Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

@1via: very good advice. I for one, didnt want to move on without accepting the reasons for my LR. So I accepted their reasoning for my LR, but highlighted that the management themselves had the same reasons applicable to them. In the next round, the managers were LR'd. I figured, if the manager was going to have a shark chase me, I can have the shark turn around and chase him too .

Now I have moved on and learnt my lesson.

I was notified last Thursday. It did not come as a surprise to me as I've seen this happen to so many others. Like with any break up you question if you could have done something different but in this case I am certain it was you (Cisco) and not me. Get your sh*t together! There are moments when I feel completely devastated that this dysfunctional relationship is over but luckily the feeling is fleeting. I know this was a blessing in disguise. Good luck to all those who were impacted.

Not sure if it is just getting older, or if fundamentals are changing in philosophy of working technology in general. In 1990s and 2000s, many escalations, many more outages/crisis management scenarios. But generally people seemed to trust and worked together; well maybe that was just being younger...or was it? Now it seems more room for general drama and unnecessary decision process. In the days of (citing the old Cisco cards we kept on our lanyards)...the culture norm included "NO TECHNOLOGY RELIGION"...and for the most part, the important parts were thought through and designed, provisioned, implemented, and maintained correctly. People learned if they thought things through they wouldn't get paged at 2am. Now it seems that yes, the technology is more reliable; but in turn overall there are more cycles for things that have pretty much little or nothing to do with the technology deployment itself.

@xew - You are 100% correct.

While I'm still friends with many still at Cisco, my respect for the Cisco leadership is gone. I genuinely felt sorry for my immediate manager who had to give me the bad news. I wasn't sad about losing the job, but I was sad to leave the team I was on and the friends that I had at Cisco. Ultimately having to move to take a better job was not something I wanted to do, but had to be done.

Cheer up Mi9q6Kg, this too will pass..

I am 37 years old, was promoted within the second year of joining C-Disco and LR'd in Sept'16

( just about 4 years career in C-Disco) and my salary median was way less than the midpoint..

I have nothing much to complain coz the offer(severance package + bonus) was too good to resist for getting rid of the toxic environment( inadequate management attention on the actual burning issues, internal politics led by the BU leader himself, resistance to change, basically there was no sense of value add by me other than repackaging the same old rotten stuff with new buzz words etc etc..)

The decision was partly self-influenced through my manager(heard..he too was LR'd last week) and could also be due to my reluctance in partnering with my new BU leader on unethical/unprofessional acts of bullying the vendors/blues, isolating/backstabbing targeted team members, pulling down good initiatives from his rival camp..etc etc to name a few!

This is what I did after accepting the severance deal:

Yes, I too experienced that 'looser', 'why me', 'hatred towards C-Disco'...emotions for few days but quickly realized the immediate need to move on

I went on a solo road trip for a week within the LR notice period(costed less than 3% of my LR package deal), channelized all my emotions towards securing a very difficult technical certification relevant to my skill set & in high market demand(needed 45 days of regular studies and costed about 5% of my LR package deal) , spent quality time with family and volunteered for an orphanage(in developing their web portal)

I was able to find a suitable job within a month of my certification(by then, had spent about 25% of my LR package deal including the road trip & certification)

My best buddies and family were of great support during this period

To summarize, believe in your self and keep moving forward(does not matter whether you run,walk or crawl..), realized that it is even more important for a family man to stay optimistic during these difficult times to minimize any sort of panic within family and set good examples.

If you don't like where you are, just move on...YOU are not a TREE..!!

Good Luck.

Well I guess you'll find out the true meaning of frugality now. I'm just glad it's you and not me.

Then why is it that when a product fails, the engineers are the ones that are LR'd but the VPs get a second chance or get reassigned? The VPs are already making well north of $500k/yr....

Most of the LRs aren't necessary, if they would just reassign folks to teams that need them. Picking up folks from the open market doesn't always translate to new ideas.

I was LR'd in August.....too old and salary was at the midpoint. Sad thing is....I earned that salary with hard work over many years. Am I pissed off? Heck yeah, and time doesn't fix that. I was given zero explanation from my manager....that's the worst part. Being in a LR used to mean you were a subpar performer. That I can understand. But when you were are cut for pure cost and age, it s---s.

Extreme frugality isn't what'll save this company - when you treat your employees like cattle and drive everything down to be 'industry average' (i.e. in line with HP and IBM) no one wants to stay. The good people leave, you end up as a shell of the place you used to be and layoffs become frequently in a desperate attempt to regenerate.

I'm sorry you were laid off but in the long run it'll probably work out better for you. You'll find somewhere better to work, not so focussed on treating employees with contempt and get paid more for it.

It has nothing to do with you , you are either "too" old and paid "too" much ! compared to whom or what , compared to no one. Either the job that you think is so important will not get done at all or will get done by some one else as a supplement to theirs or by some one cheaper, else where. Move on , it is no longer your problem!

back in the day, the Mr. Chambers key phase was Frugality.

Back in the day Chambers key phrase spoken in actual all hands was "I'm getting mine regardless." Multiple tens of thousands of people were let go under his tenure but he always got the bonus and stock whether he met his own numbers or not.

seems like most of the LR'ing could be avoided with a return to Frugality...

If our director didn't pick up the tab for the team sushi dinner it would not have brought the team back.

Back in the good old days of the 1990s the quality was still horrific but salary was a small bonus on top of the value of the options handed out. The good old days were nothing but stock options and that ended when the the stock price went from $82 to $8 and the employee and contractor total headcount went from 48,000 to 35,000 in the first major round of layoffs at Cisco.

Since this keeps coming up, what form of dementia allows so many people to think that August 2016 was the first time Cisco developed layoffs and politics? As I've pointed out elsewhere GE dumped 100,000 people in the 1980s with no fanfare and it's been the same throughout the tech industry ever since. This and the stack ranking were just two things from GE brought into Cisco by Chambers so please stop pretending it only started happening under the new guy.

Keep thinking what could have I done differently to reach this outcome.

Someone should compile a "you might be a redneck if..." style list to help people, like "if the entire management collective including multiple layers of Vice Presidents have bailed from your project, you might be an LR candidate." I don't know your personal situation, but all the many full group layoffs I had insight into were telegraphed in many ways at least three months in advance, and even when the groups came together after the packages were handed out and these signals were spelled out a surprising number of people still couldn't see they were already doomed even in hindsight. I'm guessing it's related to the dementia I reference above.