Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

First, this is NOT Cisco's fault. This is a fact of the working world you chose to be in. Working in any tech industry is simply roulette. Eventually that little white ball is going to land on your name and you will be out. Some people in that situation re-evaluate their lives and goals and make changes to meet those. Others simply jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I have a friend that was let go after 20 years of work at his tech company. Made some calls and did some inner searching. Decided the tech rat race wasn't worth it. He found a job teaching, accepted his 20 years of work as a lateral transfer in. He took a sizable pay cut, gets 3+ months off per year, and can work 10 years for full pension at 70% of the average of his last 4 years teaching which will be around $45-$50k/year. Not a bad deal when you can do it. It is far better than that 3% match on your 401k. $18k/yr x 10 years is only $180k more in the 401k. That can never translate to the $45k/yr pension. He and his family spent the entire Summer traveling and camping. What did everyone at Cisco do? Panic about jobs.

Hi and so sorry you're going through this. I have lived with anxiety for a long time, and working for Cisco it got worse. But I can promise you it does get better! Some thoughts for you to consider:

• Have you tried the Employee Assistance Program? If not, go for it, get some help asap
• If you are impacted the job market is improving fast, a couple friends have found work recently
• Is your resume and LinkedIn profile up to date?
• Read articles and watch videos on current ways to stand out
• Past LR packages had at least 3 months salary and medical bene's
• They have also given 4-6 weeks before LR starts
• Do you have any savings? An emergency fund? Assets to sell, expenses you could cut?
• Are you doing the 401k? At least get matching! The goal is retirement but can help in emergency.

For anxiety, knowledge is power over the emotion. Set small daily goals to improve yourself and your situation. For example, if you're not exercising already, start with a daily walk around the block. If you have practiced a religion or faith in the past renew or expand. Reach out to friends, family and coworkers for support, you might be surprised how many folks deal with this. Seriously.

If you were hired by and have survived at Cisco you demonstrated needed qualities and traits. You still possess them and others will see them as well. There is life beyond Cisco, and believe it or not, an LR may be the biggest favor Cisco could do for you.

good luck with that AWS interview, nothing learned at Cisco is relevant, tell interviewer you worked at Cisco, they throw up. Go to partner and work 100% harder than you are used to for same or less pay, then appreciate the politics the A kissers do at Cisco, I miss working one hour a week for grade 12 pay, my manager in CX just cared about faking delivery hours, going to meetings to buy donuts.

If your anxiety gets really bad, reach out to someone!! Thank you for talking about it. Sending you best wishes..

RE: "In 2015, our former COO once said that it's not healthy to have constant layoffs. He lost his job shortly after that interview." Gary Moore thought he was heir to the throne but (it's my understanding) when Chambers and the BOD selected Robbins to be CEO, Moore & other Sr. Leaders quit, they weren't fired.

The price you pay for making big bucks in high tech is a greater chance of being laid off. Frequent technology updates makes for instability in employment. This has been going on for decades.

Either you can handle it and regularly adapt to the changes or you can’t.

If you can’t move to another career path.

Perhaps you can go into government work. Very stable but you pretty much have to go brain dead to work there for your entire career.

Quit crying and take this as a lesson for the future. Companies are in business to make money not to give you a job. As soon as they need to cut costs there is a chance you will get cut.

Cisco is very generous with their severance and have been since they started these annual, twice a year layoffs, back in 2001.

Learn, adapt and be flexible and you will be fine. Those of us taking the ER have been dealing with this environment for 30+ years. If we can do it, so can you

@ejy+16OqL3SQ Stated it perfectly. It wasn't until I was laid off did I realize what was a priority in life. The last project I was on was the precursor. Management approved a project's requirements, then their teams wanted to change the requirements, management agreed, but no funding, no schedule hits, and it has to deliver. Well, the vendor disagreed and didn't accept it per the contract. They told them they could stop and hand everything over or continue to deliver what they contracted for. Management blamed the project team for it who had no say. I wound up working about 3 months of 80-hour weeks. I missed 3 key things for my kids during that time only to be laid off 6 months later because of it. I vowed to never let a job dictate my happiness or family again. My job hunt went fairly quickly and I am in a place that is far more appealing, gratifying, and supportive.

