Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

Age discriminatory LR's are illegal too. As, I am sure, is not putting fun fund towards employee activities at all! Get a grip dude. Happy New Year.

2MBH - pooling funds across multiple quarters for future use is not recommended. Your suggestion to pool fun fund money from multiple quarters is actually illegal in the United States, as it is accounting fraud. (This scenario is specifically addressed in the current company-wide mandatory sales training going on right now: Dec '16-Jan '17.).

"It got a bit tricky when we had to use-it-or-lose-it before the end of the quarter but we were able to pre-pay the hotel with fun-fund for the first quarter and pay the balance with fun-fund for the second quarter. It did mean we were organising our Christmas party in June!"

I'm REALLY not looking forward to going back to work next week. This year feels different, and far worse than usual.

Why didnt they PIP the manager?

I so wanted to ask that myself. Politics. The outgoing director was personal friends with the person in HR responsible for our BU. The manager in question had many years with the company, but didn't seem to stay in a position more than 3-4 yrs before moving to a new team. Some might say he was one step ahead of the chopping block. If he'd been a good manager, rather than putting me in the bottom 5% so I couldn't look at an internal transfer, he'd have helped me find a new team where I could excel. But he knew that my job function was going away, and rather than put good people at risk of a LR whose job functions were safe, he put me in the bottom 5% making it a sure thing that I'd be LR'd. With two strikes against me, job function going away and in bottom 5%, I knew I was a goner as soon as the LR was announced, but I kept my head down, kept working, and made sure that I didn't make any unnecessary big purchases while starting to network with folks outside of Cisco.

Found a job within a month, and got to pocket 5 months severance pay as additional bonus since I didn't get one for the year I was bottom 5%.

I heard he got his own LR this past Sep, so what goes around comes around.

@5kqt: My question is to HR. Arent they involved in the 360 review. Why didnt they PIP the manager ? I am sure, if an engineer is not performing, he would be put on PIP and removed within one month.

I think, the reason cisco is in a sorry-state today, is because of this double-standard-rating towards management and employees ( non-management).

I am dumbfounded that some Cisco management could be accused of not looking after their people.

I know you were being sarcastic, but I'd be amazed if anyone (other than senior leadership/ELT) would be surprised that SOME managers don't take care of their direct reports.

There are good managers at Cisco. There are bad managers at Cisco. Unfortunately, there are also terrible managers and they're the one's who Cisco either can't or won't get rid of.

I was shocked when a manager who was being promoted to director was discussing the recent pulse survey results for everyone under him and he said "there were NO surprises" in the results and that "the results were in line with what he expected". He had 3 managers under him who ran his area of responsibility. Two of the three received a majority of ratings in the 4 & 5 range. 3 and below were not considered good and 1's & 2's were unacceptable. The third manager didn't score above a 2 in ANY area. 90% of the team this manager inherited when he took the job were gone within 18 months. Some quit, others moved to different managers, and the rest he LR'd. He replaced everyone that left with people he liked or s---ed up to him. He managed to hang around that team for another 5 yrs, albeit under a new boss as the new director promptly took the offer of early retirement 2 months after being announced that he was being promoted.

That director should never have been promoted for allowing such a terrible manager to remain, and his replacement should have been ashamed to keep this manager for 5 yrs.

I would have loved to MMA my mgr, cage-match style.

I got so drunk on Cisco bonhomie that I shat myself

@3nqn - I am dumbfounded that some Cisco management could be accused of not looking after their people.

You should try being remote from your 'leadership'. I've had one home delivered pizza on the fun fund in the last two years.

Then your management is not taking care of their people.

My manager made sure to spend up to $50 each on our few remote workers. I'm not sure if they got gift cards or used a Cisco credit card to pay for something and sent back a receipt, but I know they got taken care of. They usually got a better deal than we did given that we had to go somewhere that was satisfactory for the entire team while they went where ever they preferred. They just didn't get to enjoy the "team" togetherness.

We had a xmas party last Friday at a nice Hotel near Heathrow, it was paid for by Cisco and all the drinks free :-)

You should try being remote from your 'leadership'. I've had one home delivered pizza on the fun fund in the last two years.

