Is this really true? What specific business units had layoffs? Nobody I know seems to know. But something went down for certain.
103 replies (most recent on top)
Just speculating: there were layoffs in Sales last month, and some people hate to do layoffs.
If she was told she had to lay people off, and did not want to, that would explain her quick departure.
@208k+1qHCpTSd
Pretty sure she works for a former employee.
Paula is gone. She is now with Intersystems. Not sure why.
Where is PH? And her sidekick LY?
Never see them anywhere
She's gone for sure. Pushed out, not her decision. That's the word on the SAS street.
@elwe+1qHCpTSd “Nobody wants drama”
Really? I don’t think you have a solid handle on what many people clearly want.
There are people on here looking for factual information.
There are people on here here looking to vent in healthy fashion by providing factual information.
And then there is the bulk of “venting” which spew bullsh-t and falsehood in dramatic fashion.
@eoez
This isn't middle school- nobody wants drama. We're here in some cases to vent and in others to get answers. CTFD.
@evzv+1qHCpTSd Appreciate the info. Most of the yahoos on here will discount what you said because they want the drama of her being fired or layer off.
I can tell you that she really is out for personal reasons. She was not fired or laid off. Whether she returns or not is up to her.
Two weeks later and she hasn't been seen or heard from by anyone. What do you think happened?
92 replies and two weeks later can anyone answer the original question? Is she gone?
It was easy to get hired back then if you knew the right people. That hasn't changed. The rules are different when you have friends in high places. True then and true now.
We sometimes forget that it wasn't easy to get a job at SAS (at least when I did 12 years ago). We do have marketable skills that are desirable in the job market. It may take time but you will find opportunities. In my experience life outside SAS was so much better.
For those people who looked for other jobs… what were the kind of skills you found companies looking for but hadn’t built up?
"Do you know anyone at SAS who isn't expecting Goodnight to soon lose patience with one or more of the executives (and other senior leadership, I guess) responsible for the current state of the company?"
I'm shocked that BH isn't gone. Expected that to be the case over a year ago.
@bksk
Agree wholeheartedly!
...and it can also be said the layoffs were planned a while ago before the celebrations.
Layoffs do not happen overnight. They thought about it and planned for it way in advance. You can have the celebrations for the survivors but to have the head of R and D blaming the laid off employees as though they deserve it is just not cool.
@away
Celebrations were planned before the layoffs.
“I think he's trying to minimize the impact of the layoffs, but I also think he's allowing his subordinates to decide who to let go, so of course scores are being settled.”
You’re right. SAS always gave its managers great power, with little accountability. Many of them are not above settling scores, knowing they will face no penalty if they do.
Other CEOs are doing mass layoffs: Google, Microsoft, SalesForce, PayPal, SAP, DeutschBank, CitiGroup, UPS. Epic Games, just down the street in Cary, recently laid off 16%. The SAS CEO could easily do the same, but he is minimizing the pain.
https://layoffs.fyi/
Instead, SAS is making continued small layoffs of 1-2% per year. Sad as this is, it buys time for most SAS employees to make their own decisions.
“ Those managers and directors are cutting the B team.”
So much of management turned over that the B team is looking like the A team - the only ones who can actually do any work and solve any of the real problems.
Who came up with the idea to have a party(ies)?
"And I'll bet this list is buried deep in Sharepoint somewhere, and is filled with comments like "Not a team player", "Replaceable technical skills", and "High salary, low impact", with a rating from any of the several managers or directors invited to comment that "objectively" rate employees' technical and soft skills on a seven-point Likert scale so that they can identify the ones that contribute the least value."
So this is how it works there? Looking back, it makes sense.
@ansz
For their dismissal.
"Surely karma will come for the organizer(s) of the party sooner or later."
They're already trapped in a He-l of their own devising. They imagine themselves the Lord of the realm, but in reality they are as much a prisoner of their own poor decision-making as any random dr-g dealer or addict.
Regarding their karmic fate... You know what they say: corporate executives and diapers should be changed often, and for the same reason. Do you know anyone at SAS who isn't expecting Goodnight to soon lose patience with one or more of the executives (and other senior leadership, I guess) responsible for the current state of the company? They won't survive an IPO, and I'm hoping their golden parachute fails to deploy when the inevitable sale happens.
