& The Four Stages of Long-Distance: Surviving the Separation
Long-Distance isn’t fun. Anyone can tell you that. But you also can’t stop loving someone just because they live too far away. Most people would rather try to ma even if they know they are going to fail, they at least want to try.
For couples “new” to the whole long distance relationship thing, I highly recommend Chris Bell’s Book:
Or, of course, my own book (written right after my husband and I moved to Tokyo and our LDR ended)
To make it work, I think you need to understand exactly what happens in a long-distance relationship. I’ve notice they follow four general steps: Denial, Short-term depression, Loneliness, and Acceptance. These are my thoughts.
The Four Stages of Long Distance:
1. Denial. This technically starts before the long distance relationship even begins. It’s that first stage, right before you leave, that you tell them “don’t go.”
It can be anything from “Just stay for a couple more hours” to “Push your flight back a couple days, I will pay the difference.” It is that first stage of panic, tears, and anxiety of separation.
2. Short-term extreme depression/loneliness. This happens usually directly after they leave. It always hits me the hardest when my fiancé’s bus pulls away. I always cry. It’s even worse when it is a plane or train.
At this point, you don’t actually miss them yet. You are just depressed because you know how much you are going to miss them. For me, this stage usually lasts between a couple minutes to all day (depending on whether it is going to be a couple days or a couple months until I see my significant other).
3. Steady depression. It’s exactly what it sounds like. When my fiancé and I are not in the same city, I’m depressed. Not deeply depressed, just a little bit – just enough that people who know me can tell if he’s visiting or not.
This stage goes on for as long as you want it to. I have friends in long distance relationships that are depressed for nearly a week every time their significant other visits, then leaves. I also have friends that recover almost instantly. Everything finally settles on the final step: Acceptance.
4. Acceptance. The problem with acceptance is that it can come in either one of two forms: Replacement or Surrender.
Replacement is by far the worst. 90% of couples I know that are in long-term relationships have opted for replacement. Replacement means you replace your significant other with something so that you don’t miss them so much. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you are replacing them it is also common to replace a loved one with a hobby, job, friends, clubs, or horrible reality television (like Toddlers in Tiaras, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, or Judge Judy). The basic gist of replacement is that you’ve gotten tired of that hole in your heart, so you try to use all that frustration, depression, and loneliness and turn it into something productive.
Last year, during winter break, while I was away from my then-boyfriend, now fiancé Ryosuke, I made close to 100 cloth flowers with a mold I got from a friend. Each flower took about 20 minutes to make (at least), with another 10 minutes attaching it to something (a hair clip, hair band, or pin). In a four week period, I spent almost 60 hours making cloth flowers because I felt lonely.
At the time, I felt pretty proud of myself. Now – not so much.
You see, the problem with replacing your loved one with a hobby or craft is that it is taking up the energy you used to devote solely to your significant other. So, not only are you physically too far apart to see each other (which makes it much harder), by throwing yourself into a project, you are also making yourself emotionally unavailable.
I know when I’ve hit this phase because I don’t want to Skype with my fiancé. I don’t have energy for him, I don’t want him to see me because I feel useless, or maybe I feel like I don’t have time. Skyping becomes something I dread doing, instead of what used to be the highlight of my day (earlier in step 3).
This is how long distance relationships fail. One or both parties start to replace their significant other with something (another person, a hobby, or extra work). This causes resentment. Resentment causes fighting and even more depression.
Eventually one or both sides do not feel like the relationship is worth it anymore. This can take anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months. I’ve even seen relationships last long-distance for over a year and then suddenly fall apart.
The other option is Surrender. Surrendering means that you realize that your situation is miserable. You wish you could see your significant other, but you can’t. And then, rather than trying to replace them with something else, you move on.
Sit down and compartmentalize your life. When your significant other is gone, there’s going to be a hole. Something will be missing. But there’s nothing wrong with that. You can live with a little hole in your heart, as long as you learn to accept it – rather than fix it. However, you realize that whatever feeling you have right now will be “worth it” when you finally do get to see your significant other again. It helps if you can see them at least once a month. If you can’t – just keep the date you get to see them again someone in plain view (like taped to the back of your door or on the refrigerator). Knowing that date makes the distance easier.
Every time you visit each other, the cycle repeats from step 1. Eventually you just get used to it.
Final thoughts:
Relationships are not easy, but long-distance relationships are especially challenging. If you really love each other and are 100% committed to making it work, regardless of the cost, then you have hope.
If you are not 100% committed… don’t try. I’ve been in a failed long-distance relationship (where I was putting in more effort than he was) and it was incredibly frustrating and painful. Don’t waste someone else’s time like that. I understand not wanting to break up because you love them, but you have to realize that every day they spend in a long-distance relationship, they are sacrificing opportunities (job, friends, potential lovers) to stay with you.
