Some on thelayoff.com have vividly described the current scene at Kyndryl as a “burning dumpster fire” or an “inadequately disposed sanitary napkin”. I just left Kyndryl sales in March and I feel gross and dirty - I have to take at least five showers a day to even begin to feel normal.
Recent announcements regarding pay-to-play partnerships sound exciting and elite, but why would new prospects pursue ancient solutions from Kyndryl or procure third party services via them? It is well known that they won't and existing clients have been begging for early contact terminations long before the spin-out. I worked with a team of experienced sales professionals responsible for large enterprise accounts. When I started AND resigned, the combined team pipeline was $0 on $500M. I mean absolute $0. $0 for months, almost a year. I mean not even a single rusty legacy managed help desk deal. Massive staff reductions are assuredly eminent!
As part of confronting my PTSD, I did want to tell one of my favorite Kyndryl management stories: we had a death in the family one weekend. On Monday morning, I emotionally discussed with my manager (I won’t use his/her real name, but let’s call him/her Di-k) that I would need to take a few bereavement days. I’m walking into the funeral early on Tuesday morning and my phone starts going crazy with txts. I finally just power it off in my pocket. After the services, I find the time to look and it’s my good ol’ IBM veteran sales superstar manager and he has prepared a few “action items” for my review at the funeral. BTW, Di-k never really txts as he/she typically prefers to audibly bark orders when he/she calls at 6AM. So, it was actually very gracious of him/her to txt and not call during my time of grief.
7:56AM: “sending a few action items during your downtime this week”
7:58AM: “what are you doing to secure meetings with your clients this week?”
8:01AM: “what are your plans to travel to customer meetings this month” (during Omicron outbreak)
8:22AM: “can you prepare a ‘why Kyndryl’ PowerPoint and share with team”
9:33AM: “what new leads have you identified this week” (it’s Tuesday AM)
9:44AM: “how are you planning to develop identified opportunities into Kyndryl deliverables”
9:45AM: “your position is highly visible to upper management and you need to leave the home office more”
10:48AM: “send me your plan to improve pipe ASAP”
I never replied to any of this garbage. Do I still want to smash the absolute pi-s out of Di-k’s head with a solid steel tubular pipe? No. Not anymore. Has the pipe since improved? I’m assuming not. Will the pipe improve? Nah, probably not.