Complacency at Work

I was LR'd at 18 year mark.

I disagree that the company was a horrible place to work. It was a great place. It was also however like a warm blanket for a long nap. Do NOT get complacent.

You may think you are super well positioned and a high-value employee - DO NOT count on it. Two quarters earlier from my LR, I received a big award. Two quarters later - OUT. I don't regret the time I spent at Cisco at all, but DO NOT underestimate that you can easily be OUT, just a few short months after even your best performance. I was amazed at the opportunities and awesome jobs out there. DO NOT get too comfortable - COMPLACENCY will cost you in the long run.

If you do remain up to speed and relevant, everything will be OK. If you spend your time NOT pushing yourself, you will pay for it later. USE your time for YOUR advantage. PUSH YOURSELF ALWAYS.

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To OP, what was great about the company since mid 2000s?

Tanking stock price?
Subpar talent mostly because most good people started leaving slowly and other bright and aggressive people did not want to come?
Waning benefits?
Third tier or worse pay?
11-3 easy job in 70% or more of the company?
Failed acquisitions?
Acquire Acquire and Acquire and build nothing in house or had no capability to build anything in house?
Lose the entire cloud market segment?
Lose in virtualization to VMWARE?
Off the shelf ASICS taking over and Cisco being powerless?
Terrible CTOs like Biri Singh and Padmasree?
Archaic tech stack?
Scale numbers that are a joke compared to the scale at which lot of other industry grade products work?

I can go on and on..
It is a terrible place for anyone who wants to keep their skills honed, is aggressive and wants to make a mark. If one wants an easy dead end paycheck job, CISCO is the place to be. No other reasons justifies to work there otherwise.

You can be a superhero and get an LR notification. It'll make it easier to find another job within Cisco if that's the case. When I got an LR notification for the second time (2017, despite being a top performer supposedly), I got a lot of support to find another job - I even got an internal offer. But I simply had had it and also had started to network more externally. I pocketed the 18 year severance and started a job in a startup 4 weeks later after taking a 2 week Kauai vacation.

My base was higher, total compensation lower - but then we got acquired and I got another significant windfall.

As the OP said - don't be complacent, network heavily.

Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

Complacency at Work

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