With the recent uproar against Uber, I can't believe we have not read about Cisco in the news yet. Has anyone else contemplated writing about their experience at Cisco?
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If one stays long enough, the LR day will arrive. Mine just did. Hired on originally for the old Cisco culture from 1990s. Sad to see times change. The money was nice, but it honestly has been all about working and solving complex problems with small groups of similarly eccentric and enthusiastic people. Found those pockets over the past 15+ years but this time couldn't synch. Bitter pill to swallow. I meet the 40+ old white dude criteria, but am not going to go there on my comments...it never was about much more to me than long days, crazy but effective teamwork, but getting done what really needed to be done. Right now feeling what a dumb--s I was believing that still somehow exists.
I've seen both sides to this...
There is undoubtedly the infamous "IP" problem - where Indians execs often hire Indian reports (irrespective of ability); just trawl the directory and it's glaringly obvious - even in the states...
However I've also seen some Indian women of unquestionable ability treated terribly by Indian male managers (who didn't have a fraction of their latent).
We've also hired some minorities recently who've been awful hires (I put this down to poor vetting and PC hiring practices.
I don't care what colour your skin, or your religion - just if you can do the job..!!!
And yes - beyond 40 you are fodder for LRs...there is even apparently a formulae for it...?
Cisco is very much an equal opportunity discriminator. The joy of such a large company is that you have so many opportunities for personal biases and discrimination.
There has been obvious discrimination against white males over 40 in the recent lay-off rounds.
Discrimination against women is certainly prevalent. I saw it in the US and it was a scourge to me with a team I managed in India. It was so bad there that I had to on a regular basis press my female employees to share the obstacles that were being put in their way by their peers and the local management team. It got so bad that after one woman stopped reporting to me where I could protect her I actually recommended to her to change jobs.
There are rampant examples of US based management of Indian descent discriminating against non-Indians and we've all seen the God awful racist comments made on this board about employees of Indian nationality.
So equal opportunity at Cisco. Everyone can find someone in the management hierarchy to discriminate against them.
Cisco is infamous for various human rights violations where the majority of women are treated like they are lepers - humiliated, dismissed, assigned to cover for stupid a-- male colleagues then witness those same male colleagues get propped up/promoted by "leadership".
The place is overrun who vile, mysogenist men who were once creepy, awkward high school nerds constantly rejected by or terrified of women. Now they seek revenge on intelligent, extremely talented, lower paid and hard working women who demand to be treated as equals. Oh wait, that's the law except if you work in Silicon Valley.
I encourage all those ex-Cisco women treated like dogshite to write their own stories, similar to the courageous SJF from Uber. If anything look at the PR clustermess this has created for Uber. Look for a few mysogenists there to be made tokens and scapegoats for illegal behavior at Uber. Karma is a *itch, boys.
Unfortunately both 1wlx and 1dfw are both correct. The lr process backed and driven by hr, finance and protected by a large legal budget results in the 40+ males who helped build the company being treated horribly and discriminated. It does not matter if it was the intent it is the net result. I certainly have witnessed the culture, rewards, and promotion process in Cisco engineering (and some other groups) treating many smart/ambition women very poorly.
I'd argue that Cisco treats smart/ambition women poorly.
News reports indicate that Uber treats woman badly. Cisco treats woman very well and makes every effort to attract, retain, and promote them. At Cisco the adult (40+), American, men are the ones who are abused and discriminated against.
I gave up Cisco to be an Uber driver.
You will be the lone voice in a sea of people trying to keep their heads down. voice your opinion and you'll be gone.