Company: IBM
Date: 2013-09-29
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: former

From a great company; to quite possibly the worst...
Pros: Some potential employers might still see IBM as a good thing on your resume; but don't stay too long. Get some experience then jump ship. Get to Intel, TSMC, or Samsung instead down the road...
Cons: Everything else. Worked in Hopewell Junction EF /and Burlington, Vt facility--total over 24 years. RA'd right before my 25th. Excellent reviews, (was a 2+ last year) then RA'd in June with no warning. Blindsided.. Sucker punched...along with many colleagues of mine.  The only thing I can think of is it was all about cost this time and many of us were "eligible" to retire; also were heavily penetrated (salary wise) in our band levels. Even though we "earned" those pay raises through the years through very hard work-- in the end it was held against us. And a few younger folks were "sprinkled" in the layoff "mix" as to avoid an age discrimination lawsuit; no doubt. This time around it seems like it was a very carefully crafted scheme from Armonk. Didn't matter those of us that were RA'd were also "key expertise" in our areas. Even fellow PhD's got let go. Sr management probably feels they can get someone off the street do what we do in hardware mfg. @ half the pay like they've done to the IT divisions.. Yeah-good luck with that. In the end the customer suffers and we lose the business. Also the cronyism I've seen through the years was not to be believed as well. I've seen many "screw up" employees cost the business ($) thousands,  however  since they played a good golf game screw/ 3rd level management, all was swept under the rug. (many of those screw-ups are still there, by the way-missed "yet again" by the June RA) I saw an earlier post about a month ago where someone mentioned the technical expertise of management isn't what it should be. You got that right. I too--have seen managers get "promoted" to run organizations they had no business running since they only had a two year technical (in some cases-no technical) degree; many so called "diplomas" dating from 70's. Must be great @ golf; but why are these managers currently running a big R & D and/ or engineering org? Many do. No wonder companies such as Intel considers IBM hardware completely insignificant. And of course many of these managers made bad decisions through the years and as a result, big costs to the business-yet all covered up once again.  This time around however I also find this interesting--until this most recent RA-traditionally managers seemed "exempt" from the layoff list...If you are/were a manager, married to a manager, related to a manager in any way such as a cousin & such-it seemed you were part of that "protected species " of that very prevalent "good 'old boy club"... However this recent RA they actually nailed a few managers, (not many, but a few-quite possibly for the first time) so that tells me "cost" overall was the priority. And with the recent furloughs, (which I've NEVER seen before) it would seem this particular division may be gasping for its last breath anyway. I'm getting the impression "ginney" has a cash flow problem she isn't telling wall street about. When I was RA'd in June, first thing I did was go back to the office; jumped on the laptop and quickly dumped all of my stock; (just before wiping the hard drive). The stock price has dropped further since then. Time will tell...