I briefly worked for Cisco after an acquisition, and it was a great time: I would get my sprint’s worth of work done in two days, ask if I could do anything else and be told no, and then spend the rest of the two weeks doing whatever I wanted, which at the time was learning Rust.
All that is to say, I would not be remotely surprised if Cisco has more employees than they strictly need. But, this email from the CEO is comically out of touch. “We’re doing great, better than we’ve ever done, so we’re going to fire thousands of you” is a chef’s kiss encapsulation of American corporate culture.
When I worked for Cisco I was doing ~4hrs of work per week, excluding meetings, and always got top performance bonus. I didn't even have many meetings. I only left because my soul stopped being able to take it.
Actually it is the current comic trend. The business is sound and we are doing great but we will reduce workforce for pleasure.
I think that in most places the business is going bad in fact, but if you were to believe their words it will show a very despicable spirit of the current decade where the goal is to enjoy maximum profit without any care at all to do any good.
Before a boss might enjoy to have a sound business to be able to preserve the work/income of his employees.
Now they would not care to fuck employees first but also customers after if that provide with a second yacht for holidays.
Just see Elon Musk as the godfather of this discipline...
My eldest is currently taking her GCSEs, and for the English Literature exam this week she had to write an essay on A Christmas Carol. Whilst helping her, I couldn't help but realise that the overarching messages around the importance of social responsibility are becoming increasingly relevant again.
Yeah I mean, I was being a bit sarcastic. As the sibling points out, I was getting paid a full time salary to largely do whatever I wanted. But, it was also soul crushing to have so little meaningful work to do. I left within a year of the acquisition as a result.
The actual job was working on a python server for the acquired company, and it’s not like there wasn’t more work to do, but we were not allowed to go outside the bounds of the work that had been allocated for a sprint, which was always conservative in order to allow for more accurate overall plans. It’s certain that it was different in other departments or areas or acquired companies, but that at least was my experience.
At least for our team, quite low. We had a very comfortable buffer, which allowed us to deliver in time to coordinate with the rest of the org. It may not have been a bad strategy overall from the top-down perspective, but it wasn’t a lot of fun as an IC
Funny that you expect an employee to view a great time as meaning more than successfully exploiting advantage to the employers disadvantage in a relationship with Cisco.
The person you’re responding to has explicitly said that they worked there after an acquisition (so it’s not like they have chosen to work for Cisco) and that they only worked there briefly afterwards. I don’t understand why you’re being so hostile and judgmental.
Crazy is imagining an employer is of high integrity for your self esteem. How can a company that is high integrity compete with one that gets the same rewards while being of low integrity?
All that is to say, I would not be remotely surprised if Cisco has more employees than they strictly need. But, this email from the CEO is comically out of touch. “We’re doing great, better than we’ve ever done, so we’re going to fire thousands of you” is a chef’s kiss encapsulation of American corporate culture.