My failed long-distance relationship only lasted about a month and a half and the entire time I thought there was something wrong with me. I swore never to do another long-distance relationship… and then I met my fiancé, a Japanese student studying abroad at my college for a year. We lived in the same dorm and dated for about 6 months before he went back to Japan. I followed him for a 15 month study abroad in Japan (I had already planned to study in Japan, dating him extended my study abroad by about 4 months). I have never once felt worthless or alone in our relationship.
Even though we’re still doing long distance (I live in Tokyo, he lives a ten hour bus ride away in Akita), we’ve never been better. I like who I am when I’m with him a whole lot more than I like myself when he’s not around.
[Edit: We’re married now, living in Tokyo. We continued doing long distance until I graduated from college, had a beautiful ceremony in Texas, and shipped off to Japan shortly after. We are more in love today than we were, almost three years ago, when we started dating].
Opportunities will come and go, but I want him to stay forever.
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About Grace Buchele Mineta
I got into the writing business by accident. Now I live in the countryside near Tokyo with my husband, Ryosuke, where I draw comics, blog, and make videos about our daily life. Contact:
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Many, though far from all, Palm m500 series users have had problems HotSyncing with USB.
After working fine, the handheld will abruptly and permanently no longer be able connect to any computer with USB.
Serial connections aren't affected.
People who complain to Palm generally either get their handheld replaced or hear the suggestion that they switch to a serial cradle.
Recently, a possible fix to the problem was posted on the PIC forums by Ales Omahen, a Slovenian m505 user who used it to get his handheld HotSyncing via USB again.
Update: Palm has begun a
for replacing old m500 series cradles with new ones that offer better protection from static electricity. According to Palm, this electrostatic discharge (ESD) disrupts the handheld enough that it is no longer able to HotSync.Welcome to IBM Employee News and Links
“News and links for IBM employees, retirees,
ex-employees, and persons interested in pension, retirement,
off-shoring and corporate governance issues”&The news you won't see on W3!
Highlights&April 2, 2016
Berlinger Morgenpost:
. Note: The following is a machine translation from German to English courtesy of Google Translate. IBM plans to cut hundreds of jobs in Germany. Excerpts: The IT group IBM apparently is planning massive job cuts in Germany. According to the trade union Verdi, the Group was informed on Wednesday about the planned reduction of nearly 1,000 jobs by March 2017. This was announced by Verdi in a newsletter. Primarily affects service segments. The group had invited the workers' representatives to negotiations for a social plan and balance of interests. In Hannover, a region should be shut down with about 200 employees, said a Verdi representatives. The Hanover stay but generally preserved. ...
Trade unionists feared already last year the job losses in the IT group in Germany. At that time there was talk of 2,500 jobs over the next two years. With the new announcement is not yet clear that it will not come to a further job cuts, said the Verdi representatives. Nationwide, the US group most recently employed about 16,500 employees. 2009 there were still 21,100 employees.
Seeking Alpha:
Eric Jhonsa. Excerpts: Acquisitions continue like clockwork at IBM. And the same apparently holds for layoffs. Germany's Berlin Morning Post
(citing local trade union Verdi) IBM plans to cut nearly 1,000 German jobs by March 2017 - the company currently has 16,500 employees in Germany, down from 21,100 in 2009. The job cuts are said to hit various services units.
In addition,
reports 17% of Big Blue's U.S. tech sales force will be laid off to make room for new &Open Source positions,& and that it has heard 185 layoffs were announced for Australia/New Zealand three weeks ago. The group has also reported 225, 160, and 900 workers will respectively be laid off in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany - the last part appears to back up the Berlin Morning Post's report. Last November,
IBM is thinking of cutting up to 3K German jobs over the next two years. ...
In a sense, the layoff reports and today's announcement regarding the acquisition of cloud software consulting/implementation service provider Bluewolf (reportedly for over $200M) are linked, as each further one part of IBM's two-pronged strategy to offset secular declines for large portions of its on-premise enterprise hardware, software, and services ops. The first is to boost near-term EPS via job cuts, buybacks, and (with the help of financial engineering) lower tax rates. The second is to make a series of acquisition targeting high-growth tech segments (more often than not related to cloud services and/or analytics). ...
But for now, IBM's two-pronged approach isn't doing enough to keep sales and EPS growth positive: Revenue fell 9% Y/Y in 2015 after adjusting for divestitures (it fell 1% if you also back out forex), and EPS from continuing ops dropped 10% to $14.92. More pain is expected in 2016, followed by some stabilization in 2017.
The Register (United Kingdom):
The Berlin Morning Post
Watching IBM, citing trade union Verdi as saying it's been in negotiations with IBM over the layoffs, which would be the first forced redundancies IBM's made in that country.
