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My father is a field-service engineer for HP in Midwest (based out of Minneapolis, but he has calls all over from Fargo, ND to Mpls, MN to Madison, WI). He is _

by joshmn 11y ago

My father is a field-service engineer for HP in Midwest (based out of Minneapolis, but he has calls all over from Fargo, ND to Mpls, MN to Madison, WI). He is _the_ go-to for their biggest, most senior, most mission-critical clients. He put together UMN's Alpha setup, is the only guy that USPS will call for help, MNSCU, Best Buy, UHG... basically, anyone with an HP setup (server or printer) that's a Fortune 1000 (and some of the smaller guys too) — he's their man. He's feeling the heat. He's made it through the absorption of Compaq, and when Compaq absorbed Digital. He's won a ton of awards with each company he's been at, frequently getting high marks for his professionalism, timeliness, availability, willingness to mentor the new guys, stuff like that. He also brought in more than $4MM in revenue for HP in one fiscal year, even though sales wasn't his job (I think it came out to 28 different contracts?) The next highest was $600k. It's been like that for 25 years. Needless to say, he's pretty damn good at his job. He's late 50s, but in amazing health. My mother, however, is in her 50s, and is in absolutely terrible health. They cannot afford to lose healthcare coverage. My mom wouldn't make it, and my father would probably lose his mind. They just refinanced their 220k mortgage and put new siding on their suburban house, added new gutters, got the roof redone, stuff like that. Please, don't make this about how shitty of an investment that might have been. That's beside the point. He makes a good living — he filed $98k last year, but that's a _ton_ of overtime. All he's known is hardware for the last 30 years. He's not a sysadmin and will never be. He's not some low-level nerd. He's the product of an unnotable tech school and he's worked his ass off to keep things afloat. I don't have the best relationship with him at all, but he's a human and I picked up my people skills (if you can call them that) from him. Who would hire him at this age, with this kind of experience?

