41.5 years With IBM,stress related heart attack, work related divorce,countless ot, shifts,holidays worked,call outs, was the only guy to cover NYC when hurricane Shirley slammed NYC. Was confirmed to retire 8/31 and they resourced me. Alot of guys my age with lots of years got nailed. I'm lucky because I got 90 days severance which would of carried me just beyond retirement. No reason given which really ticks me off because I've been a 1 or 2 performer all my years. This ain't your daddies IBM anymore.
Well this was a hell of a D-Day.Besides the historic events I got resourced,
- Thread starter Torch
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special ed
2nd Lieutenant
- 5,667
- May 13, 2018
Going the way of Kodak. We had an early out voluntarily if we had 30 years in and with our age totaled 65. I thought I missed it but they counted the months and I squeeked by. Left on a Friday and went to work for a dealer on Monday. Your skills are still in demand.
- Thread starter
- #3
You know, I think I'm done with IT. I've got all sorts of clearances and I could get a job easily somewhere else but I'm going to take these next three months to find something I want to do. Volunteer to rebuild warplanes etc, work in a motorcycle shop,gun store something that just does not stress the crap out of me anymore.
special ed
2nd Lieutenant
- 5,667
- May 13, 2018
How about a hobby shop?
Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Yep, very like my experience at Kodak in .the UK.
Good luck with any road you decide to take.
Good luck with any road you decide to take.
Shortround6
Major General
My father worked for Colt for almost 20 years (you got retirement benefits after 20 years). He was "down sized" out with less than year to go. After being out of work for few months he was hired by Colt through a temporary agency, he worked for another 2 years on over 3 different projects with never a one day gap between projects and Colt was paying the agency 50% more per week than they had been paying him when he was being paid by Colt (not including fringe benefits). This was back in the 80s.
Strange accounting and taking no value in company-employee relationships/loyalty.
If younger workers see how the company treats older workers near retirement, hopefully they learn and not only provide for themselves but take their skills to the highest bidder when ever the opportunity presents.
Strange accounting and taking no value in company-employee relationships/loyalty.
If younger workers see how the company treats older workers near retirement, hopefully they learn and not only provide for themselves but take their skills to the highest bidder when ever the opportunity presents.
special ed
2nd Lieutenant
- 5,667
- May 13, 2018
I mentioned above about working for a dealer ten years after Kodak till Social Security eligible. The dealer's company was sold to another and although it was well known I was leaving in a month the new company wanted me out. A months' severance was given making no since, but they said my two weeks paid vacation due was not to be paid. The "Gal Friday" who really ran everything thought she remembered Louisiana labor law prohibited not paying for vacation due. She had our salesman check in the capital and faxed the law to her. They not only paid my two weeks but paid for two other employees who left before me.
at6
1st Sergeant
Good luck with what ever you choose to do. As long as you're happy at it, then it's all good. Loyalty and hard work is no longer valued any place now. As for integrity and ethics, dishonorable @ssholes run everything now.
Turbo-capitalism at it's best. Hopefully you'd make it without health-related issues - as they say here 'until there is a health, there will be a job'.
BTW - what does it means 'being resourced'?
That lesson was learned 2 decades ago. The hard way, of course. Unfortunately, some people just don't get it, like my brother.
I'm my own boss (although wife might disagree) some 11-12 years now.
Snautzer01
Honourably banned
- 42,972
- Mar 26, 2007
mikewint
Captain
I don't mean to sound like a total Jerk here but did You really expect a corporation to actually care about you and your well-being mental or physical?
Old employees are costly. A hot-shot rookie was hired for less than half (a quarter?) of your pay.
Think the government is any different? Want to hear about all the VA benefits I got after 4 years in Vietnam?
Corporations exist to maintain themselves at a profit and anything else is inconsequential. Put your hand in a bucket of water - pull your hand out - the hole you see is how much IBM (or any other corporation) missed you and/or your services.
180 people died in exploding Ford Pintos when a $0.50 plastic part used in Canadian built Pintos would have fixed the problem, but it was cheaper to pay the occasional death benefit than add the part.
Old employees are costly. A hot-shot rookie was hired for less than half (a quarter?) of your pay.
Think the government is any different? Want to hear about all the VA benefits I got after 4 years in Vietnam?
Corporations exist to maintain themselves at a profit and anything else is inconsequential. Put your hand in a bucket of water - pull your hand out - the hole you see is how much IBM (or any other corporation) missed you and/or your services.
180 people died in exploding Ford Pintos when a $0.50 plastic part used in Canadian built Pintos would have fixed the problem, but it was cheaper to pay the occasional death benefit than add the part.
swampyankee
Chief Master Sergeant
- 4,022
- Jun 25, 2013
It's not new.
Triangle Shirt Waist.