The redundancies will hit IBM Germany's Global Business Solutions, Management and Business Support, and Business and Technology Services. Watching IBM says the staff will be let go in a “socially acceptable way” within the next 12 months.
That's in a stark contrast to the home market, where staff have complained that .
IBM Germany ran with a now-familiar line, that it will continue hiring staff with “key skills”, something it told The Register in early March while
it's handing out in America.
Selected reader comments follow:
Project Solitaire: Ginni will be the only employee left...
From what I've seen of their partnership agreements it looks more like they're sucking money out of the contract and passing it on to other divisions within IBM in a desperate attempt to make money and make the other divisions appear more successful than they really are. All very short term stuff and is likely to blow up in their faces after a couple more years.
Thinking about IBM skills have you noticed that every time they get involved you end up with 99% of the people they send being those related to management/methodology and 1% being technical/people who actually do something? Of those 1%, most are very inexperienced.
IBM is using this to shed higher-paid (and older) workers. Win-win for the share price. Look at the financial statements year-on-year and compare # of employees to expenditure on salaries. (Subtract C-level bodies and salaries, those never go down).
Grads are the future? For years the IBM UK has been sucking in graduates on their grad program.
They're (IBM) pushing many legacy skilled people out of the door, whilst &pulling in the future&. A great idea you would have thought - however many grads are there as a door opener to the IT industry, they no longer see IBM as a career, they see IBM as a stepping stone to their next position in Google, Amazon or similar.
In a few years IBM will be Ginny, her loyal disciples, and passing through grads. Not a great model.
Via an recently ex-IBM
Perhaps a good time To make Domino/Notes end of life? That's probably tax deductible as charity work, being as it would improve the lives of countless thousands of people.
The Nerve:
Deal allows USC to finish Innovista project, outsource IT. By Ron Aiken. Excerpts: With a rubber-stamped vote from the board of trustees and an unprecedented exemption from the former Budget & Control Board, the University of South Carolina in November 2014 bypassed state procurement law when it awarded a no-bid $70 million, 10-year contract with IBM.
In return, the company agreed to take over key facets of the university’s IT operations, including the management of sensitive student personal and financial data, hire 70 USC employees from the university payroll, and take over a OneCarolina project already millions of dollars over budget and behind schedule. ...
Now, two years later, many of the employees USC shipped to IBM are gone and replaced in large part by H-1B visa workers from India, and the OneCarolina project over which IBM was given oversight continues to suffer from the strain of implementing two competing software systems, thanks to a mid-project vendor switch that alienated on-site technical support, led to the
and halted the HR/payroll programs in its tracks with no rollout date as yet on the calendar. ...
A former Budget and Control Board employee with knowledge of the USC-IBM deal who asked to remain anonymous said he did not see enough benefits for the state to justify circumventing procurement law. ...
With only fledgling experience managing complex academic partnerships and a roster of only two schools (Michigan State and LSU) prior to the USC deal, former UTS employee Whit Ashley, who was one of the employees transferred from USC to IBM, said it’s a sweetheart deal for Big Blue because it adds credibility IBM desperately seeks in a market it’s determined to enter. ...
“At the meeting where we were told we had two weeks to decide whether we wanted to go to work for IBM or find other employment, (USC CIO) Bill Hogue started out the session saying how one day last year (2013), Pastides came to his office and handed him some materials on IBM and said to Hogue, ‘I think you’re gonna like this.’
“Hogue said to us, ‘And so when the President of the University says you’re gonna like something, you say ‘Yes, sir’ – and at this point, Hogue gestured a military salute – and you go look into it.’ He basically indicated that you do what you’re told and learn to like it.
“I’m glad I got out when I did. I feel badly for those who couldn’t. They’re stuck working for IBM not by choice while trying to fix software issues with Oracle and working with temporary H-1B employees from India and consultants who rotate in and out from multiple vendors when it used to be all handled in-house by people who loved working for USC. It’s a shame.”
Selected reader comments follow:
Try asking the USC employees that moved over how well it is going. And the word is, IBM screwed up the bid for this thing and is doing two things. Trying to make it work on the backs of the USC employees and trying to scapegoat the USC employees for the attempted fraud of trying to over report actual hours worked on the contract.
An educational institution, forever talking about STEM, when these geniuses should know that according to the U.S. Census, 75% of STEM college graduates do not end up finding work in their field of study, partly because of the abuse of the H1B visa system. Jobs at USC should go to their own graduates or other South Carolinians.
They claim to educate students in Comp Sci and engineering, they take their tuition money and allow them to rack up student loan debts, and then hire foreign workers--I'm wondering if they didn't force them to train their H1B replacements like they did at Disney. Parents and alumni should be outraged! The legislature should step in and force them to hire their own graduates.