aggronn 11y ago
If there's as much demand for him as you're describing, he could probably make a much better living doing consulting for these companies than he could working for HP.
- joshmn 11y ago
  I don't know why I didn't think of this. I'm 24, a bit naive, bleh. I let him know in a text. Thank you. I referred to HN as "my Silicon Valley friends"
- wpietri 11y ago
  Definitely. Or, if consulting isn't to his taste, take a job with one of them. In his shoes, I'd also make sure I keep contact information for all his best customers. Because if he gets laid off suddenly, he'll want to go back to them at least to say, "Hey, do any of your vendors need a reliable field service engineer?"
  - x0x0 11y ago
    keeping contact information is probably against his contract, and covered as customer information under noncompetes discovering an interest in being linkedin friends with them is not afaik
    - wpietri 11y ago
      Yeah, I was suggesting the latter. The purpose of a non-compete is to keep him from taking information to the competition, so if he merely uses his phone contacts list to get a job, I don't think HP's going to sue.
sremani 11y ago
The new corporations are about efficiencies they are not paternalistic as their post-war incarnations. The situation is unfortunate but HP Enterprise Services has a goal of 60% off-shore workforce (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/meg-whitman-hp-offshore-60-224554906.html http://finance.yahoo.com/news/meg-whitman-hp-offshore-60-224...). That would mean HP is going IBM route even though IBM got wacked big time.
- joshmn 11y ago
  What was IBMs service offering? I'm not very familiar with the industry. The joke is, my father "gets paid to drive" because he's always in his car. Probably... 65% of the time he's in his car, 30% onsite, and 5% at the home office. Can't offshore that, or can you?
  - debacle 11y ago
    They really, really try. Back when I was an AS400 jockey they started the transition. It went from having a guy on-site whenever we needed anything to having someone on the phone walking someone (usually someone unsuited for the task) through a debugging process.
- mtbcoder 11y ago
  In other words, "offshore all jobs except the ones that we need to keep our lucrative government contracts."
  - gaius 11y ago
    ... And those jobs will be done by indentured H1Bs.
spacehome 11y ago
> They cannot afford to lose healthcare coverage. And with Obamacare, they don't have to. They should be able to purchase decent coverage on the exchange, right? That's what we did when I quit my job.
- joshmn 11y ago
  The amazing coverage they have is barely cutting it. He pays pennies on the dollar for the coverage they get. I can't imagine it would be like this at all on the exchange.
  - gscott 11y ago
    Years ago I did a website for a person who sold health insurance for businesses. It turns out that a business is defined as 2 people and can come in most any form. With business healthcare they accept anyone even if you have pre-existing conditions. It gets around trying to buy health insurance directly. Cost is pretty reasonable.
    - rcurry 11y ago
      Great advice - also, there are a few states that allow a one person business to qualify for group coverage. I forget all of them, but I think the following states still allow "groups of one" with respect to a business acquiring health insurance: Connecticut, Delaware, Mississippi, North Carolina My apologies if I'm wrong on any of these, it's just off the top of my head since the last time I looked into it.
    - cma 11y ago
      There are no pre-existing condition exclusions in private insurance through obamacare. That was the biggest change it brought and is the reason for the mandate (so you don't wait to get sick and then take advantage of the lack of exclusions).
    - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
      A two person business won't be able to negotiate a group rate or decent benefits package very well. At this point you're better off looking at these ACA exchanges. They've done the negotiation for you with these larger carriers.
navbaker 11y ago
It sounds like the situation my dad was in. He had to switch careers in his early 50s, going from project engineering for a defense contractor to right-of-way acquisition and management in the oil and natural gas industry. He lost his job again at 60, but was able to parlay his leadership and management skills into a high level position with a company in Houston, partly through contacts he made while learning the oil business ropes. Your father needs to put some serious effort into getting on paper all the skills, both technical and soft "people-type", that he's learned over his career and put himself out there. Minneapolis is a big city and it sounds like he's made quite a few contacts that he could leverage for help getting a new career. Above all, encourage him not to give up!
jfoutz 11y ago
Your dad needs to think about the next best 5 guys, and how to pick them up for cheap when the layoffs happen. At his age striking out on his own will seem absolutely terrifying. Work on him for a few months. He must have built up some serious contacts over the years. His pitch is straightforward. HP can't actually support their products anymore, they don't have the staff. He knows the hardware inside and out. Sell support contracts. Snipe the best after the layoffs. You don't look for a job when you need one. this rumor is going to terrify customers. Since he has good personal relationships with those fortune 1000, he needs to monetize that. He must have some idea of what HP charges for his time. He can send the new guys, and come in to rescue at the end. I know this sounds crazy. Think really hard about it though. There isn't anyplace that will hire him at 100k. He needs to set up his own shop. Think of it this way, 0.05 < P(new_biz_fail) < 0.1. What is the chance of him getting a good new job in 6 months? i'd guess less than 10%. With your mom, he needs to bring in serious cash. He's in a position to do that. If he picks good helpers, it won't consume his life, anymore than the current job. He really only needs 1 contract, and can build from there. It sounds super scary. Hell, it is super scary. If he needs stability for the next 15 years or so, this is a really good way to do it. Really, in his position, as good as he is, it's less scary than going and looking for work.
- joshmn 11y ago
  This sounds like a great idea, but I don't know if he's such an entrepreneur or risk-taker. Some people are, some people aren't. It's a natural thing. I'm not sure of the papers he's signed (non-competes...), or the contracts that HP has with their customers (there must be some), but... he could definitely "get the band together" and pull off such a feat. Again, I think this goes back to the contracts he had. He's one of 4 remaining from the "blue days" (time with Digital); I think they'd be able to pull it off if they did go this route. They're all pretty awesome.
  - jfoutz 11y ago
    The vast majority of people who are great aren't great because they want to be. they don't have a choice, they need to be. He's got some time, he can figure it out. Maybe partner with those friends. Sharing the load is incredibly motivating. At least get him to take a long look at those contracts. Heck, he might be released from them on severance. Talk to him about it. No matter what happens, it's going to be a rough time for him. If he feels safer going and looking for work, good for him, there's no judgement. But you make it sound like he really needs to take care of his family. Just keep this option in mind. Time is on your side, for now.
qq66 11y ago
One possibility is for him to take a job at one of his clients, running the procurement process for HP products and services (more generally, the business lines he supports). He probably knows a lot about the cost structures for HP and competitor offerings and can help the client not only drive the hardest bargain and play competitors off each other, but also minimize spend (inhousing less complicated services, etc.)
nugget 11y ago
