It is interesting that staying here for many years used to be seen as a reflection of loyalty and something praiseworthy, but nowadays it's become almost something to be ashamed of.
How did that happen?
Neither the company nor other employees look favorably on long-term employees anymore.
12 replies (most recent on top)
The workforce transition is a lot of younger workers getting promoted to save costs. Lawyer's should take notice. The layoffs are targeting older or higher paid workers unless they are VP or above.
Then one day Cisco gives you a big bag of money and tells you to hit the road. You shake your head as if awoken from a trance, look around and realize some salt has crept into your once pepper mane. Where did the time go indeed...
Ain't no money like free money! I wouldn't trade my time at Cisco for anything LOL!
I've managed to ride that merry-go-round twice and I'm back looking for that third big bag of money. In the mean time, I'll enjoy the great benefits & great work/life balance that is Cisco.
That's why I left two companies to return to Cisco. The first one worked my a$$ off, and no, it wasn't because they expected me to actually work 40 hrs instead of the < 5 hrs many people here claim to work. I was working 60-70 hrs weeks and getting paid for the overtime, so the money was damn nice but it was ki-ling my work/life balance. The second company also worked my a$$ off, but it was because the director micro managed the team, and expected everyone to "track" their time each week to case tickets and expected you to have 30-35 hrs linked to tickets that they could bill to the customers and they didn't like it when you tried to link time to "meetings" that were not billable. Sure, pad your time to tickets you say, but the Director would look at the tickets and the time and wonder why you allocated 3 hrs to some 30 min task. No one wants to work 9-5 w/ no breaks and constantly switching from one task to another. And worse, they required your time to be submitted 3 business days before the end of the month, so the last week was always a guess-timate for those 3 days that never matched reality because the director would suddenly change priorities or throw some new task at you after you'd submitted your "planned" work and then get mad when you didn't properly account for your time, which you can't because the month end days are "frozen" while they're doing their reporting. Why the he-l can't they run the reports on the 1st and have the billing ready for the customers by the 5th or some such instead of having to send it to the customer on the 1st? Why didn't the customers realize that the company was guessing on the hours for the end of the month given that it was for the previous month and delivered first thing the morning of the first?
I prefer the pace & number of hours expected from you at Cisco. If I'm in 10 hrs of meetings, then I'm only expected to deliver 20-30 hrs of deliverable work, not 35.
This entire thread is complete and utter BS. Cisco is not a bad place to work at all, in the round. Sure there is a culture of sycophancy but that is live and well at every company. Long tenured employees are generally well respected in my experience at Cisco as a Cisco 12 year employee myself. Not everyone wants to be a VP and some people are quite happy to be a coal stoker and an individual contributor. Know the system, play it to your advantage, earn a steady salary and enjoy a decent standard of living and don’t stress too much. What’s so wrong with that?
I'm one of those long time employees and have the grey hair to prove it. While Cisco hasn't given me absolutely everything I've ever desired for my career they have delivered most of it and provided a tremendous amount to stability to my life when I needed it to raise a family.
At some point Cisco will call my number and that's OK. I've learned a tremendous amount, had amazing successes, worked with many wonderful people who will remain lifelong friends.
I'm proud to have had such a long and successful career at Cisco. It is truly a rarity in today's market.
No regrets at all.
You have to look at it more broadly than just Cisco. Technology is changing at a faster rate than ever and many whole frameworks and languages come and go as fast as TikTok challenges. Getting ahead of this requires significant effort outside work. Few do this and the only other way to grow is to work on significantly different projects which in most cases means regularly changing companies, something few do.
At other companies I’ve worked at the responsibilities Cisco claimed for Engineer 1-4 mapped pretty directly to Engineer 1, Engineer 2, Staff Engineer and Senior Engineer. The really aggressive can make Senior Engineer in under three years and in doing so end up with a broader set of skills than any over 60 Engineer 4 I worked with at Cisco. If you’re starting a new project at a new company do you want to work with the people who are driven to grow and do better or the stagnant who have been making the same mistakes for 40 years?
tl;dr: if you want to be valued over others you have to provide superior value.
Yes youngsters look at you as if you are an aged dinosaur. (10 + years at Cisco) who has no career drive or motivation other than collecting a paycheque.
Well said! Right on!
Long stay at Cisco has become shameful
It is interesting that staying here for many years used to be seen as a reflection of loyalty and something praiseworthy, but nowadays it's become almost something to be ashamed of.
How did that happen?
Such a stupid question. Very childish. It's so typical of the Cisco employees.
He doesn't understand how way behind the times he is. Having been at Cisco way too long, he has become numb, lazy and valueless as other tech firms have evolved more and more. That's why those 15+ yr Cisco employees need to leave for other companies. They don't even realize how d-mb they have become.
Cisco is excruciatingly old and there is nothing to learn.
When you are debt free and live well below your means, you start to live in a different reality from most people.
The mindset stops being "how can I prove my worth to my superiors to get better raises" and starts being "which company is stupid enough to keep handing me free money while I coast downhill".
Then one day Cisco gives you a big bag of money and tells you to hit the road. You shake your head as if awoken from a trance, look around and realize some salt has crept into your once pepper mane. Where did the time go indeed...
Ain't no money like free money! I wouldn't trade my time at Cisco for anything LOL!
I think it depends on which generation you're from. Boomers tend to stay for a long time because their parents (the generation before them) worked for one company for their lifetime, whereas Millennials tend to job-hop every year or two, and GenZ's always pursue the next best thing.
That are a few haters here on this board.
it is individual decision, nothing to be ashamed of
Yes youngsters look at you as if you are an aged dinosaur . ( 10 + years at cisco ) who has no career drive or motivation other than collecting a paycheque .