Our group decided to pool two quarters of fun fund to have a Christmas party with a meal and a few drinks vouchers. It got a bit tricky when we had to use-it-or-lose-it before the end of the quarter but we were able to pre-pay the hotel with fun-fund for the first quarter and pay the balance with fun-fund for the second quarter. It did mean we were organising our Christmas party in June! Our group has been doing this with three years now and works pretty well. We allow people to vote every year on whether we should continue with this way of spending the fun fund allocation or use it up every quarter. I cannot believe some groups don't even see their quarterly fun fund allocation let alone not have a Christmas blow out!! What do the managers spend it on instead? That's $200 per employee per fiscal year!

If the "fun money" still exists, then it is getting spent on something other than the employees.

I know that the fun fund was alive and active in RTP during 2015 & 2016, at least until the initial FY17 LR hit. My BU alternated quarters. One quarter, it was done at the "team" level and was up to each team to decide how to spend up to $50 per employee. The next quarter, it was a BU-level party where they chose a large venue.

My team enjoyed the "team" events more. Most times we'd just break it up such that we could go out 3 times during that quarter for a $15 lunch, but sometimes we'd do something special where it cost close to $50 without exceeding it. I had the fun of picking out eating establishments that met the cost requirements and had vegetarian options for our Indian co-workers.

I declare this OP is a totally made up story. Never happened, except in a movie. Nice story troll

We still get quarterly "fun fund" here in UKI but Christmas party is not covered by that. Christmas party comes out of our own pockets but you are still very strongly encouraged to attend.

Diwali has become the most celebrated holiday in San Jose HQ. Thanks to Indian Maffia who occupy the engineering management and their H1 villiagists, the celebration usually lasts for a week with parties, fashion show, free food and drink in different buildings.

We never had xmas parties in the groups I was in at Cisco. And the last time I heard of mgmt spending the "fun money" on something was 3 years ago. If the "fun money" still exists, then it is getting spent on something other than the employees.

In our office we have a Sports and Social club which is optional to sign up to. It costs you 30 dollars a month, taken directly from your paycheck. This money goes to fund fun events throughout the year like wine tasting, comedy gigs etc. culminating in a Christmas party in December. Cisco don't contribute to this. Christmas party is 'free' for people who contribute. Everybody else pays their own way, including partners.

There are a few groups who still use "Fun Money" to do this. Either that, or this is a totally made up BS post. Most of the company doesn't do anything anymore, and the fun money rarely is large enough to allow for it.

More I think about it, I call BS, although the public resignation makes for a fun story.

Like @bqz, my BU didn't throw group parties. There was a "holiday" pot-luck lunch in the largest conference room in our building most years and the managers would kick in $ to buy Honeybaked Hams and plates/plasticware/drinks. It was expected that most attendees would bring a dessert or side dish to add variety. Most years it worked out well. No idea if they had one this year or not.

No matter how bad things get at Cisco, and having a new job lined up, there's no excuse for burning bridges. You may end up interviewing somewhere down the road with someone who's friends with the manager you burned your bridge with. While I have no desire to go back to Cisco, there are a lot of people I'd like to work with again somewhere else. Then again, there's a good number of people I'd recommend my current employer not hire if I was asked. Hopefully, most people view me in the former list and not the later.

Like a lot of the other posters here, I'm surprised you still have Xmas parties (or the PC term 'holiday parties'). Ours ended years ago. Funny to hear about your colleague who resigned at the party. I'm amazed (but then I shouldn't be) that they need to investigate why the turnout was so low. I would not have attended any more of our Xmas parties either, if they still had them.

Good for him everyone is so politically correct aka soft that is why this company is going down the drain.

No parties in emear. Why u spending the company cash not fair

I would have paid to have seen that. Priceless! BTW did Cisco pay for this party? And for the partners too? We have to pay for our own

too bad no one caught that on camera... that would make for a great comment/link on those cheesy non-original RTP videos i just gagged over. plus i would LOVE to have seen and heard it.

Jeez, you got a party.think yourself lucky.

How much did they charge to attend? When I was there the official holiday party policy was "you can use the conference room as long as you bring your own food and clean up after."

Awesome! Wish I had an offer confirmed, so I could do the same.

Ours was very much the same. Only people who turned up were brown nosed middle management types and VPs. It's halarious that they haven't worked out yet that everyone has already checked out and are looking elsewhere. Problem I've found though is Cisco on the resumé is no longer as respected as it used to be, especially if you're over 40 and have a double digit tenure. Only places interested are HPE and Dell and that's like jumping from a sinking ship into shark infested waters. I'm sure something will come up soon though.