If your dad becomes unemployed and has very little income, he would most certainly qualify for a heavily subsidized ACA health care plan with caps on maximum out of pocket expenses. And that would tide him over until his mid 60s when medicare (and social security) kicks in. Point is, don't stress too much, they will likely be fine. Health care for the poor and elderly in the US is a much more accessible and affordable resource than we are led to believe, especially in a state like MN which has lots of doctors.
abtinf 11y ago
I sympathize with your family's predicament and I hope something works out. At the same time, I would suggest severely redacting your post. Its one thing to overshare the details of your own life, its another to overshare those of someone else (particularly their income, health, and other factors which might affect hiring).
skuhn 11y ago
A job working for a hardware vendor like HP doing local area field support? That will probably be impossible to find. I think the trick is to find a different (yet related) role with a company that is expanding rather than contracting their business. Datacenter tech springs to my mind -- a fair number of tech companies have midwest sites (mostly Chicago, sometimes Minneapolis or Nebraska or elsewhere) that don't have local techs. Issues are often handled by the east coast team flying out, which is less than ideal. Someone with that many years of hardware experience is pretty hard to find for those types of roles.
cmurf 11y ago
If he's called-in to early retire or otherwise let go, make sure he doesn't sign a non-compete at that time. He should have anything he has signed, and is asked to sign, reviewed by an attorney. It's just not reasonable for companies to terminate someone's job and tell them they can't compete including being hired by a competitor, but they try this all the time in blatant ways and it's not just the old guard companies like HP that do this. I've seen my share of "umm, excuse me but this basically puts me out of business, I'm not signing it" type contracts. Contract work is not as difficult as it sounds. He already knows the work involved, can do a good job of estimating the hours of work, and getting the number of employees to match that work, and then par for the course is 2x-3x of the salaried rate because a.) the contract can be terminated, no severance, no health care, no bennies, b.) the companies can afford it and are likely already paying that or more for the same contract with HP, c.) he'll need business liability insurance, and slightly more complicated book keeping and tax assistance. It's completely sane for him to ask a company he has a very good relationship "what's in the budget?" if he doesn't already have an idea what this amount ought to be. Don't undercharge. It's reasonable to offer a discount for say 2 or 3 year contracts. If it's hourly, it should be expensive to incentivize contracts. Anyway, this can also be referred to as "slow retirement" which is a working retirement. Oh and the home improvement investments seem sane also. They certainly aren't getting done, and will need to be done at a bad time if he does get let go or goes for early retirement.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  Would HP really try to get someone they are laying off to sign a noncompete contact?
  - erichmond 11y ago
    Often times this stipulation can be part of a severance package.
  - dexterdog 11y ago
    He has probably already signed one as part of his employment.
emp_zealoth 11y ago
Wow. Rant incoming. Im just aghast how shitty your country is. I can understand living in fear of mortgages and the like, jak with at will nonsense and the like (gags) But your employer having a gun to your beloved's head - that what it basically is - is just rotten. I genuinely wish that any libertarians here (in Poland) move to USA or, Friedmans beloved, Chile. I hope they get to experience shit like that. I guess im a filthy little commie for expexcting to be able to live my life without shit like that /s
- MC7447a 11y ago
  You don't have to pay your mortgage if you get laid off in Poland?
  - Ensorceled 11y ago
    They said they understood the mortgage part, it's the health care they don't understand.
  - JupiterMoon 11y ago
    In some European countries (probably not Poland) the unemployment you get for about 2 years if you lose your job is sufficient to cover a mortgage. The philosophy is that it is cheaper for the state to help people stay in their existing home than to have them lose it and potentially have to house them and them never go back to being a net contributor.
    - cookiecaper 11y ago
      All states in the United States have unemployment assistance programs, as well as programs like Medicaid to provide health care to the poor. OP's dad is nearing retirement age and can probably take advantage of some state-provided retirement benefits, like social security and/or Medicare. While things may be less extreme here than in Europe, you aren't just left to die if you become unemployed. Government-provided insurance that you have to be either poor or old enough to get is actually much better than a lot of the private insurance plans that are the only option for the middle class.
test001only 11y ago
I am sorry if this question comes of as naive. Is the medical cost so high that it can only be covered with an insurance? Would a small amount of savings set aside for this purpose be viable in case somebody loses their medical insurance? Also would you not be able to take your own medical insurance which is independent of the company you work for? I am just trying to understand how the medical system there works. I hope I phrased the question appropriately.
- bkeroack 11y ago
  Medical expenses for major problems can very easily run into the millions of US dollars (open heart surgery, etc). I'm not joking. The market for private insurance is somewhat better now with Obamacare (depending heavily upon the state you live in) but it still can be very expensive. Especially if you're unemployed. If you have a family member in poor health, employer-sponsored health coverage can be worth an order of magnitude more than your cash salary. If not more.
- x0x0 11y ago
  CA/usa, broken ankle, two surgeries: $110k in billings. All told, probably 10-12 doctor-hours. Insurance, beyond insuring you, does something perhaps more important: they negotiate massive discounts with all medical practices/hospitals/etc. My insurer negotiated that to something reasonable (approx $35k, though memory fails me); I could even afford that if I needed to. Crucially (and I understand this is fucking stupid; go 'murica), uninsured people pay way more than insured people even including what the insurance pays. Like integer multiples greater than 3 and up to 20 times more.
  - carlob 11y ago
    > Like integer multiples greater than 3 and up to 20 times more. Or maybe even real multiples. :)
  - jsudhams 11y ago
    wow that is lot of money, India should seriously kick medical tourism. Already happens but this can scale lot more. May be US can sponser MBBS students (There is huge amount of students does not opt for MBBS due to cost of up to $150,000 which includes donation to institutions) and then setup operting theators here in India.
elorant 11y ago
Posts like this remind me how shitty the business model of most Fortune 500 companies is. They lay off people just to increase profits regardless of productivity goals. For most management councils out there everything is about numbers. Perhaps we ought to do something as a community to stop such practices. Like boycott the shit out of companies that adopt them.
- notNow 11y ago
  they're laying off not to increase revenue but to slash costs. It's a defensive move not an offensive one.
- Spooky23 11y ago
  HP is particularly dumb in this area. My personal acquaintance with this was with their strict "up and out" policy that was in effect several years ago. A decade ago I had a secondary responsibility of supporting a legacy DEC terminal environment. The crew supporting it were HP badged guys not making alot of money, but being billed at some wacky rate. Never heard from HP hq until some VP of something flew in to tell me the whole crew was being laid off due to not getting promoted. (Keep in mid they were easily clearing $2M a year in profit) Long story short, they all left, started a little consultancy and were able to win a bid at half the billing rate that 3x their take home.
