Thread regarding IBM layoffs

In the mid 1990s I worked with a major Healthcare provider that had an IBM mainframe for billing and coding.

We had a tape robot for backups the size of a railroad boxcar that shook the building when it fetched a tape cartridge. I suspected it was originally designed to swap 14 inch disk packs.

We had what was probably the first laser printer ever made, another boxcar size piece of hardware that used an arcane language predating postscript that nobody remaining even then at IBM understood.

I had to somehow make this work, and.I did. Including doing reports from a vendor supplied DB2 "database" that was a giant VSAM file embedded in a single table with no indexing.

And I got laid off for my efforts.

This is the Harvard MBA ideology in action.

I knew some mopes who got patents at IBM for something useless.
They got a few bucks to split up between their team, not worth the time.

Patenting sucks at IBM anyway. Even discarding "Patent the world" - I've NEVER been at a company that makes a prospective patent idea person do DO SO MUCH WORK before IBM will ever consider it. Never!

Do nearly ALL the research that an attorney would do - to even convince a panel that it is worthy of consideration. Sure. Then it's easy and 75% of work is done outside of lawyers fees. But most of that time it then sent to PUBLISH - which is what FAANG et al do to put ideas in public - no reward. Zero. Oh, some points, Great.

Don't get me started on "Master Inventor." Sounds cool right? But all it requires is one patent and a TON of giving back/mentoring/etc. Sure that's good - but no MASTER about it. Oh, right, for Master Inventor you're also expected to also do time on the panels - in addition to normal workload.

It's pretty much expected to get "Master Inventor" to get STSM - so people do that - but many (like I) skip Master Inventor and focus on good ideas to protect core (not public) IP.

What a waste. I was hired for X+++ disclosures and Y++ patents - yet it was so painful at IBM I nearly just stopped - as it was a 2nd job.

You want to do the minimum at IBM, try to get paid the most and try to keep your job the longest. If you really have a truly innovative idea, you should take it somewhere else because IBM will never reward you in any meaningful way.

AT was subpar equipment to say the least

Employees come up with innovative ideas every minute of every day. However, they too are unwilling to give them to IBM. IBM executives, for their part, don't offer many opportunities for employees to communicate those ideas. None of the opportunities that they do offer provide real incentives to the employees, like you often see in other companies. Everything they might offer is to IBM's benefit, and the employees will never get a taste of the action (so to speak). The results speak for themselves.

If I ever have a truly innovative idea, and I'm not saying that I will, but if I ever do, then I'm not giving it to IBM.