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I worked at IBM for a year out of college before getting laid off as apart of a round of mass layoffs that the company regularly does. Joining the company defin

by Dig1t 5y ago

I worked at IBM for a year out of college before getting laid off as apart of a round of mass layoffs that the company regularly does. Joining the company definitely felt cool, especially as a new grad. The history alone was pretty neat and I was super happy to be a part of something that had had such a big impact on the world. After spending some time at the company though, the biggest thing that struck me was the quality of the people and the mindset of management. IBM pays poorly, raises are nonexistent and so are bonuses. My coworkers were not particularly smart nor passionate. I honestly believe that a major factor in the decline of IBM is the refusal to invest in their people. Most engineers and designers are just cogs for the many layers of management to shuffle around and use, and the managers are more interested in playing the office politics game and micromanaging than actually building cool stuff. It's a very top-down sort of place but the people at the top and the bottom are not very smart.

curiousllama 5y ago
Most tech services companies optimize for the median: they don't want low performers (low quality work), but they also don't want high performers (v expensive). They're built to provide good-but-not-great services. Sounds like you noticed this pretty quickly.
kerneloftruth 5y ago
I'm curious when it was you were there. I was in IBM from 1985-1992, and it felt like the ending of an era. At first, it was a place that invested heavily in its people. Private offices, nice facilities, very good pay, and a _requirement_ that you had to take classes related to your field every year. IBM would hire excellent faculty and instructors from universities and other companies to teach them. They sponsored technical conferences that were really good (actual learning, not just sales). When I was in graduate school, my director had me focus on doing my homework and projects as 80% of my time -- literally getting paid to be a student. My colleagues and I were proud to be "IBMers" at that time. But things started to change in 1990-91. The company lost money for the first time in its history, and then divided into separate parts. My division became what is now the horrible IBM Global Services. In those last 2 years it became clear to me that it was time to branch out of there. Since then, I've know no IBM employee at all who is happy, much less proud. All these great old institutions ultimately fade or fail. It used to seem more sad to me, but I've grown to favor "fail fast" more. IBM should just go...sell all the IP and branding off and call it a day. Then, new innovation will happen faster.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  > But things started to change in 1990-91 > The company lost money for the first time in its history Seems to be a recurring theme. In my city there's a large steel industry. The companies used to be quite benevolent, they cared about employees and invested in them, and everyone was proud to work for them. It all ended the second they took losses and it never came back. Now they're just normal corporations, the employee pride is gone.
- geenew 5y ago
  I would be sad to see it go, if only for the fact that they are (afaik) the only ones keeping mainframes alive as a modern thing. Idle speculation, but I wonder if that could save IBM, if and when the market starts to sour on cloud computing (for cost and/or control reasons). Mainframes have a lot of overlap in terms of functionality (VMs, reliability, similar purchasing model for computing power) with cloud services.
- burner556 5y ago
  Can you elaborate why IBM global services is horrible? Somebody…. I know accepted an offer recently.
BeefWellington 5y ago
I worked there for a number of years and I can say with certainty that what you're saying exists within the company. However, this is, like any sufficiently sized company, down to the culture of the given group you're working for. One thing that IBM is very good at IME is pushing out employees from acquisitions that represent the "old guard" as it were. The main thing it has going for it these days is inertia with banks and governments and the research arm.
monkeybutton 5y ago
The best people I ever met while working at IBM were the ones who got there via acquisitions. Also there were grumblings about how employees hired directly by IBM appeared to be promoted more often than acquisition employees. Something about them being "true blue", which if real, tells you everything you need to know about the upper management and their opinions of subordinates there.

by Dig1t 5y ago

curiousllama 5y ago

Most tech services companies optimize for the median: they don't want low performers (low quality work), but they also don't want high performers (v expensive). They're built to provide good-but-not-great services. Sounds like you noticed this pretty quickly.

kerneloftruth 5y ago

I'm curious when it was you were there. I was in IBM from 1985-1992, and it felt like the ending of an era. At first, it was a place that invested heavily in its people. Private offices, nice facilities, very good pay, and a _requirement_ that you had to take classes related to your field every year. IBM would hire excellent faculty and instructors from universities and other companies to teach them. They sponsored technical conferences that were really good (actual learning, not just sales). When I was in graduate school, my director had me focus on doing my homework and projects as 80% of my time -- literally getting paid to be a student. My colleagues and I were proud to be "IBMers" at that time. But things started to change in 1990-91. The company lost money for the first time in its history, and then divided into separate parts. My division became what is now the horrible IBM Global Services. In those last 2 years it became clear to me that it was time to branch out of there. Since then, I've know no IBM employee at all who is happy, much less proud. All these great old institutions ultimately fade or fail. It used to seem more sad to me, but I've grown to favor "fail fast" more. IBM should just go...sell all the IP and branding off and call it a day. Then, new innovation will happen faster.

matheusmoreira 5y ago
> But things started to change in 1990-91 > The company lost money for the first time in its history Seems to be a recurring theme. In my city there's a large steel industry. The companies used to be quite benevolent, they cared about employees and invested in them, and everyone was proud to work for them. It all ended the second they took losses and it never came back. Now they're just normal corporations, the employee pride is gone.
geenew 5y ago
I would be sad to see it go, if only for the fact that they are (afaik) the only ones keeping mainframes alive as a modern thing. Idle speculation, but I wonder if that could save IBM, if and when the market starts to sour on cloud computing (for cost and/or control reasons). Mainframes have a lot of overlap in terms of functionality (VMs, reliability, similar purchasing model for computing power) with cloud services.
burner556 5y ago
Can you elaborate why IBM global services is horrible? Somebody…. I know accepted an offer recently.

BeefWellington 5y ago

I worked there for a number of years and I can say with certainty that what you're saying exists within the company. However, this is, like any sufficiently sized company, down to the culture of the given group you're working for. One thing that IBM is very good at IME is pushing out employees from acquisitions that represent the "old guard" as it were. The main thing it has going for it these days is inertia with banks and governments and the research arm.

monkeybutton 5y ago

The best people I ever met while working at IBM were the ones who got there via acquisitions. Also there were grumblings about how employees hired directly by IBM appeared to be promoted more often than acquisition employees. Something about them being "true blue", which if real, tells you everything you need to know about the upper management and their opinions of subordinates there.