I've got sympathy for Goodnight. I think he's trying to minimize the impact of the layoffs, but I also think he's allowing his subordinates to decide who to let go, so of course scores are being settled. Anyone who pushed back, told the wrong person "no", or just spent their SAS career doing one thing they were really good at are on the list.
And I'll bet this list is buried deep in Sharepoint somewhere, and is filled with comments like "Not a team player", "Replacable technical skills", and "High salary, low impact", with a rating from any of the several managers or directors invited to comment that "objectively" rate employees' technical and soft skills on a seven-point Likert scale so that they can identify the ones that contribute the least value.
The joke's on them, though. By this point most of the A team has already left SAS for greener pastures. Just look at your LinkedIn contacts and see how many of the company's best performers or most competent technical talent has left the company in the past two or three years. Those managers and directors are cutting the B team.
As I said, they are trapped in a He-l of their own devising that they imagine themselves the Lords of.
Employees that were laid off are being blamed? For what?
2 parties to laugh and blame layoff employees are in very bad taste but SAS had them. Surely karma will come for the organizer(s) of the party sooner or later.
@9gqa
Exactly. 2 parties, actually.
The group of recently laid-off testers must have managed themselves out, too. Sounds like management DARVO.
Let's have a party!
“all they care about is keeping their paychecks coming and preventing anyone above them from finding out that they have no business being a director or vice president… the managers below these people seem to be split about 60/40 between utterly incompetent people… and… good people trying to do the best they can…”
I spent about 30% of my career outside SAS. I never had a bad manager out there. I saw a few mediocre, but none incompetent.
Inside SAS, I saw what you saw: VPs doing little or nothing, and 60%/40% below them.
SAS promoted people who said “yes”, and gave them little to no training. This created a company able to manage a growing revenue stream, but unable to manage a declining one.
That 40%, God love them. There are some wonderful managers still at SAS. Unfortunately, those people aren’t in charge.
The people in charge cannot save SAS. In the face of declining revenues, the only action they’re competent to take is to reduce headcount. So that is what they’ll do.
@9lhj+1qHCpTSd I don’t even know what that means. Sounds like you might have managed yourself out.
Maybe you helped to manage me out?
Yes?
why do ppl work at SAS anymore?
a good third of them are very well paid to do literally nothing all day long every day. these people are mostly directors and vice presidents. most of them have been in these roles for 5-10-15 years or more. all they care about is keeping their paychecks coming and preventing anyone above them from finding out that they have no business being a director or vice president of anything.
the managers below these people seem to be split about 60/40 between utterly incompetent people who lucked into the job and never moved up or left and those who are good people trying to do the best they can knowing the people above them are incompetent.
that's why they stay.
@9gab+1qHCpTSd You get me!!
@9xmg+1qHCpTSd Yeah sure. No technical competence anywhere to be found. Keep telling yourself that.
@9nkz+1qHCpTSd are you outside of SAS now?
The technical competence for pulling this off is out there, and it has been for some time. There are people both inside and outside of SAS that can pull this off. I'm working on being able to pull it off. There are R and Python packages that make this easier.
Needless to say, the Interns that replaced me couldn't pull this off. They probably don't even know what the he-l I'm referring to, nor are they interested. But that's a different story.
Sorry but SAS is no chatGPT.
I don’t know why anyone downvoted your post; it’s sensible advice.
After I left SAS, it took me most of a year to find a job. I used that time to acquire skills, build a portfolio of open-source projects, and market myself.
I could do this, because I had a year’s savings in the bank. That’s one kind of plan. Save your money, and if the worst happens, the money buys you time.
For sure, you’re correct. The SAS negotiations with Broadcom leaked to the press. SAS announced its intention to become IPO-ready. These are both advertisements that SAS in a company in play.
So for anyone employed at SAS, it would be foolish not to have a plan.
What you propose is feasible, but it requires a certain level of technical competence.
That ain't happening, so we're all safe 😂.
Let me guess...with the use of cluster analysis techniques, you are grouping all the messages throughout the threads by author. Additionally, you are predicting the race, age category, education levels, and socio-economic status of those commenting.
The internal hits on who searched for PH gives you a nice "supervised learning" variable for comparing predictions and tuning your model. The other dude who's name was posted on here before the thread was deleted gives you a secondary category to help reduce false negatives based on internal gossip.
Okay, I made all that up. But did I really?