  - mdpopescu 11y ago
    You can restate that as "HP encourages employees to form their own business" :)
- VLM 11y ago
  Its important to note this is a dying company with no hope at all for the future. The more employees they shed, the faster they shed them, the longer they can minimally keep on operating, or rephrased they're hoping the total sum revenue will be higher if they stretch out the death of the company as long as possible. And the reason why that's important is it doesn't matter how good of an employee he is, there's no way to stretch the death of HP out 15 years, so he needs a plan for WHEN hp dies, not IF. The alternative is to fire everyone all at once in maybe 4 years.
DanielBMarkham 11y ago
"Who would hire him at this age, with this kind of experience?" This is a question that only the market can answer. While we can speculate all day long, none of us have any idea who would hire him or not. One thing is a certainty: if he never tries to get another job, he will not get any. Here's something I learned from watching hundreds or perhaps thousands of folks navigate the tech labor market: people skills and networking rock -- much more than technical skills! If your dad has all of these companies who only want to work with him? Wow! The day he gets laid off, if he does, he picks up the phone and starts calling all of his friends. After that it's just a numbers game. For his tech and people skills there are a certain percentage of folks that will positively respond. If that percentage is 10% and he knows 20 or 30 people? Odds are pretty good that he'll have a lead on a new job before the day is over. The difficult part here is psychological. Very difficult to work for one company for a long period of time and then feel confident talking to others about getting work, even if they like you a lot. Older folks such as myself also start carrying a chip around on their shoulder, looking for ageism everywhere (Yep, it exists, but staying angry or depressed about it is not very motivating) The psychological part is the hardest. He could be 10 seconds away from getting another job and manage to talk himself out of it instead of trying. It's a very difficult spot to be in.
- marktangotango 11y ago
  Networking is so important. Just be pleasant and easy to work with. I see so many young devs who get so involved in code related pissing matches, debating irrelavant crap in the work place, being arrogant and difficult. A lot of guys I never want to work with again. True story, former employer had a lay off, the company I was at sent me an email with a list of everyone who had been laid off asking me (I was in good standing, and respected) who we should go after. You bet I black listed the jerks, and got the guys I considered to be good developers, and easy to work with. Sure this was all my opinion and who am I anyway? But the point is: this stuff happens, and all you guys who think it doesn't are kidding yourselves.
  - DanielBMarkham 11y ago
    This is very tough to learn, but critical. The catch-phrase is "fierce opinions, lightly held" I'll argue the shit out of whether or not brackets stand alone in C++ code, but at the end of the day we all agree on something and move on. We're still friends. You have to both be passionate about what you do -- and willing to see the big picture -- to be a true professional.
waihtis 11y ago
I wish your dad all the good luck. I feel like the position and age combination he has is the worst to be at the moment, it's going to be tricky to move on. Give him a hand if you're in the position to do so.
deskamess 11y ago
A lot of people have given advice. I like the one about striking out with his own team. He is going to be scared. If you can be there for him in some way it will be great. Do you have a job where you can be with him for 1 weekend a month? Just be there to talk things out, help him, be able to ask for advice (like here on HN) when neither of you have answers. Be his on-call. He absolutely has to do it soon/now for himself and family (healthcare). He has the clients which are always the toughest to get, but he has to start the process now (incorporation, etc). I know you said you do not have the best relationship, but you recognize he is human. You have compassion. He is family. I want your Dad to succeed. I am sure others in this thread do too.
null_and_void 11y ago
The company I work for very likely would hire him. We are field-service for hardware and have techs in Minneapolis. While it may not be as flashy as software development or support, the job field still exists and jobs are still available. Have a little bit of optimism!
Serow225 11y ago
Have him take a look through the current openings at MTS.com in Eden Prairie, we hire FSEs and related skillsets.
gogopuppygogo 11y ago
Have him setup an account on http://www.joinjune.com http://www.joinjune.com - there are plenty of other OEM players out there who need talent.
3pt14159 11y ago
Email me if he gets let go, there are tricks to getting healthcare that are questionable, but technically legal depending on the state that he is in. I'm not sure about Minnesota, but I could look into it.
marincounty 11y ago
I feel for your father, and mother. I hope they weather the storm. I was going to mention, that if they are proactive; they might be able to keep their health care expenditures reasonable if they apply to Minnesota's department of health and human services. They will need to spend down assets, but they can usually keep their house, and car. (I know in California, the quality of medical care has gotten much better with the funds from the health care act--much better.) I just noticed that Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's (R) recent executive order intended to stop the implementation of federal health care reform in Minnesota? I just don't get his thinking? He's refusing millions in free money? Again, I hope your father doesn't loose his job. I went to Sonoma State university, and all the business graduates went straight HP to fill out job applications. The company's corporate office was within throwing distance. After I graduated, the number one question was, "When are you going to apply to HP?" I hated anything related to tech back then, but the people who got jobs seemed pretty happy. Back then it was a pretty secure job. I still cringe whenever I hear Carlie Fiorina brag about her tenure at HP. You don't brag when you pretty much ruin a company? I had an difficult relationship with my father too.
- knz 11y ago
  Mark Dayton (D) has been the Governor of Minnesota since 2010.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  Because the governor wants to appear "tough on Obama," even if it means making things worse for his citizens.
bluedino 11y ago
That's how I feel when the local factories lay workers off. Guys and gals with 30 years in at the same plant, assembling parts day in and day out. On their feet for 12 hours a day, the factory shuts down and what is there for them to do? You might lay 3,000 people off from a plant and all they can do is work at Wal-mart or McDonalds.
ritchiea 11y ago
If he brought in $4MM in revenue and he's only making $98k he's incredibly underpaid.
StillBored 11y ago
I always thought the field service guys would be the last to go. But, after a number of conversations with SEs it seems that the efforts IBM/HP/etc have put into producing "choose your own adventure" guides to repairs and escalating everything else to remote "engineering support" have changed that. At least in the mind of the bean counters, my experience with a lot of the newer service engineers is that they can't actually fix anything that isn't already in the manual. AKA, the quality of service sucks and no one cares. My last couple of interactions were basically cases of me telling the SE how to fix the problem after the field service guide (which I asked for) failed to be helpful and the 24 hour turnaround to china for engineering support was dragging on for weeks.

