Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

innovation can not be purchased and remote exes/PMs NEED to be axed if want to stay remote

while looking at the forum and last 2 years of purchase of all these small companies - patents (xxx million into this and xxx million into that company), 90% purchase down to drain and money wasted, eg: I look at webex and then I was looking at zoom (webex like), unable to comprehend why we sink over x billion into webex and zoom runs smoother...

overall theme, we can not continue purchase to somehow make us more nimble..

back in the old days, we innovate with about 20% of our bandwidth, now we just don;t do it.

at HR level, back, we have a lending program, a senior tech leader if skill is behind, got 6 months stint into a start up like new group at cisco and fresh his skill and $ is paid as the same at corporate level, the start up manager treat them like trainee . they treat older worker nice and older worker will contribute..

DO notice gradually, entire Cisco is full of VPs or directors or senior managers or program managers (crtical grade 10+) work from home EVERY DAY! AND live remotely (martha vineyard, remote states, florida disneyland, upper Maine) , barely see team once a month, all done over the phone and webex..aka they are not with their team...

the only way to get them out is fly them on cisco expense.. these remote exes or workers are VERY afraid of losing their jobs, hence their attitude toward team is only cost and not naturing the team! they will axe you before axe themselves..

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Post ID: @OP+Nma31uf

6 replies (most recent on top)

Too many long term employees refuse to use modern languages in their development, and that is the reason we are were we are now.

This is profoundly wrong. You don't have basic engineering skills from many millennia ago such as functional decomposition and refactoring. There are reasons why wheels on a horse drawn cart are interchangeable. You can write ten thousand line data structures and ten thousand line functions and then cut and paste them ten thousand times in any language. Scale this basic incompetence to many systems of tens of millions of lines of code copied across hundreds to thousands of branches each and the language clearly becomes irrelevant.

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Post ID: @2jju+Nma31uf

OH BS!! There are a lot of long term employees who regularly are learning new things, reading technology journals, and expanding beyond what they know. AND they do it after working a long day fixing the crap the young idiots F--CK up!!!!

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Post ID: @1tql+Nma31uf

Yeah, and then one day, the execs turn up and tell the older folks that their skills aren't relevant, the product they have nurtured is now in maintenance mode and outsourcied to Chennai. The older US based are then LR'ed and the younguns (with all the knowledge of the new stuff) are in charge. Then it's their turn.

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Post ID: @1ppr+Nma31uf

Dear @Nma31uf-xcn Your career advice makes me think you are under 35, have no family and (of course) live near SJ. You have to get over this long-term employees don't want to modernize. It's just crap. We absolutely will when given a bit of breathing room to do so (I am old and am regularly asked to pick up a completely new technology). However, what mostly happens is that new technology and new projects are given to new (cheap) hires because they can f*ck up, play around, waste time, and nobody loses. Moreover they are cheap, and we can let them fool around for a while is no big deal. Meanwhile, older dudes are meeting the quarter's revenue goals, engaging with customers and working the product futures. They are the ones answering the RFP's, delivering the EBC's, supporting the CPOC's and responding to mailers.

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Post ID: @jrq+Nma31uf

The Zoom team are all ex-WebEx'ers. They wanted to build a new architecture for WebEx to modernize the product but our glorious leaders wouldn't invest in WebEx. So, the team left Cisco and started Zoom, which is blowing the doors off Cisco.

Cisco has the money to make acquisitions but management doesn't know what to do after they've bought a company. That's been the pattern for 10 years, so there's no reason to believe things will improve.

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Post ID: @kgk+Nma31uf

I am an engineer and work remotely, if they ever said I have to go into the San Jose office I would say "thanks but no thanks. Here is my resignation".

I live 30 miles away and driving to San Jose in the AM takes 2 hours, driving home can take 3 at times. It's just a job, I can take it or leave it, working from home is the only reason I am still here. Next job will be somewhere I can BART to.

I like my manager living across the country from me, we get more done in a 20 min Weber every week then we ever would being around each other every day.

People are too obsessed with "careers" on this board. It's 2017, you should be working for a new company every 5-6 years. Stay at one company too long you are not hireable, that is plain fact. For those complaining that they have been here over a decade and got the axe, it's kinda your own fault. You have to be constantly learning new skills (not the crap courses we have internally, you have to learn on your own all the new tech). Too many long term employees refuse to use modern languages in their development, and that is the reason we are were we are now.

Cisco is a dinosaur BECUASE of long term employees. They don't want to modernize what we do. Basic fact

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Post ID: @xcn+Nma31uf

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