Layoffs are part of business, no doubt about it. But people here have been complaining about the company's decline for years, and yet no one did anything—they just waited to be laid off. Meanwhile, top management is walking away with millions in their pockets, while we humbly thank them in all-hands meetings for their so-called "achievements," even as their projects get scrapped and thousands of employees are laid off. The top executives who backed these VPs? They're still around.
We're lagging in the AI race because we were too busy cashing in juicy commissions from selling hardware our customers can barely digest (while their buyers are signing new deals in Vegas, of course). And yet, here we are, still doing nothing but complaining. We can apply pressure to force change.
What if, instead of showing up to the next all-hands after September 16th and pretending everything's fine, no one shows up? That would send a message: "We're done with the bullsh-t." And imagine if 50K Cisco employees emailed CNN, The New York Times, and other major outlets with the same subject line: "It's time for a change." It would hit the media in a flash, and they’d feel the heat from the outside.
Could we try?