Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

During the past decade, Cisco has appointed/ hired inadequate staff in leadership positions, bad acquisition decisions, product development leadership. A review of Chuck's revenue track record , his hires such as Martinez, etc, transition to software recurring revenue, etc have each impacted the company upside in detrimental ways. The BOD has not taken their fiduciary responsibility seriously with Chuck as chairman.

Their poor decisions result in layoffs and Cisco leads the tech industry in the consistency of staff cuts and large numbers involved during the past 20 years.. But one should understand they are expert at this with HR and Legal investing large resources to protect the company. When they cut you based on income and age, there is a 62 page document to sign to gain the severance. The ages of the staff are defined so as they aim for men 55 and over, there are many useless 20 somethings they throw in to show the WARN folks that the company is not discriminating based on age. But we all know better.

…but, but, but…

MY MENTAL HEALTH!!

I don't get all the folks who come to this forum just to talk sh-t to the people who are impacted.

From Wiktionary.com: sh1t talking: (rude, vulgar) Untruthfully [emphasis mine] speaking deprecatively or offensively about another person, especially behind that person's back, but also in the person's presence.

• The truth is many here aren't truthful with themselves about their own role in their career.

• The truth is layoffs have been going on for longer than many have been alive and too many seem genuinely unaware of this reality.

• The truth is people aren't owed a million dollars after five years as poor performers.

• The truth is many at Cisco spend decades making the same mistakes, never learning anything significant to improve their skills.

• The truth is many younger engineers can outperform older engineers when put on a level playing field.

• The truth is loyalty is worth nothing if the company fails and everyone is unemployed.

• The truth is if a company keeps everyone they ever hired and they aren't competitive in the long run the company will eventually fail.

• The truth is many at Cisco severely overestimate their skills, having nothing to compare them against.

• The truth is many who did keep their skills up had no problem getting new jobs even in the 2007/2008 collapse after being laid off.

Be kind and let the people vent.

Being surprised about the existence of layoffs isn't venting, it's being profoundly disconnected from the reality that Cisco has been doing layoffs (many smaller and largely unnoticed before 2007) since 2001.

It's time for some tough love to teach those still there what they face and what they need to do to plan for it.

• Keep your skills up even if it means you need to invest your free time. Part of this involves choosing skills which will have value over time.

• Keep your professional network active so you have connections to that next job.

• Keep your finances in good shape knowing you could have to go for a significant time between jobs. Part of this is learning how to invest (many will for the first time confront risk and therefore begin to understand business is not simply choosing the one "right answer.")

• In service of all three of the above be willing to proactively change jobs to learn new things, make more professional connections and improve your finances.

• Know that if you keep moving forward the salary bump (typically far in excess of a straight raise) you get for each job jump repeats every year for the rest of your career.

• Know that some of those jumps will not go well, and don't let this discourage you.

• Thankfully most of your peers won't do any of this so you don't have to spend every waking moment in fight or flight mode to outperform them, but don't underestimate the effort required to stay ahead.

• Know your career is your responsibility and managing it is therefore your responsibility.

Cisco is always been investigated, nothing new there. They either win or pay if they lose.

Cisco is being investigated.

By who? While I've heard of a couple of instances were someone sued Cisco, and maybe even managed to get it handled outside of arbitration, that's not even a fraction of 1% compared to the thousands who've been laid off.

I agree with the previous post. This company should be called Stockholm Systems Inc.

I wish the current employees of Cisco would believe in themselves. This company has a Stockholm syndrome like affect on its employees.

So many of you are talented and intelligent yet this company continues to manipulate you like an abusive boyfriend.

Sad to see, have the confidence to leave already.

I don't get all the folks who come to this forum just to talk sh-t to the people who are impacted. If you are already happy and have a job, why do you waste time posting in here? Are you those kind of people who love to dwell when someone is down and get a kick out of it? If that is who you are, mark my word there will be a time in your career when you face the down low and you would be in the same boat as we are.

Be kind and let the people vent. Its a way to cope with the situation and support each other in tough times.

I love all this “I hear” and other accusations without any evidence. You sound like sub-par performers that we can do without.

Hey! How’s your first day on earth going?

Starting well over 40 years ago: Deregulation. Greed is good. Neutron Jack. Raiding pensions. The repeal of Glass-Steagall. If governments let everyone go bankrupt as real capitalism demands the world economy would have collapsed 15 years ago.

On the other side also starting more than 40 years ago: Unions causing minimum wage employees to earn less than minimum wage by forcing them to pay dues from which they get no benefit. Unions paying protesters more money than union employees to protest non-union ma and pa shops paying twice the minimum wage which was far more than the employees funding the protest and the protestors were getting. American car makers rolling cars off the assembly line where the windshields weren’t attached because the people running the glue g-ns around the windshield opening insisted (with union support) that it was not their job to notify anyone when the glue ran out. Violence against people crossing the picket line because they had to work to feed their family.

Neither side has respected the other for more than 40 years, where both live by the most base law of capitalism which is to get the most value for the least work.

By starving out most of their competitors in the early 2000s Cisco has joined with its employees to scr3w over their customers who have to pay massive licensing fees in the failed hope that someday the code might actually work. Look up how much Cisco spends on bug fixing, how much of that is just for “customer found defects,” and how much high end customers pay outside the money they pay to Cisco for running individual images through their own testing which can take years of patches before they can even consider deploying it. In a competitive low margin environment Cisco would have bankrupted itself away a long time ago. You all should be grateful for getting paid anything for doing such a poor job.

Welcome to capitalism! Strap yourself into your seat and hold on tight, only the strong survive.

this whole workforce transition thing is a total sham. Hiring managers are not following protocols to impacted folks. For example, impacted folks are suppose to be given priorities to the job but I hear stories that it is not the case.

One more thing.

The whole "social causes" movement is designed to neuter your psychological urge to compete.

Control even the intelligent ones, that are receptive to digesting the "social causes" movement, will distract them from competition; and more importantly combing together in mass to challenge those now in power of business and governments.

Same theme has repeated itself over and over across history and countries.

There is no eutopia or harmony. Never regretfully was, never will be.

Get away with what?

It is called the way of the new world.

There is a select and enabled group of people running government and business.

Actually it is not the new world. It was also the old world. The cycle has repeated over and over, it just intensifies as technology increases the ability for the select groups to control governments and business.

There is no solution to it. Competition is in our genetic makeup.

I don't disagree but aren't other high-tech companies doing the same? There was a time when 40 was considered old in Silicon Valley but in recent years that changed to 30.

Cisco is being investigated.