by joshmn 11y ago

aggronn 11y ago

If there's as much demand for him as you're describing, he could probably make a much better living doing consulting for these companies than he could working for HP.

joshmn 11y ago
I don't know why I didn't think of this. I'm 24, a bit naive, bleh. I let him know in a text. Thank you. I referred to HN as "my Silicon Valley friends"
wpietri 11y ago
Definitely. Or, if consulting isn't to his taste, take a job with one of them. In his shoes, I'd also make sure I keep contact information for all his best customers. Because if he gets laid off suddenly, he'll want to go back to them at least to say, "Hey, do any of your vendors need a reliable field service engineer?"
- x0x0 11y ago
  keeping contact information is probably against his contract, and covered as customer information under noncompetes discovering an interest in being linkedin friends with them is not afaik
  - wpietri 11y ago
    Yeah, I was suggesting the latter. The purpose of a non-compete is to keep him from taking information to the competition, so if he merely uses his phone contacts list to get a job, I don't think HP's going to sue.

sremani 11y ago

The new corporations are about efficiencies they are not paternalistic as their post-war incarnations. The situation is unfortunate but HP Enterprise Services has a goal of 60% off-shore workforce (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/meg-whitman-hp-offshore-60-224554906.html http://finance.yahoo.com/news/meg-whitman-hp-offshore-60-224...). That would mean HP is going IBM route even though IBM got wacked big time.

joshmn 11y ago
What was IBMs service offering? I'm not very familiar with the industry. The joke is, my father "gets paid to drive" because he's always in his car. Probably... 65% of the time he's in his car, 30% onsite, and 5% at the home office. Can't offshore that, or can you?
- debacle 11y ago
  They really, really try. Back when I was an AS400 jockey they started the transition. It went from having a guy on-site whenever we needed anything to having someone on the phone walking someone (usually someone unsuited for the task) through a debugging process.
mtbcoder 11y ago
In other words, "offshore all jobs except the ones that we need to keep our lucrative government contracts."
- gaius 11y ago
  ... And those jobs will be done by indentured H1Bs.

spacehome 11y ago

> They cannot afford to lose healthcare coverage. And with Obamacare, they don't have to. They should be able to purchase decent coverage on the exchange, right? That's what we did when I quit my job.

joshmn 11y ago
The amazing coverage they have is barely cutting it. He pays pennies on the dollar for the coverage they get. I can't imagine it would be like this at all on the exchange.
- gscott 11y ago
  Years ago I did a website for a person who sold health insurance for businesses. It turns out that a business is defined as 2 people and can come in most any form. With business healthcare they accept anyone even if you have pre-existing conditions. It gets around trying to buy health insurance directly. Cost is pretty reasonable.
  - rcurry 11y ago
    Great advice - also, there are a few states that allow a one person business to qualify for group coverage. I forget all of them, but I think the following states still allow "groups of one" with respect to a business acquiring health insurance: Connecticut, Delaware, Mississippi, North Carolina My apologies if I'm wrong on any of these, it's just off the top of my head since the last time I looked into it.
  - cma 11y ago
    There are no pre-existing condition exclusions in private insurance through obamacare. That was the biggest change it brought and is the reason for the mandate (so you don't wait to get sick and then take advantage of the lack of exclusions).
  - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
    A two person business won't be able to negotiate a group rate or decent benefits package very well. At this point you're better off looking at these ACA exchanges. They've done the negotiation for you with these larger carriers.

navbaker 11y ago

It sounds like the situation my dad was in. He had to switch careers in his early 50s, going from project engineering for a defense contractor to right-of-way acquisition and management in the oil and natural gas industry. He lost his job again at 60, but was able to parlay his leadership and management skills into a high level position with a company in Houston, partly through contacts he made while learning the oil business ropes. Your father needs to put some serious effort into getting on paper all the skills, both technical and soft "people-type", that he's learned over his career and put himself out there. Minneapolis is a big city and it sounds like he's made quite a few contacts that he could leverage for help getting a new career. Above all, encourage him not to give up!

