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Very good Reddit discussion on this article: https://www.reddit.com/r/mit/comments/458xli/feature_a_struggle_within_mits_it_department_over/ https://www.reddit.

by hga 11y ago

Very good Reddit discussion on this article: https://www.reddit.com/r/mit/comments/458xli/feature_a_struggle_within_mits_it_department_over/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mit/comments/458xli/feature_a_strug... I suppose one good piece of news is that it's now possible to fire people working for MIT (this wasn't particularly true prior to the end of the Cold War, about the time I left the community as a result of leaving the Boston area).

hackuser 11y ago
> it's now possible to fire people working for MIT (this wasn't particularly true prior to the end of the Cold War ... The Cold War ended 25 years ago, before current MIT undergrads and many grad students were born. Apparently firings weren't a problem during the prior reorganization: During IS&T’s last reorganization in 2010, 19 IS&T staff were laid off. While the number of “involuntary separations” during this restructuring was similar — 17 between February and August according to an IS&T document — many others also chose to resign or take an early retirement.
- hga 11y ago
  Sounds like those were layoffs, that's what they were described as, and of course those happened at MIT as circumstances demanded. I'm talking about outright firing for, example, no longer being able to do their job. Back then, such people were sidelined until they retired or otherwise left on their own accord, or at least that was the case in all examples I knew about.
coleca 11y ago
One of the comments that stuck out to me from the Reddit thread was this: >> The problem with this transformation is that we lost some of our best and brightest and might lose more. The good ones who remain are the ones who are in a life situation that makes a job change at this time difficult. This says to me that going forward it is going to be a mess. It sounds like this change was, while maybe good intentioned, will continue to be met with tremendous resistance. The people with career options saw this as a good chance to jump ship before things got bad. The people that felt that they were "stuck" thought they have no other option. The comments and the article make the whole org sound pretty toxic, but unfortunately not dissimilar to many other enterprises IT shops. My advice to the folks that think they don't have an option, is to really think again. Your skills are probably a lot more valuable than you think. I've been in similar situations in my career and thought the same thing, but actually the grass can really be better in other places. You will probably be shocked and surprised at how valuable what you know and what you have done is when you are in other organizations. Likely, the senior management isn't going to give up and admit defeat too easily. How long will it be before they decide their best option is to outsource the dept to HP, Wipro, Cognizant, Dell, IBM, etc.?
- concernedforall 11y ago
  Coleca, sorry to say, outsourcing for IS&T's service desk has already been decided and is underway...

by hga 11y ago

hackuser 11y ago

> it's now possible to fire people working for MIT (this wasn't particularly true prior to the end of the Cold War ... The Cold War ended 25 years ago, before current MIT undergrads and many grad students were born. Apparently firings weren't a problem during the prior reorganization: During IS&T’s last reorganization in 2010, 19 IS&T staff were laid off. While the number of “involuntary separations” during this restructuring was similar — 17 between February and August according to an IS&T document — many others also chose to resign or take an early retirement.

hga 11y ago
Sounds like those were layoffs, that's what they were described as, and of course those happened at MIT as circumstances demanded. I'm talking about outright firing for, example, no longer being able to do their job. Back then, such people were sidelined until they retired or otherwise left on their own accord, or at least that was the case in all examples I knew about.

coleca 11y ago

One of the comments that stuck out to me from the Reddit thread was this: >> The problem with this transformation is that we lost some of our best and brightest and might lose more. The good ones who remain are the ones who are in a life situation that makes a job change at this time difficult. This says to me that going forward it is going to be a mess. It sounds like this change was, while maybe good intentioned, will continue to be met with tremendous resistance. The people with career options saw this as a good chance to jump ship before things got bad. The people that felt that they were "stuck" thought they have no other option. The comments and the article make the whole org sound pretty toxic, but unfortunately not dissimilar to many other enterprises IT shops. My advice to the folks that think they don't have an option, is to really think again. Your skills are probably a lot more valuable than you think. I've been in similar situations in my career and thought the same thing, but actually the grass can really be better in other places. You will probably be shocked and surprised at how valuable what you know and what you have done is when you are in other organizations. Likely, the senior management isn't going to give up and admit defeat too easily. How long will it be before they decide their best option is to outsource the dept to HP, Wipro, Cognizant, Dell, IBM, etc.?

concernedforall 11y ago
Coleca, sorry to say, outsourcing for IS&T's service desk has already been decided and is underway...