I was in IT for 34 years (EDS, HP, GM). I am still in contact with my former co-workers and what morale was there is now completely gone. And they are so overwhelmed with the workload it is ridiculous. A staff of 12 was cut to 7 in our area. I heard 52% of IT in NA was separated. Remember, it's a lazy man's way to cut costs by cutting people. No real cost cutting planning or strategy ahead, just dump the people and leave it up to who is left to "make it happen".
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What email?
Mott is a joke. There was an email from one of his Executive Directors that talked about not letting the inmates run the prison and referring to his department as 'old'. Very disrespectful and unapologetic about gutting his own division. Yet Mary loves him...
If the cuts were productive - get rid of low performers...it would have been fine. But instead college hires were retained. And guess what...the good ones leave because GM is too cheap to pay their worth. What kind of retention model is that?
You can always trust someone with a beard and a man bun.
Yes, the git log and bug list is primarily what I look at.
Austin Manager, if you're an IT manager, you can see who's really doing the work by keeping an eye on the git log, and the bug list. See who's completing stories and fixing bugs.
I've never met a manager who did this, though. They're usually not technical enough, and always "too busy" (i.e. lazy) to see what's really happening in their group.
So they get conned by people who can talk a good game but aren't very productive.
Yep. Manager easily fooled by the flashy Ping pong backhand. Just imagine if they worked for 8 hours Austin mgr. People do work at their desks and many don't care to See the priviledged new kids playing games half the day.
The ones who are quietly working away in their cubes are probably doing way more than you realize and not getting credit, and the flashy outgoing ping pong players are probably doing way less than you think.
To the guy who is obsessed with ping pong: I’m a manager in Austin. The people on my team who play ping pong are pretty much also the ones who do the best work. My less impressive producers dress up and sit at their desk and you probably think they’re more valuable because of it.
Austin is so overrated. Talentwise and the city. Ping pong and 2 hour lunch heaven. Arrive at 9 for many. Gone by 4. 4. Met some solution architects who basically made a fancy power point and rerouted it for 3 years. Think he is still there.
An English grammar aficionado on the loose in the blog. It is a were/was alert!!! Or is it "It was" a were/was alert? Apparently it is (was/were) the letter of the post, not the spirit of the post that stirs the drink. ;-)
It's a large percentage either way but was 52% of IT laid off or were 52% of those laid off in IT.
Mott needs to go. IT's been losing talent across the board due to his outdated policies. The lack of a proper work from home policy has been costing GM a lot of good people down in Atlanta, where most everywhere else has that as a job perk.
Which companies did you end up with?
It's good to know which ones don't discriminate against older employees.
I was hired shortly after GM acquired EDS in 1985. I was involved in running a family business prior to that. I was let go by GM in Feb 4 of this year. I never had a bad performance review and even had a few exceeds ratings over the years (Those were with EDS/HP). I dodged many bullets in the past but got hit by this one. The secret formula to getting hit was: 1. (Salary + Age) 2. (Performance). In seeking new employment for the first time in over 34 years, it was somewhat amusing to hear many people say how my resume was impressive and nearly everyone showed a lot of early interest. However with most of them, it went silent in a hurry. My age is my educated guess as to why. However I am now happily employed with a company that values me and has taken me on as a direct hire.
I came the same route: Eds, hp, then gm. Made it through 15-20 staff reductions. Not gm’s though. As long as Mott leads IT, there will be more. I was on a larger team that only lost 5 but we were all over 50. One was 62. So of course it was to get rid of our salaries. I do start a new job in about a week.
@10U20lDD
I spent some time with EDS in the mid-1980s.
Did you join EDS after the acquisition by GM? It looks like you saw the entire cycle back to GM.
In Austin, probably 80% of the technical staff is in their 20s these days
There are still a lot of useless people who play ping pong all day
52% of IT was laid off?
I don't think I believe that, at least not in Austin.
The wrong ones.
They focused on getting rid of the older experienced people and kept the cheap but inexperienced new college hires.
Meanwhile, the new business systems are slow, non-intuitive, and don’t work as intended half of the time. Is that because there aren’t enough IT people or just the wrong ones?