jfoutz 11y ago

Your dad needs to think about the next best 5 guys, and how to pick them up for cheap when the layoffs happen. At his age striking out on his own will seem absolutely terrifying. Work on him for a few months. He must have built up some serious contacts over the years. His pitch is straightforward. HP can't actually support their products anymore, they don't have the staff. He knows the hardware inside and out. Sell support contracts. Snipe the best after the layoffs. You don't look for a job when you need one. this rumor is going to terrify customers. Since he has good personal relationships with those fortune 1000, he needs to monetize that. He must have some idea of what HP charges for his time. He can send the new guys, and come in to rescue at the end. I know this sounds crazy. Think really hard about it though. There isn't anyplace that will hire him at 100k. He needs to set up his own shop. Think of it this way, 0.05 < P(new_biz_fail) < 0.1. What is the chance of him getting a good new job in 6 months? i'd guess less than 10%. With your mom, he needs to bring in serious cash. He's in a position to do that. If he picks good helpers, it won't consume his life, anymore than the current job. He really only needs 1 contract, and can build from there. It sounds super scary. Hell, it is super scary. If he needs stability for the next 15 years or so, this is a really good way to do it. Really, in his position, as good as he is, it's less scary than going and looking for work.

joshmn 11y ago
This sounds like a great idea, but I don't know if he's such an entrepreneur or risk-taker. Some people are, some people aren't. It's a natural thing. I'm not sure of the papers he's signed (non-competes...), or the contracts that HP has with their customers (there must be some), but... he could definitely "get the band together" and pull off such a feat. Again, I think this goes back to the contracts he had. He's one of 4 remaining from the "blue days" (time with Digital); I think they'd be able to pull it off if they did go this route. They're all pretty awesome.
- jfoutz 11y ago
  The vast majority of people who are great aren't great because they want to be. they don't have a choice, they need to be. He's got some time, he can figure it out. Maybe partner with those friends. Sharing the load is incredibly motivating. At least get him to take a long look at those contracts. Heck, he might be released from them on severance. Talk to him about it. No matter what happens, it's going to be a rough time for him. If he feels safer going and looking for work, good for him, there's no judgement. But you make it sound like he really needs to take care of his family. Just keep this option in mind. Time is on your side, for now.

qq66 11y ago

One possibility is for him to take a job at one of his clients, running the procurement process for HP products and services (more generally, the business lines he supports). He probably knows a lot about the cost structures for HP and competitor offerings and can help the client not only drive the hardest bargain and play competitors off each other, but also minimize spend (inhousing less complicated services, etc.)

nugget 11y ago

If your dad becomes unemployed and has very little income, he would most certainly qualify for a heavily subsidized ACA health care plan with caps on maximum out of pocket expenses. And that would tide him over until his mid 60s when medicare (and social security) kicks in. Point is, don't stress too much, they will likely be fine. Health care for the poor and elderly in the US is a much more accessible and affordable resource than we are led to believe, especially in a state like MN which has lots of doctors.

abtinf 11y ago

I sympathize with your family's predicament and I hope something works out. At the same time, I would suggest severely redacting your post. Its one thing to overshare the details of your own life, its another to overshare those of someone else (particularly their income, health, and other factors which might affect hiring).

skuhn 11y ago

A job working for a hardware vendor like HP doing local area field support? That will probably be impossible to find. I think the trick is to find a different (yet related) role with a company that is expanding rather than contracting their business. Datacenter tech springs to my mind -- a fair number of tech companies have midwest sites (mostly Chicago, sometimes Minneapolis or Nebraska or elsewhere) that don't have local techs. Issues are often handled by the east coast team flying out, which is less than ideal. Someone with that many years of hardware experience is pretty hard to find for those types of roles.

cmurf 11y ago

If he's called-in to early retire or otherwise let go, make sure he doesn't sign a non-compete at that time. He should have anything he has signed, and is asked to sign, reviewed by an attorney. It's just not reasonable for companies to terminate someone's job and tell them they can't compete including being hired by a competitor, but they try this all the time in blatant ways and it's not just the old guard companies like HP that do this. I've seen my share of "umm, excuse me but this basically puts me out of business, I'm not signing it" type contracts. Contract work is not as difficult as it sounds. He already knows the work involved, can do a good job of estimating the hours of work, and getting the number of employees to match that work, and then par for the course is 2x-3x of the salaried rate because a.) the contract can be terminated, no severance, no health care, no bennies, b.) the companies can afford it and are likely already paying that or more for the same contract with HP, c.) he'll need business liability insurance, and slightly more complicated book keeping and tax assistance. It's completely sane for him to ask a company he has a very good relationship "what's in the budget?" if he doesn't already have an idea what this amount ought to be. Don't undercharge. It's reasonable to offer a discount for say 2 or 3 year contracts. If it's hourly, it should be expensive to incentivize contracts. Anyway, this can also be referred to as "slow retirement" which is a working retirement. Oh and the home improvement investments seem sane also. They certainly aren't getting done, and will need to be done at a bad time if he does get let go or goes for early retirement.

jsprogrammer 11y ago
Would HP really try to get someone they are laying off to sign a noncompete contact?
- erichmond 11y ago
  Often times this stipulation can be part of a severance package.
- dexterdog 11y ago
  He has probably already signed one as part of his employment.

