I too am an ex-IBMer that really relates to the article. (I chose to reply off-list to avoid taking it too far off topic.)
I worked at various sites from '77 to '93. I knew about 89 or 90 that it was in trouble when our group of about 400 grew by almost 100 admin people. Not secretary types, we had gotten rid of them long before. These were all bean-counters and report generators. Paperwork went up, productivity and moral went down. But the real "end of the old IBM" was about '91 when I saw them jack-hammering the marble in the Boulder lobby to remove the 3 basic beliefs. After that it was all about profit and expense. Yet I sat in the kickoff meeting of the then new outsourcing group and when asked about losing money on our first big deal, he honestly replied "We may lose a little on each one, but we'll make it up in volume." You could have heard a pin drop in the room, but he went right ahead with his pitch... I worked in various branches and several plant sites and loved it from '77 till about '90. I had never considered the first two buyouts that came and went. But when the 3rd came along, it was clear it was only going to get worse. I took my year's salary and not once have I thought I'd be better back there. And that makes me sad. From high school on it was my goal to work at IBM. And I loved both the work and the company those earlier years that I figured I'd be like many and die at my keyboard at work. It's not the company I knew.... Lee Stewart ● VM System Support ● Visa ● Phone: 6(750)4601 - +1-303-389-4601 ● [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Campbell Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 12:02 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Maximizing (IBM) shareholder value: The goal that changed corporate America It strikes me that slave labor-- or even just vastly underpaid labor-- cannot vote with either their wallet or feet. This is all just part of undoing Henry Ford's ONLY innovation (which had nothing to do with technology, BTW, he was the first to pay his line workers enough to even THINK of buying the products they were making, which jump-started the 20th Century in the USA, and leaked out to the rest of the world... until the last 20-30 years). When you have a VP at IBM in a meeting ask "What are the four goals of IBM?", and, after the audience is giving each other blank stares, you hear the answer as "First quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter" you start worrying. I wonder how many of the share-holders who saw the values rise ended up on unemployment whilst waiting to liquidate their shares. No one can serve two masters, and even a publicly traded corporation has to choose its loyalty carefully... and not being loyal to the customers will not do the share-holders a lot of good unless the dissolution (or outright liquidation) of the company qualifies as a "good". (shakes head) I *liked* working for IBM, then, but, by the time I was caught in the undertow of one of 2007's RIFtides, I didn't regret my departure as much as I would have two years before, but, then, the "High Performance Work-Place" was good at flushing out real team players and helped retain (IMHO) those excellent at handling paper. I still miss some things from my time at IBM, but, after 6 years away... I doubt it is anything like the IBM I knew. The Harborview Building at Rocky Point in Tampa went from 5 1/2 floors to, I've heard, less than half a floor (I guess the good news for RESO is that the big lease w/ Highwoods was fully adjusted by now, since the lease term ran out, IIRC, in 2011). (shrugs) It probably does not help that share-holders-- especially the institutional variety-- can force the mighty to the floor... BTW, I now work at a company where "IBM" is anathema which does bug me a bit. -soup -- John R. Campbell Speaker to Machines souperb at gmail dot com MacOS X proved it was easier to make Unix user-friendly than to fix Windows "It doesn't matter how well-crafted a system is to eliminate errors; Regardless of any and all checks and balances in place, all systems will fail because, somewhere, there is meat in the loop." - me ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/