The best part of it is the 2 managers were terminate 3 months later for allowing the business to over spend budget by $30M. When the available budget was only $70M for the year, they didn't monitor and the teams spent $55M. I got the last laugh when I called them asking if they needed a reference.

maybe that is the intent.

make people insecure and let them depart voluntarily for free.
very clear to a russian guy how this works.
guy from 🇷🇺 gets it

COO who talked about annual layoffs as mismanagement was Gary Moore.

Why Cisco why??????

Because Cisco and the ELT doesn't care about you as a person. Forget all the talk about "family". When a senior manager or higher dies or develops cancer, Cisco bends over backwards trying to show how much they care, but when the same thing happens to an individual contributor (IC), you hear nothing from Cisco leadership. Their team does what they can, but that it, it's just at the team level.

I don't know which is worse:
1) the announcement that LR's will happen during an earnings call followed by receiving a 1-on-1 meeting request a few hours later for first thing the next morning OR
2) the announcement that LR's will occur next month and having the uncertainty of losing your job hanging over you.

The first option is like ripping the band-aid off quickly, but it s—s if you've just made a significant purchase like a new car or took an expensive vacation. The second option gives you time to prepare for the band-aid to come off by putting off any large purchases or taking a nice vacation, but most of these large purchases can take several years to pay off, so you just keep putting them on hold because next year there's another LR.

I had a company tell me that they were closing their campus where I worked and gave us 10 months notice. In that announcement, they said that they were going to offer relocation to the new site in another state about 1000 mi away for the "engineers". About 2 months later, they started contacting engineers and managers that they were eligible to be relocated and keep their job. We had 60 days to accept the relocation package and make a "house hunting" trip to scout the new location, but you only got the trip IF you accepted the relocation.

They managed to avoid paying severance packages to about half the impacted employees because people who weren't offered relocation and those that didn't want to relocate away from friends and family had time to find new jobs and simply quit. Their severance package was 2 weeks, plus an additional 2 weeks and 1 additional week for every year of service if you signed the agreement not to sue them for wrongful termination/discrimination, so there was little to no incentive to hang around waiting for the severance package. While this was good for the employees who quit and left, it s—ed for the employees who hadn't found a new job yet or those that were taking the relocation because we had to pick up the work of the departed employees since all backfill hiring would take place in the new state.

When Cisco announced the '11 LR a couple of months before it occurred because they were offering the Early Retirement package, I started looking for work. Jobs weren't exactly plentiful, but there were openings. I took a month getting any traction on interviews, then had a few that didn't pan out, but luckily I had one that moved really slowly and ended up making me an offer about a month after Cisco LR'd me, so I only ended up using 1/6th of the LR package and banked the rest. Way better than the "rip the band-aid" off method as you end up using a lot more of the severance pay while looking for the next job. The time wasted from interviewing to the time the company makes a decision and gives you the paperwork to complete so they can perform a background investigation on you and the lead time for them to get you a PC and your accounts created, you've wasted a minimum of 4 weeks if not closer to 8.

@tvt who is that former COO?

In 2015, our former COO once said that it's not healthy to have constant layoffs. He lost his job shortly after that interview.

Speaking from my own personal experience, I’d much rather start job hunting now and depart voluntarily on my own terms. If you can time it such that you have a new job lined up as soon as you get LR’d, congrats it’s your lucky day, but I wouldn’t wait. Any severance package you get will not be worth the stress of getting LR’d and then having to find a new job.

maybe that is the intent.
make people insecure and let them depart voluntarily for free.
very clear to a russian guy how this works.

have anyone of you just ask that question to chuck at all hands? question is: when is the next LR and how safe are we? it bring mental issue to people if you keep doing it small scale and might as well do a massive large scale one time, cut like 50% of the company is ok .. instead of slowing k–ling it..

I was LR'd three years ago. Tough process. Glad it happened. Would go through it again. I have learned:

I let money and the fear of not having it rule me.

My family relationships suffered because of my pursuit of money.

Worrying about being LR'd, my current job, my next job, making people happy, others' opinions of ability to provide; is all a complete waste of time.

Harsh, maybe. There is peace. Only you can decide what that is, and take steps to find it.

Just check your project - does it bring in revenue or in strategic position (R&D)

It s—s. I took ER, but my junior engineer colleagues fear LR due to their inexperience and senior colleagues fear the LR due to their higher compensation. So basically everyone is terrified.

I feel the same way and I understand you perfectly but I like that we were told ahead of time.I don't handle surprises too well.
As I wait,I have updated the resume and starting applying for jobs just as a Plan B.Nobody is save so you may as well prepare for the worst.