emp_zealoth 11y ago

Wow. Rant incoming. Im just aghast how shitty your country is. I can understand living in fear of mortgages and the like, jak with at will nonsense and the like (gags) But your employer having a gun to your beloved's head - that what it basically is - is just rotten. I genuinely wish that any libertarians here (in Poland) move to USA or, Friedmans beloved, Chile. I hope they get to experience shit like that. I guess im a filthy little commie for expexcting to be able to live my life without shit like that /s

MC7447a 11y ago
You don't have to pay your mortgage if you get laid off in Poland?
- Ensorceled 11y ago
  They said they understood the mortgage part, it's the health care they don't understand.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  In some European countries (probably not Poland) the unemployment you get for about 2 years if you lose your job is sufficient to cover a mortgage. The philosophy is that it is cheaper for the state to help people stay in their existing home than to have them lose it and potentially have to house them and them never go back to being a net contributor.
  - cookiecaper 11y ago
    All states in the United States have unemployment assistance programs, as well as programs like Medicaid to provide health care to the poor. OP's dad is nearing retirement age and can probably take advantage of some state-provided retirement benefits, like social security and/or Medicare. While things may be less extreme here than in Europe, you aren't just left to die if you become unemployed. Government-provided insurance that you have to be either poor or old enough to get is actually much better than a lot of the private insurance plans that are the only option for the middle class.

test001only 11y ago

I am sorry if this question comes of as naive. Is the medical cost so high that it can only be covered with an insurance? Would a small amount of savings set aside for this purpose be viable in case somebody loses their medical insurance? Also would you not be able to take your own medical insurance which is independent of the company you work for? I am just trying to understand how the medical system there works. I hope I phrased the question appropriately.

bkeroack 11y ago
Medical expenses for major problems can very easily run into the millions of US dollars (open heart surgery, etc). I'm not joking. The market for private insurance is somewhat better now with Obamacare (depending heavily upon the state you live in) but it still can be very expensive. Especially if you're unemployed. If you have a family member in poor health, employer-sponsored health coverage can be worth an order of magnitude more than your cash salary. If not more.
x0x0 11y ago
CA/usa, broken ankle, two surgeries: $110k in billings. All told, probably 10-12 doctor-hours. Insurance, beyond insuring you, does something perhaps more important: they negotiate massive discounts with all medical practices/hospitals/etc. My insurer negotiated that to something reasonable (approx $35k, though memory fails me); I could even afford that if I needed to. Crucially (and I understand this is fucking stupid; go 'murica), uninsured people pay way more than insured people even including what the insurance pays. Like integer multiples greater than 3 and up to 20 times more.
- carlob 11y ago
  > Like integer multiples greater than 3 and up to 20 times more. Or maybe even real multiples. :)
- jsudhams 11y ago
  wow that is lot of money, India should seriously kick medical tourism. Already happens but this can scale lot more. May be US can sponser MBBS students (There is huge amount of students does not opt for MBBS due to cost of up to $150,000 which includes donation to institutions) and then setup operting theators here in India.

elorant 11y ago

Posts like this remind me how shitty the business model of most Fortune 500 companies is. They lay off people just to increase profits regardless of productivity goals. For most management councils out there everything is about numbers. Perhaps we ought to do something as a community to stop such practices. Like boycott the shit out of companies that adopt them.

notNow 11y ago
they're laying off not to increase revenue but to slash costs. It's a defensive move not an offensive one.
Spooky23 11y ago
HP is particularly dumb in this area. My personal acquaintance with this was with their strict "up and out" policy that was in effect several years ago. A decade ago I had a secondary responsibility of supporting a legacy DEC terminal environment. The crew supporting it were HP badged guys not making alot of money, but being billed at some wacky rate. Never heard from HP hq until some VP of something flew in to tell me the whole crew was being laid off due to not getting promoted. (Keep in mid they were easily clearing $2M a year in profit) Long story short, they all left, started a little consultancy and were able to win a bid at half the billing rate that 3x their take home.
- mdpopescu 11y ago
  You can restate that as "HP encourages employees to form their own business" :)
VLM 11y ago
Its important to note this is a dying company with no hope at all for the future. The more employees they shed, the faster they shed them, the longer they can minimally keep on operating, or rephrased they're hoping the total sum revenue will be higher if they stretch out the death of the company as long as possible. And the reason why that's important is it doesn't matter how good of an employee he is, there's no way to stretch the death of HP out 15 years, so he needs a plan for WHEN hp dies, not IF. The alternative is to fire everyone all at once in maybe 4 years.

