After LR'd , one of the most challenging aspects has been the strain on some of my friendships. It's disheartening to see some of my closest friends distancing themselves, seemingly more interested in boasting about their career successes or financial gains than offering genuine support. Surprisingly, it's been those acquaintances, not particularly close to me, who have stepped up to offer sincere help during this difficult period.
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Alot of it has to do with culture at the company. I'm the person that mentioned in a post below that I still have friends from a company I started my career with, 35 years ago. As a matter of fact, almost ALL my current friends, except for a few from grade school, came from that company. Why? Because we all worked together and played together after work. We had company sports teams that competed against other local company teams, we'd get beers after work together (engineers, managers, Dirs, VPs...all drinking together). The company had christmas parties, summer parties, and many other "all company" events. It was truly fun working there, and you felt like the company actually cared for you. Companies don't do that anymore, especially Cisco. It's sad.
People that claim you can't have friends at work probably don't have many outside of work after age 30. It's life. However, I have noticed that even when people move to other orgs, they disappear as friends. This has shown me that I have a lot of long term acquaintances as opposed to the friends I thought they were. Most were not bad acquaintances, but I can't say they ended up as the friends I thought they were. These are the ones I seldom will even respond to now via chat or calls. My time was and still is worth much more than that and I make that determination. Not csco, not my neighbor, not my manager.
Work just work，and life is life
I was there 13 years, got laid off. To echo an earlier post, even given past theater awards, management support, good relations with peers, etc., it was crickets when I got impacted. The very few who reached out were outside my immediate day-to-day contacts.
I have heard this from others who were let go. The "let me open my LinkedIn network to you" is generally public posturing.
Having friends at work is a natural part of life. You spend a ton of time working with these people and a ton of your life working. Folks that say don't have friends at work are heartless (which unfortunately is a large amount of folks in the tech world).
Having said that, it is natural for your former work mates to forget about you.....you are gone and they have other stuff to worry about. I can count on one hand the former Cisco workmates I talk to after 5 years gone (I was at Cisco for 13 years). However, many of my coworkers at a company I started my career at I am still daily friends with 35 years later.
More than likely, you’re being treated the same way you treated others when they were laid off.
Why did you even try to have friends at work to begin with? Asking for problems?
Mistake 1 : friends at work.
Solution 1 : get a cat, at the very least you will be accustomed to erratic behaviour and getting ignored.
Solution 2: dont get friends at work
Reason for keeping a safe distance is very clear - they are inside, and you’re outside. Moreover you got a serious contagious disease, named LR’d-Sickness. No one wants to identify themselves talking to an outsider, who got sick and was discarded. Let the reality sink in, time to move on.
very good post! I want to talk about Costco moment on this, at San Jose or RTP, these so called friends at your workplace we so often to see each other at the Costco , every time it is a moment of silence and even pretend to say hi is daunting to them and sometimes me. of course they will pretend to not seeing you and just walk by, yet some of them has hands and body movement where you can see clearly, they are not comfortable in talking to you.. Not so sure why they are so distant. HR purposely don't want to mention these go away parties and etc.. it is not a tradition at Cisco. you are out to the door and die with the dust and a burden from that moment on.
High leadership is a big issue in not promoting some kind of social gathering for these people who has been over x+ years.. sorry, this is in humane.. If you are there 15+ years, that says something..
South Asian are the worst due to that is how they were taught when they were brought up.. step on them to get what they want..
You need a friend in the corporate world?
Get a dog my friend. This way you don’t get burned 🔥
Embrace those folks that have stuck with you and say sc--w it to those that have turned their backs. You have enough to worry about and deal with at this point. Cisco is not the company it once was, the leadership, especially in CX are d-mb as rocks. Someday you will realize you’ve lost nothing. Move forward, stay positive, enjoy life.
Over the years Cisco managed to hire and to lose lots of talents
Based on my observations, these talents fall in a few large categories:
- people with spine who are confident on their capabilities and who, at most remain neutral to this political sh-t that is going on within or outside the company. They tend to live Cisco in around 10Y at most.
- there are some careerists among the above mentioned talents who have no directions and principles other than their managers' views or the company's views . These are the worst kind and they tend to grab key power positions within the team and nothing moves without them being in the loop. The managers count on them when taking decisions and if you do not have a good relationship with these guys you won't get anywhere. Many of these are from Middle East or South Asia. The later are the worst.
- there are people who are not exceptionally talented but good enough to be part of Cisco and they prefer to fly under the radar, they do their jobs, they comply and deliver and they stay quiet. In general they are under paid for their efforts but they are OK with it.
Practically if you see that the guy or the girl has been around for too long chances are that he is one of those yes men or yes women who befriend their managers on Facebook if they can, they follow them (and every single member of the ELT) on LinkedIn . They never knew that Liz existed and they will never admit that they followed Maria Martinez :-)). Typical opportunist behavior. Oh Maria is gone ? Unfriend or unfollow her, hurry up hurry up before anybody sees it. Oh and let's follow Liz now that she is on the wave. WTF --why do you need that, you never cared about Liz before, if she has anything to share with her org she would do it internally via emails, meetings etc etc. Why would you watch here on LinkedIn or on X or whatever, especially if you are not in sales or marketing or whatever.
Anyway these will turn you their back as soon as the news are out. Most probably they will cut their LinkedIn connection or they will ignore you going forward. The best you can do is to say nothing and not to reach out to anybody just to avoid creating awkward situations. The things will calm down and the dust will settle and then you can eventually reach out or hear from the ones who have some integrity left.