3 ms·

My first real job out of college was the end of the 80s, as a contractor at IBM. This was when they were really going down the tubes, and I saw them lay off lit

My first real job out of college was the end of the 80s, as a contractor at IBM. This was when they were really going down the tubes, and I saw them lay off literally my entire department except for me (my contract had already been paid for the whole year, so they still owned me). On one hand, I saw that IBM management was actually doing everything they could for those folks - I saw managers on the phones all day, trying to find jobs for their employees. But on the other hand, I saw all these people whose only skills were COBOL and RPG3, and even back then those technologies were obsolete. They'd been getting large salaries from IBM primarily on the basis of their domain knowledge, and when IBM stopped caring about those lines, the knowledge became worthless. Seeing what this did to people that I had been working with, and friendly with, really made a big impression on me. I promised I wouldn't let myself get into that same technical debt - but these day's that's easier said than done.

walshemj 8y ago
I saw this first hand at British Telecom due to restructuring we had some one who had only done COBOL since they had joined the GPO. They found Perl a challenge at first :-)
knightofmars 8y ago
> primarily on the basis of their domain knowledge This is a _HUGE_ loss to a company when a company loses someone with domain knowledge. Putting people into the "Are they good at skill X? Where X is the specific thing their title says they do." box and then hiring and firing based solely upon X is foolish to the extreme. If someone is mediocre at X but understands the business domain that they are working in they are worth the same as someone who is highly talented at X but doesn't know the domain. And while people can "learn the domain" most people don't actually want to. They'll learn it until they have passing knowledge but won't actually ever take the time to really understand it.
jimmydddd 8y ago
I was an intern at IBM in the EARLY 80s. At that time, people actually had the expectation of lifetime employment at IBM (as long as you were willing to relocate as needed). A project had just been cancelled when I arrived, and everyone in the department would come in every day and drink coffee and read the paper for 8 hours, waiting for the company to figure out how to re-deploy them. Not a care in the world about a lay off. In the end of the 80s when you showed up, the lay off must have been a huge shock.

walshemj 8y ago

I saw this first hand at British Telecom due to restructuring we had some one who had only done COBOL since they had joined the GPO. They found Perl a challenge at first :-)

knightofmars 8y ago

> primarily on the basis of their domain knowledge This is a _HUGE_ loss to a company when a company loses someone with domain knowledge. Putting people into the "Are they good at skill X? Where X is the specific thing their title says they do." box and then hiring and firing based solely upon X is foolish to the extreme. If someone is mediocre at X but understands the business domain that they are working in they are worth the same as someone who is highly talented at X but doesn't know the domain. And while people can "learn the domain" most people don't actually want to. They'll learn it until they have passing knowledge but won't actually ever take the time to really understand it.

jimmydddd 8y ago

I was an intern at IBM in the EARLY 80s. At that time, people actually had the expectation of lifetime employment at IBM (as long as you were willing to relocate as needed). A project had just been cancelled when I arrived, and everyone in the department would come in every day and drink coffee and read the paper for 8 hours, waiting for the company to figure out how to re-deploy them. Not a care in the world about a lay off. In the end of the 80s when you showed up, the lay off must have been a huge shock.