DanielBMarkham 11y ago

"Who would hire him at this age, with this kind of experience?" This is a question that only the market can answer. While we can speculate all day long, none of us have any idea who would hire him or not. One thing is a certainty: if he never tries to get another job, he will not get any. Here's something I learned from watching hundreds or perhaps thousands of folks navigate the tech labor market: people skills and networking rock -- much more than technical skills! If your dad has all of these companies who only want to work with him? Wow! The day he gets laid off, if he does, he picks up the phone and starts calling all of his friends. After that it's just a numbers game. For his tech and people skills there are a certain percentage of folks that will positively respond. If that percentage is 10% and he knows 20 or 30 people? Odds are pretty good that he'll have a lead on a new job before the day is over. The difficult part here is psychological. Very difficult to work for one company for a long period of time and then feel confident talking to others about getting work, even if they like you a lot. Older folks such as myself also start carrying a chip around on their shoulder, looking for ageism everywhere (Yep, it exists, but staying angry or depressed about it is not very motivating) The psychological part is the hardest. He could be 10 seconds away from getting another job and manage to talk himself out of it instead of trying. It's a very difficult spot to be in.

marktangotango 11y ago
Networking is so important. Just be pleasant and easy to work with. I see so many young devs who get so involved in code related pissing matches, debating irrelavant crap in the work place, being arrogant and difficult. A lot of guys I never want to work with again. True story, former employer had a lay off, the company I was at sent me an email with a list of everyone who had been laid off asking me (I was in good standing, and respected) who we should go after. You bet I black listed the jerks, and got the guys I considered to be good developers, and easy to work with. Sure this was all my opinion and who am I anyway? But the point is: this stuff happens, and all you guys who think it doesn't are kidding yourselves.
- DanielBMarkham 11y ago
  This is very tough to learn, but critical. The catch-phrase is "fierce opinions, lightly held" I'll argue the shit out of whether or not brackets stand alone in C++ code, but at the end of the day we all agree on something and move on. We're still friends. You have to both be passionate about what you do -- and willing to see the big picture -- to be a true professional.

waihtis 11y ago

I wish your dad all the good luck. I feel like the position and age combination he has is the worst to be at the moment, it's going to be tricky to move on. Give him a hand if you're in the position to do so.

deskamess 11y ago

A lot of people have given advice. I like the one about striking out with his own team. He is going to be scared. If you can be there for him in some way it will be great. Do you have a job where you can be with him for 1 weekend a month? Just be there to talk things out, help him, be able to ask for advice (like here on HN) when neither of you have answers. Be his on-call. He absolutely has to do it soon/now for himself and family (healthcare). He has the clients which are always the toughest to get, but he has to start the process now (incorporation, etc). I know you said you do not have the best relationship, but you recognize he is human. You have compassion. He is family. I want your Dad to succeed. I am sure others in this thread do too.

null_and_void 11y ago

The company I work for very likely would hire him. We are field-service for hardware and have techs in Minneapolis. While it may not be as flashy as software development or support, the job field still exists and jobs are still available. Have a little bit of optimism!

Serow225 11y ago

Have him take a look through the current openings at MTS.com in Eden Prairie, we hire FSEs and related skillsets.

gogopuppygogo 11y ago

Have him setup an account on http://www.joinjune.com http://www.joinjune.com - there are plenty of other OEM players out there who need talent.

3pt14159 11y ago

Email me if he gets let go, there are tricks to getting healthcare that are questionable, but technically legal depending on the state that he is in. I'm not sure about Minnesota, but I could look into it.

marincounty 11y ago

I feel for your father, and mother. I hope they weather the storm. I was going to mention, that if they are proactive; they might be able to keep their health care expenditures reasonable if they apply to Minnesota's department of health and human services. They will need to spend down assets, but they can usually keep their house, and car. (I know in California, the quality of medical care has gotten much better with the funds from the health care act--much better.) I just noticed that Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's (R) recent executive order intended to stop the implementation of federal health care reform in Minnesota? I just don't get his thinking? He's refusing millions in free money? Again, I hope your father doesn't loose his job. I went to Sonoma State university, and all the business graduates went straight HP to fill out job applications. The company's corporate office was within throwing distance. After I graduated, the number one question was, "When are you going to apply to HP?" I hated anything related to tech back then, but the people who got jobs seemed pretty happy. Back then it was a pretty secure job. I still cringe whenever I hear Carlie Fiorina brag about her tenure at HP. You don't brag when you pretty much ruin a company? I had an difficult relationship with my father too.

knz 11y ago
Mark Dayton (D) has been the Governor of Minnesota since 2010.
s73v3r 11y ago
Because the governor wants to appear "tough on Obama," even if it means making things worse for his citizens.

bluedino 11y ago

That's how I feel when the local factories lay workers off. Guys and gals with 30 years in at the same plant, assembling parts day in and day out. On their feet for 12 hours a day, the factory shuts down and what is there for them to do? You might lay 3,000 people off from a plant and all they can do is work at Wal-mart or McDonalds.

ritchiea 11y ago

If he brought in $4MM in revenue and he's only making $98k he's incredibly underpaid.

StillBored 11y ago

I always thought the field service guys would be the last to go. But, after a number of conversations with SEs it seems that the efforts IBM/HP/etc have put into producing "choose your own adventure" guides to repairs and escalating everything else to remote "engineering support" have changed that. At least in the mind of the bean counters, my experience with a lot of the newer service engineers is that they can't actually fix anything that isn't already in the manual. AKA, the quality of service sucks and no one cares. My last couple of interactions were basically cases of me telling the SE how to fix the problem after the field service guide (which I asked for) failed to be helpful and the 24 hour turnaround to china for engineering support was dragging on for weeks.