "bank" and could afford to get private benefits. Now they don't make much more than employees in total compensation, especially w/ the high cost of health care. Now, it's harder to replace that cash flow buffer as you dip into it.

Sorry Troll, PTO is not extended.

We can all complain but the results are still the same.

Please wait for the beginning of the next chapter of the roaring '20s decade of decadence.

Buckle up, this party's just getting started.

Your Menu:

• Unending COVID buffet continues.
• Mid-Term Elections: Mudflingfest.
• South China Sea Chessgame.
• Putin/Biden Ukrane Phoney Phone Chitchat.
• Inflation.
• Eventual US Economy Reset once free money handout stops.
• Atypical Cisco LR Cycle, added as a special topping to the above sh1t-sandwich.
• Enjoy.

Obviously social media corp shills are here. Bu---r off.

Says the person who's repeatedly hitting the page to artificially inflate the up/down votes to make his sh-t look popular. I, too, can use an incognito window and repeated down vote your trash.

If that's the issue, just lower the amount of PTO they can bank, problem solved, but they don't do that. That means, the problem is something else and they are using this an excuse. The ELT lacks honesty and transparency.

If they lowered the bankable amount of PTO, they'd be unable to attract employees or would have to give a separate balance for sick time.

This year is the first time they've used the BS excuse of saying they wanted to give us more rest and mental recovery time. Every other year, they've been honest enough to say it's to cut OpEx costs, which is the real reason they extended it this year too.

I'm too used to the annual shutdown and possible extension given how they've done it since 2009, so more than a decade, but the excuse made this year was a blatant attempt to be "woke".

" If people were taking their PTO instead of banking so much of it, this wouldn't have happened. "

If that's the issue, just lower the amount of PTO they can bank, problem solved, but they don't do that. That means, the problem is something else and they are using this an excuse. The ELT lacks honesty and transparency.

Obviously social media corp shills are here. Bu---r off.

What is the point of giving people PTO if the company is just going to decide when it is taken?

The point is that people aren't taking their PTO so there's too much liability on the balance sheets, so they have to force us to take it to keep Wall Street happy. If people were taking their PTO instead of banking so much of it, this wouldn't have happened.

It is theft from employees of thier time and vacations. Pretty sh---y thing to do.

Not really. I obviously don't speak for everyone and neither do you, but I used to start & end my vacation time beyond the year-end shutdown, so I was off anyway. This year, about half my team is doing the same, so it had zero impact on them. If enough people decide to make waves about "theft", the company can just take 3-5 days of PTO away from us and create company "holidays" between Christmas and New Years and then it's no longer PTO.

If they had been gifts, free days off - fine. But taking away plans from your employees. Taking away their rest and recovery and forcing it to be when you want it to be for your own bottom line is sh---y. And its not very culturally sensitive for the many people at cisco that don't celebrate winter holidays. So much for their cultural care. But we already knew that was a sham from other actions they have taken.

How are they "taking away their rest and recovery" if the reason they're claiming to be extending the year-end shutdown is to give people extra rest and recovery time? Granted, I'm more bothered by the "woke" excuse of saying we needed extra rest & recovery time instead of the real excuse that they need to clear the books of too much payroll liability. They've always had the ba--s to admit that the previous years they did it to cut OpEx costs in years with tight/recession economies.

And no one is claiming this is for "Christmas" holidays. It's for the US & Canada. Schools close here for the year end, so many parents take the time off to be with their children who are out of school. Your BS about being culturally insensitive is just as bad as their BS about us needing more rest and recovery time.

It also shows what a messed up state this company is in. If you can't afford people's PTO balances as a fortune 500 - you probably aren't a company that is doing well financially.

It's not that they can't "afford" people's PTO balances. It's that Wall Street investors see it as a negative and Cisco has to act accordingly. It's the same reason why they have big layoff's in Q1 of each fiscal year, to cut costs and keep Wall Street happy. Fix some of the flaws in capitalism's demand for maximum profits and this sh-t wouldn't happen.

How long have you been w/ Cisco? They've had this policy since back in '08 or '09. The first year they implemented it, they told everyone that they had to take 3 (or 5?) days some time in Q4, but left the specific dates up to each person. Everyone hated it saying that it interfered w/ their winter vacation plans because that was the only time all their kids of varying ages were out of school at the same time. Others complained that they came back to a ton of work because the dates they chose didn't match up with others, or project deadlines didn't slip. That's when they decided it was better to make it at the year-end and have everyone take the same time off so that project managers could plan project's commitments/schedules around the shutdown. And they could save on OpEx by putting the buildings in weekend power mode, which they couldn't do when people were taking random dates off and some people were still working.

Through most of the 2020 and early 2021 Check-Ins, people were asking if Cisco would increase the limit beyond the 220 hrs of PTO they could bank because they were not taking it. If you've got 220 hrs, a measly extra 24 hrs is not going to take away vacation time.

My biggest gripe is that they make last minute extensions of various lengths each year based on how many people are not using their PTO and end up punishing those who actually use their PTO. But because they make it apply to everyone instead of those with 160+ hrs of PTO, they can get away with it.

All bar one of the employers that I’ve worked for has mandated taking off the period between Christmas and New Year as PTO. The exception was when I worked in retail during college.

In fact, when I worked in manufacturing all but two days of my annual PTO were mandated by the employer.

Suck it up, it could be worse.

At least you have PTO. The red-badges don't, so they just got an additional three days of unpaid leave at Christmas just when the credit card bills are coming due for all the Christmas gifts and travel they paid for.

Sorry, but this is stupid logic. I used to be a contractor/consultant for many years. You are not an employee, so if you are running week to week on your incoming revenue to live your life, then you are an id--t.
A consultancy is a business. You need to match your revenue to the business outgoings - such as salary. You are like a flower shop that thinks every week’s takings are the same as Valentine’s Day. This is a very weak argument.

What is the point of giving people PTO if the company is just going to decide when it is taken?

It is theft from employees of thier time and vacations. Pretty sh---y thing to do.

If they had been gifts, free days off - fine. But taking away plans from your employees. Taking away their rest and recovery and forcing it to be when you want it to be for your own bottom line is sh---y. And its not very culturally sensitive for the many people at cisco that don't celebrate winter holidays. So much for their cultural care. But we already knew that was a sham from other actions they have taken.

It also shows what a messed up state this company is in. If you can't afford people's PTO balances as a fortune 500 - you probably aren't a company that is doing well financially.

Need some cheese to go with the whining?

Did you complain on here when they did the same thing last year? At least this year, instead of it being limited to a BU-by-BU basis in the US, this time it was for the entire US. CX and other BU's started the year-end three days early and furloughed the contractors.

At least you have PTO. The red-badges don't, so they just got an additional three days of unpaid leave at Christmas just when the credit card bills are coming due for all the Christmas gifts and travel they paid for.

If people would actually take some PTO during the year instead of faking working while remote, then the company wouldn't need to force everyone to take PTO to reduce their OPEX liabilities. During the mid-to-late '20 and the early '21 Cisco Check-in's, at least a dozen people would ask in the Q&A space if Cisco could increase the 220 hr PTO balance limit because they weren't taking PTO.

I just hope Cisco doesn't switch to an annual use-it-or-lose-it model or an unlimited PTO model so they don't have to pay out unused accrued PTO balances when people leave Cisco.

FFS, get over it already.

PTO extended by a week due to omicron. check cec

RTP is closing.