More lay-offs at WOTC! [Merged]

[Wormwood]

Anyone else feel like they're back in Economics 101?

Economics 101? Not really, but it does sound like freshman year.

 

[jasamcarl]

ha

This is pretty remedial isn't it? But for some people even the basics are held suspect.

 

[MulhorandSage]

Economics 101? Not really, but it does sound like freshman year.

Actually, getting into heated economic discussions eventually turn nto something more reminiscent of religious debate.

Scott Bennie

 

[bayne]

What is going on in the firm I work for (an international bank). Five years ago, we as a local branch of a European bank were bought up by this international bank. Originaly our new shareholder promised to leave us alone and let us "play" on our local market. Now five years down the line the shareholder is in trouble, costs have to be cut and the whole organisation (including local branches) have to be reorganised to be more efficient.

Things change, thats a fact of life. Nobody can predict the future. Your management staff aren't a bunch of evil suits just because they don't have ESP. Maybe they should have bought the psionics handbook

We notice two major initiatives. For one, they are starting to dump (read outsource) anything they deem "not our core business". Even those departments that have been the core support for the whole of the bank since ages are targeted. Second thing we notice is centralisation of business. Especialy since a bank's business is completely electronic and there is no reason to have local presence (appart from comercial personel for consumer contact) in each and every vilage/town/province/country, the powers that be have decided to (amongst other things) move all IT to ONE giant IT center near to the main seat of the bank and to move certain services (for instance on a European level) to one country.

So, what are you saying - instead of trying to save the company your management should just ignore the problem? Perhaps you want them to fake their books like WorldCom or Enron until all the employees are really screwed?

Now why am I so shure that these suits do exist? I work at IT and as you may have noticed, we're targeted by this reorganisation. All IT activity in my country is to be outsourced. And in several meetings we had over this, it has become very clear that the suits over at main seat HAVE NO CLUE WHATSOEVER what they are doing. They have NO IDEA what our software needs are and HAVE NO CLUE that (at least concerning bank operations) we are bound to our local legal obligations that differ considerably from legal obligations in the country the main seat of the bank is localised. They actualy proved it when one of the representatives of the main seat was invited to one of our meetings to explain to us why they decided the way they did. This person was very friendly but a) gave absolute proof that he didn't understand or even know ANYTHING ABOUT OUR LOCAL SITUATION AND BLIGATIONS and b) when asked questions HIS UNIVERSAL ANSWER WAS : I CAN'T ANSWER THAT QUESTION AS I DON'T KNOW YOUR LOCAL SITUATION OR LAWS!

Sad to say, this is most likely a failure on the part of your middle management to communicate these reqirements to upper management.

Need anymore proof....

This does not constitute proof at all. Sure it is possible for management to make the wrong descisions, but that doesn't mean they are making the decision because they are evil suits. What it indicates is an organizational or procederal breakdown. Don't confuse being incompetant with being uncaring. Fortunatly, there are also excellent organizations in the world.

 

[bayne]

Thanks, Ezrael, you made my day.



What a pregnant statement! You should elaborate on this one, I think, so that we all know what you know, too. I, for one, am very interested to hear what you have to say ... and not in a negative tone, either.

I am not a psychology expert by any stretch of the imagination, so this may not be phrased exactly correct, but I think you will get the idea. It's just that this is a classic case of people trying to explain away problems by blaming the "others". "The suits are not like us, they are a race of evil beancounters". This is stereotyping, and stereotyping is very rarely accurate. The fact is people are people. Not all "suits" are evil. Are some of them "evil"? Sure, the CFO for WorldCom pretty much proved that one. That doesn't mean every other member of management is a member of the Abyss. I bet many of you know people at the other end of the spectrum who are just as devoid of morals (for example the people on this board who think is OK to steal electronic materials and give it to all their friends, thus stealing money out of the hands of other working people).

I have been on both sides of downsizing. It is always painfull for both sides.

 

[Piratecat]

Time to shut this down. Anyone who wishes to comment on the WotC layoffs in one of the other open threads - you remember, keeping the thread on topic - should feel free to do so.