I agree with the mixed feelings: on the one hand, I've been miserable at Cisco for years. Trying to exert influence on the management team as an IC in that company is like boxing a fog-bank and a glacier at the same time. And, yet, with nearly as many years in the enterprise as this contributor, I feel in some way 'dumped' or rejected -- something like, "I can't believe I was ejected when X is still drawing a paycheck!!!" It's not the healthiest mindset, and I'm working to move beyond it. I expect I'm going to be a lot happier for having be 'dumped' than I would be had I survived this round of layoffs.
Having been at Lucent while it spiraled around the bowl before rushing unceremoniously into the sewer, what's going on at Cisco is familiar. Cisco has missed the turn to consumption-based and transactional modes of business (e.g. selling 'networking' as opposed to network equipment or other things with a serial number stamped on it). Cisco has failed absolutely to assert a meaningful presence as a cloud provider (forget leadership, just existing in the space in some notable way at all). Cisco shows no particular aptitude for quality software delivery (being "Agile according annualized deliverables with expected ROI by budget at completion" is the kind of self-defeating 'strategy' that the management team will adhere to even while the water rushes over the decks). It seems as though the challenges before Cisco's management team exceed the track record of capabilities demonstrated by the Cisco management team.
Despite self-promoted delusions of being a family, Cisco is any other corporation of its size: all workers are contingent workers, and no amount of work travel at holidays, weekends and nights spend resolving issues, or other personal sacrifices will make a different when the cycle of layoffs hit every four or five years. For those remaining, the message may be best summed up as "get while the getting is good."
The joke, of course, is that they are laying off the older workers with prejudice, when it's the older workers who still have a sense of 'belonging' to the company they work for. The new hires have seen there parents laid off once or twice already; when the arrive in the workforce, they're already looking to get out. Hence the 50% voluntary attrition of new hires within 2 years of their hire dates in some areas of the enterprise.
I wish I were a younger worker with that temporary attitude. I wouldn't feel so down about having been dumped.