What's wrong with the big companies?!

[Dougal DeKree]

Hey, thanx for all the good advice and the motivation! Meanwhile I used some time to have a closer look at those numbers and talked to some people who knew more. It seems that of this big number 5000 are people that are employed but have nothing to do but also can't be fired - yet. They will be, next year. Another 7000 are a subbranch that tries to find work for those 5000 and others who want to find other work inside the Telekom. Sounds silly? I think so. This subbranch is to go, too. That leaves 20000. Next week our unit will be informed what is likely to happen - rumour has it that our whole branch is to be sold - thus at the same time lowering personel and still keeping us employed. Well, I will have to wait and see. Luckily tomorrow there is a usermeeting with lots of people from other companies who work with our software - maybe I'll find some opportunities there.

Oh, and some pic I got today

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Generaly, successful companies are proactive in their staffing needs, cutting when they feel bloated, not nessessarily when it's pinching pennies. Also, it often happens when a company wants to sell (I was in a company that did that, cut 70 upper people, hired 20 new people with different titles to do the same job, and was sold 6 months later)

They did that because they most likely didn't have to pay the new people what the old ones were making.

I know there's alot of people that can do my job cheaper (fast food) but they couldn't do it as efficiently as I can. That's experience there. Which, unfortunately, doesn't mean a hill of beans when it would come to cost cutting.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Companies that are openly traded have to give their stock holders value and that value must increase ever year so they are often short sighted.

It's no different then when a company closes a profitible store so that they can find a place where a new store can be opened up with more profit.

Check out the new semi-documentary about Wallmart if you want to see some screwed up politics and policies.

 

[ssampier]

Pet Peeve:

When companies are not "financially solvent" so they can their CEO. Makes sense, right? But then they give the now-fired CEO a bonus of several million dollars. For what, screwing up?

Then they lay-off several thousand employees. Crazy, I tell you!

 

[sniffles]

For one the division they are going to cut most is not the one making negative numbers, it's just the more technical one, so I guess managers simply don't understand what it's good for. Also the same division is making good gross profit.

On the other hand I didn't know they had Zeta as spokeswoman. Hell, she must get payed the profit of my whole lifes earnings in a year - if that is enough.

Yes, we all get to see the lovely Mrs. Michael Douglas all the time touting the benefits of their products and services. I wonder what she gets paid for that ad campaign?

I sympathize with your plight, Dougal. My employer hasn't been doing so well financially this year as in the past and they have not been filling vacancies, so we are trying to do the same amount of work with fewer people. And my job position is one that no one who isn't in this position has ever understood - a technical position, so as you say, the managers don't understand what it's good for. They're trying to figure out a way to automate my position, which of course would be a bad thing because they don't realize that what I do can't be done by a computer. :\

 

[frankthedm]

They're trying to figure out a way to automate my position, which of course would be a bad thing because they don't realize that what I do can't be done by a computer. :\

But they will try and then hire a lower paid worker when they fail.