Triangle Shirt Waist.
mikewint
Captain
In 1911 attitudes toward the poor were quite different. If you were poor and remained poor it was your fault for remaining in that state. Isaac Harris and Max Blanck from Russia arrived with little more than the shirts on their backs and with in 20 years owned the Shirtwaist factory. If the teenage girls working there didn't like the 13hr days at $0.13 per hour they should do something about it.
Don't get me wrong here, it was a terrible tragedy and those young girls, 146 of them died a horrible death while Harris, Blanck and upper management escaped. The fire in a rag bin could have easily been extinguished but the fire hose was rotten and the water valve rusted shut. Harris and Blanck were certainly guilty of criminal negligence but were never charged any more than the Ford executives who neglected to repair the exploding Pinto because the extra part cost would diminish their profits were ever charged.
I also love the corporate 'Newspeak' wherein you are not an employee you're an ASSOCIATE!!! Yea and I'm Queen of the May
Torch this might help:
I understand that Microsoft has openings for: Galactic Viceroy of Research Excellence (that's cloud related research) and Chief Storyteller (yup, you just tell stories that - "change the perception of Microsoft through stories"
Don't get me wrong here, it was a terrible tragedy and those young girls, 146 of them died a horrible death while Harris, Blanck and upper management escaped. The fire in a rag bin could have easily been extinguished but the fire hose was rotten and the water valve rusted shut. Harris and Blanck were certainly guilty of criminal negligence but were never charged any more than the Ford executives who neglected to repair the exploding Pinto because the extra part cost would diminish their profits were ever charged.
I also love the corporate 'Newspeak' wherein you are not an employee you're an ASSOCIATE!!! Yea and I'm Queen of the May
Torch this might help:
I understand that Microsoft has openings for: Galactic Viceroy of Research Excellence (that's cloud related research) and Chief Storyteller (yup, you just tell stories that - "change the perception of Microsoft through stories"
- Thread starter
- #15
I hear you Mike, I'm not really losing anything and believe me I understand corporations,seen it happened before to others. Took this one personal thou. I realize it's a numbers game and the ones who always seem to make out are the ones at the top. I'm slapping my head because these 90 days are meant to look for another job,fill out retirement paper work etc and I'm still busting my ass because I'm the only cleared guy in Denver. Need to have a cocktail and whip out my retirement stogie a little earlier. What really bothers me since I'm an "old timer" i still give a damn about the customer, its not their fault whats going on and trust me the new generation of hires are useless.
vikingBerserker
Lieutenant General
Amen............
at6
1st Sergeant
As much as I hate left wing view points, they may have some sort of sad truth in what they say. You work your @ass off and then you're tossed out like garbage. My last employer hired college kids as "efficiency experts" to see if our production could be improved in loading trailers by hand. These little b2STRED A@ses had never done a day's worth of actual labor and decided that we could work even faster. Lord knows that I asked him to forgive me but I wanted use them as speed bumps in the parking lot. I hate college kids now, the little turds.
special ed
2nd Lieutenant
- 5,667
- May 13, 2018
It all depends on how they were raised. They reflect their parents.
Shortround6
Major General
I may be a bit more to the left than some members but here are two examples of management stupidity from my firefighter days.
Firefighter D (his initial) with 15 years on the job takes the test for lieutenant along with several other applicants, it is a small dept. He places first on the written test, and after the oral examination (3 fire officers from other fire depts) he is still first. Then comes the chief's evaluation (30% of the total) and firefighter D drops to 2nd place. among other things he sees that he has been graded a 2 (out of 3 possible ) for his attendance record. He ahd take ONE sick day in 15 years. (this was back in the early 80s) When he questioned the chief on this the Chief told him that he was saving the score of 3 for someone with a perfect attendance record (no one taking that test had a better record than D). Sure the chief should have some say in who he promotes to be his officers but this reason was just stupid. What message did it send to all the younger, newer firefighters? Don't bother trying to have a good attendance record because the chief will appoint who he wants anyway? At this point that was about all a good attendance record counted for.
The number of sick days we got was pretty generous and you could accumulate from year to year. Some idiots (just like anywhere) used them like extra vacation days but the idea of accumulating them was that if you were injured or got sick long term you had months before your pay stopped. You can't go to work as firefighter with a broken leg for instance like you can with at a desk job.
This bring us the 2nd (maybe 3rd) examples of management stupidity. At some point in contract negotiations the town offered a 500 dollar bonus (almost weeks pay at the time) to anybody who took no sick days for a year (our staffing was such that if more than two or three men were off on a given day they had to fill in with over time, you can't run fire trucks and ambulances short of people). However there were two conditions, 1, it was all or nothing, no 250 dollar payment if you only took one day for example. 2, you had to have the full amount of accumulated sick days possible (which was 120 days) as of Jan 1 of that year. Now this means that no new guy has a chance at this bonus until he had been there 7 years so there was actually little incentive for them. Then there was the case of Captain N (who was a friend of firefighter D) who also had the old school work ethic of his friend and took something like 3-4 days in nearly 20 years. we accumulated sick days at the rate of 1 1/2 days per month. Captain N got sick with the flu one December and missed two days(he had his 120 days in the bank) and so missed the bonus that year. All well and good and no hard feelings. However the next year he took 0 sick days and got no sick day bonus check, when he asked why, it was because he started the year with 119 1/2 days instead of 120. Captain N took 8-10 sick days a year after that til the time he retired and cost the town thousands in over time.
