I’m amazed at how many people who were LR’ed are blaming DEI or think they’re targeted for being a white guy. Seriously you think any company really cares or is really doing anything to help DEI effectively? Stop the whining. Reality is we have laws which favor corporate profits over your economic safety net. We have companies bringing in people from India on visas in order to exploit loopholes and pay them less (I’m not scapegoating or blaming Indian engineers, the problem is the system in place). If you really want things to change, have your (local not just national level) lawmakers put actual worker wellbeing protections in place instead of letting them goad you into blaming your problems on an asylum seeking immigrant that is in no way threatening your livelihood . The very legal systems in place to put workers at an economic disadvantage to companies are what you should be talking about instead of giving corporations a free pass by blaming something silly like DEI. And one more thing, quit feeling entitled, if someone came in with modern skillsets they may have been hired because they’re more qualified than you, not DEI. Look in the mirror and accept that you dropped the ball and need to account for that next time. Improve your skill sets and quit whining and assuming you are the better candidate. Set your ego to the side, reflect, grow up, and move on.
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HR literally sent a message once in teams that they were setting aside a specific number of intern reqs for DEI/diversity hires only. They said it explicitly.
Check out my eolbot
There are whole billion dollar industries focused on training for DEI, reporting on DEI, adopting DEI, funding DEI, marketing DEI and blackwashing DEI. Don’t tell me it’s a figment of our imagination. Yours is from the standard response of the woke progressives:
- It’s not happening
- If it is happening, it’s not as bad as you say it is
- If it is as bad as you say it is, then that’s a good thing.
And Cisco needs engineers with modern cloud skillsets not ancient networking skillsets.
And what products or services is Cisco capable of providing in the cloud that aren't networking? As of 2022 Google was 9% of the cloud and IBM and Oracle were far lower than that. They have application, scaling, service and systems experience while Cisco can't even manage their own equipment on their internal network.
Companies will bring in people from India (with less pay and through visas) who are not as entitled as some of those employees who refuse to modernize their skillsets.
Why fight for a few visa slots when we have major facilities already in India? We've already trained the ones we hired to be every bit as bad as the native US engineers. At least in India when they realize bug fixing is career death they aren't trapped in one company by a visa.
‘So what is it? Did these employees "drop the ball" or do we need to "protect their jobs"?? ‘
Both. You want to make sure you have medical insurance and a compensation package after you get laid off don’t you? And Cisco needs engineers with modern cloud skillsets not ancient networking skillsets. Companies will bring in people from India (with less pay and through visas) who are not as entitled as some of those employees who refuse to modernize their skillsets.
Yes it’s possible for more than one thing to be true at once, shocking I know.
We can debate why old white dudes are being targeted. What can’t be debated is the targeting.
What we DO NOT want is an uncontrolled flow of people coming here, where we do not what diseases they may be bringing, what vaccinations they failed to get, and what criminal background they may have.
Given Americans cause more crime and the anti-vax movement is bringing back an assortment of diseases those arguments are completely off the table. I'm for controlled immigration, but if we have to get rid of two regulations for each one we add we should be able to dispose of two useless Americans for everyone one competent alien we bring in.
What stupid, contradictory drivel. You want there to be laws that "protect jobs over corporate profits", yet in the same paragraph you blame the employee for being "entitled" and that they need to "look in the mirror and accept that (they) dropped the ball" and to "improve your skill sets and quit whining".
So what is it? Did these employees "drop the ball" or do we need to "protect their jobs"?? And why should we protect these "entitled" people who you feel aren't keeping up their skill sets?
While I may be a corporate employee, I'm also a corporate shareholder. My retirement literally depends upon the performance of publicly-traded corporations, so how exactly do you think my retirement account is going to perform if we run a business like a charity, where these "entitled, lousy, whining" employees as you so put it, have no fear of losing their jobs?
Oh, and furthermore, no one cares if someone wants to come to the US to better their life and I highly doubt a software engineer is worried about losing their job to a farmhand from Honduras. What we DO NOT want is an uncontrolled flow of people coming here, where we do not what diseases they may be bringing, what vaccinations they failed to get, and what criminal background they may have. Sounds like you haven't heard of Laken Riley. That is why we want this bulls--t to stop.
You just have a bad company. Nvidia employees are millionaries now. The government can't afford to protect loser companies. Save your money instead.
As long as public companies are able to get someone, somewhere to do your job at what they consider about-the-same-level, and do it for less $$ — they will lawyer up & replace you all day long, every day, until legally they are not allowed to do so. Period.
Not only are immigration laws being proactively unenforced in the United States, paid for Congress critters are scared of losing their paycheck from big corporations who have mainstreamed H1B abuse.
Think it’s bad now? Just wait.
This nation is at a crossroads.
"I retired before DEI came to be, but considering white people make up more than 75% of the US population and I never worked with a group with that many white people at Cisco I'm having a hard time accepting your claim"
I think you are confusing low cost hiring of specific skills like programming with forced hiring based on skin / gender actions.
I've been told that my staff is not diverse enough and was forced to hire and promote people because of their color and/or gender.
I think if you get the I right (almost impossible with the clueless in power having so much to lose) the E takes care of itself. The solution for D when you've gotten E right should be at least somewhat similar to the population.
I retired before DEI came to be, but considering white people make up more than 75% of the US population and I never worked with a group with that many white people at Cisco I'm having a hard time accepting your claim. The most distortion I saw was a director with over 100 reports and less than 5% white people. Given how many projects on high end systems took a year for each month on the schedule as well as the poor code quality by any metric at any time in the company's history "getting the best people before DEI came along" is patently false. Like the software you all appear to be doing this completely wrong.
It sounds like you aren't high enough in the organization to have a racial and gender quota for your staff. Its 100% a thing. I've been told that my staff is not diverse enough and was forced to hire and promote people because of their color and/or gender.
This may not account for why certain people were laid off, but it absolutely is a reason why some people are in their roles and others aren't.
your best job protection is a great product that is wanted by all customers.
All platitudes from all sides.
Why can't we have European level protection for employees in USA? They have a pretty good work force that is not threatened... Punish corporations on profits while thrashing away their hard working employees for cheaper less technical labor.
Truth