BTW this whole bonus thing was a town proposal in contract talks and the union (I was on the board at the time) told them it wasn't going to work and we told them why but what did we know, we were just a bunch dumb firefighters who ran into burning buildings while they had professional HR people.
We took the offer, at least some of our guys got money.
Management does not have to give the farm away but treat people decent and you will get better productivity out of them, in general. As a union official and most any honest union official will tell you, we spend 90% of our time dealing with or defending 10% of our members. We had some members who deserved to be fired but management was too lazy (or incompetent) to build their case.
In few instances they offered medical retirements to some rather dubious claims just to get rid of problem employees and then complain that medical retirements cost too much.
Sorry for the long post.
Firefighter D (his initial) with 15 years on the job takes the test for lieutenant along with several other applicants, it is a small dept. He places first on the written test, and after the oral examination (3 fire officers from other fire depts) he is still first. Then comes the chief's evaluation (30% of the total) and firefighter D drops to 2nd place. among other things he sees that he has been graded a 2 (out of 3 possible ) for his attendance record. He ahd take ONE sick day in 15 years. (this was back in the early 80s) When he questioned the chief on this the Chief told him that he was saving the score of 3 for someone with a perfect attendance record (no one taking that test had a better record than D). Sure the chief should have some say in who he promotes to be his officers but this reason was just stupid. What message did it send to all the younger, newer firefighters? Don't bother trying to have a good attendance record because the chief will appoint who he wants anyway? At this point that was about all a good attendance record counted for.
The number of sick days we got was pretty generous and you could accumulate from year to year. Some idiots (just like anywhere) used them like extra vacation days but the idea of accumulating them was that if you were injured or got sick long term you had months before your pay stopped. You can't go to work as firefighter with a broken leg for instance like you can with at a desk job.
This bring us the 2nd (maybe 3rd) examples of management stupidity. At some point in contract negotiations the town offered a 500 dollar bonus (almost weeks pay at the time) to anybody who took no sick days for a year (our staffing was such that if more than two or three men were off on a given day they had to fill in with over time, you can't run fire trucks and ambulances short of people). However there were two conditions, 1, it was all or nothing, no 250 dollar payment if you only took one day for example. 2, you had to have the full amount of accumulated sick days possible (which was 120 days) as of Jan 1 of that year. Now this means that no new guy has a chance at this bonus until he had been there 7 years so there was actually little incentive for them. Then there was the case of Captain N (who was a friend of firefighter D) who also had the old school work ethic of his friend and took something like 3-4 days in nearly 20 years. we accumulated sick days at the rate of 1 1/2 days per month. Captain N got sick with the flu one December and missed two days(he had his 120 days in the bank) and so missed the bonus that year. All well and good and no hard feelings. However the next year he took 0 sick days and got no sick day bonus check, when he asked why, it was because he started the year with 119 1/2 days instead of 120. Captain N took 8-10 sick days a year after that til the time he retired and cost the town thousands in over time.
BTW this whole bonus thing was a town proposal in contract talks and the union (I was on the board at the time) told them it wasn't going to work and we told them why but what did we know, we were just a bunch dumb firefighters who ran into burning buildings while they had professional HR people.
We took the offer, at least some of our guys got money.
Management does not have to give the farm away but treat people decent and you will get better productivity out of them, in general. As a union official and most any honest union official will tell you, we spend 90% of our time dealing with or defending 10% of our members. We had some members who deserved to be fired but management was too lazy (or incompetent) to build their case.
In few instances they offered medical retirements to some rather dubious claims just to get rid of problem employees and then complain that medical retirements cost too much.
Sorry for the long post.
special ed
2nd Lieutenant
- 5,667
- May 13, 2018
In a similar situation, we had a "Young Hot Shot" come in as new district manager and thought to put all types of data on his computer. The time a dispatcher took to take a service call from a customer as well as the phone time to dispatch to us. Of course, he had his own ideas including how much sick time we took. At my evaluation, he said I needed to reduce my sick time. I told him I hadn't missed a day in years and when the secretary checked, I hadn't missed a day in eleven years. Of course, no comment from the boss. When someone messes with me, I am like Bugs Bunny: "of course you know this means war". As an avid reader I have read the accounts of what the allied POWs did and with the help of all the alienated office help, pay back was fun.