This is a truly immoral/amoral bunch of eduthugs running things, talking out of one side of their mouths about no limits and then refusing to look inward for workers. Or demanding college degrees for jobs that pay 26k a year.
When the IBM announcement came out, it was stated as being a &great opportunity for the University and it's employees&, but those employees, several of whom had given 20+ of the best years of their lives to the University, were instead informed with cold legality that their options were to retire (if eligible), take a 1 year &time limited with possibility of hire& position with IBM, or be terminated. Bill Hogue gave a choked-up speech, stating &You will always be part of the University family&, but a year later, of the original 59 that were given this &great opportunity&, over 80% are no longer employed with either the University or IBM. It feels more like the University took it's &family& and stuck them in a nursing home so it could write bad checks off of their social security. It is an absolute crime and an outrage.
Selected comments from the
concerning this article follow:
Not your father's IBM. More like a Jiffy Lube franchise.
Similar problems with State of Texas contract. At one time in the past, IBM management wanted me to work on troubled projects. No thank you.
Call me not surprised at all. Seeing the way IBM completely blew state contracts around the country, promising much and delivering little, that fact that they shafted USC doesn't surprise me in the least.
Why am I not surprised?
Zero liability and no one will get charged with theft. Amazing. But let me talk to a full time worker or dress the wrong way or talk the wrong way, I am lucky to even work again, ever.
Japan Times:
. By Shusuke Murai. Excerpts: The Tokyo District Court on Monday nullified the firing of five employees by IBM Japan Ltd. and ordered the company to pay their lost salaries. The former employees said they were fired between July 2012 and June 2013 without adequate notice or proper reasons.
In his ruling, presiding Judge Toru Yoshida said the company “had no justifiable reasons,” for firing the five plaintiffs and had committed “an abuse of power.”
Although there were actually some signs of decline in their job performance, they weren’t strong enough to justify firing them because they were still competent enough to continue their work, the judge said.
The plaintiffs claimed they were suddenly called in by their bosses and handed just one or two weeks’ termination notice due to “poor performance.” ...
Giving such short notice is rather common at foreign firms, but the Labor Standards Law states that employers must give at least 30 days’ notice before dismissal or pay the fired employee the equivalent of 30 days’ salary or greater.
“I believe the ruling this time was epoch-making as the court has put a brake on hasty U.S.-style layoff procedures,” Yosuke Minaguchi, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said at a news conference after the ruling.
The plaintiffs also claimed that IBM Japan targeted particular union members to undermine the union’s power, but the court rejected this. ...
IBM Japan said in a statement Monday it was “extremely regrettable” its claim was not recognized by the court, and said it will decide on the next course of action after carefully examining the ruling.
Selected reader comments from the
Imagine if IBM US had to have just cause when firing every US employee they had &laid off&. No more of this &you are a great worker but we are rebalancing to meet our needs& bull.
Fascinating. Very different culture, where I think jobs are still considered a lifetime decision. &Fired.& Yup. That's what happens here too.
&they were fired without ... proper reasons&. Interesting. I wonder if all the 5K fired in May 2009 were given a 'proper reason'? Oh, and notice how The Japan Times uses the word FIRED and not the corporate euphemisms of 'laid off' or 'resource reduced' or 'downsized' or 'resource actioned'?
I, Cringely:
. By Robert X. Cringely. Excerpts: Is IBM guilty of age discrimination in its recent huge layoff of U.S. workers? Frankly I don’t know. But I know how to find out, and this is part one of that process. Part two will follow on Friday.
Here’s what I need you to do. If you are a U.S. IBMer age 40 or older who is part of the current Resource Action you have the right under Section 201, Subsection H of the Older Worker Benefit Protection Act of 1990 (OWBPA) to request information from IBM on which employees were involved in the RA and their ages and which employees were not selected and their ages.
Quick like a bunny, ask your manager to give you this information which they are required by law to do.
Then, of course, please share this information anonymously with me. Once we have a sense of the scope and age distribution of this layoff I will publish part two.
Selected reader comments follow:
IBM found a way around this two years ago:
Short version: they will provide this data only if the employee insists on arbitration, at which point they will provide the data to the arbitrator, not you.
If I’m not mistaken, taking the arbitration path also completely disqualifies you from the separation package, leaving you with nothing. It’s not a great package but it’s better than nothing, who’s going to do that?
Well, I studied this topic, just a bit, in my first year in law school, but that was 13 years ago. Still, the employer can’t use their bargaining power advantage to take away an already existing right. The problem with fighting that is that you have to sign up a lawyer to fight this for you. A note to all who don’t already know this, but law suits are the sport of kings.
We read a book called “The process is the punishment.” IBM & Donald Trump can file a law suit every time they exhale. But most people are broken by the process. So, if you are getting laid off you are rarely in a position to file a law suit.
Now some lawyers will take it on a contingency basis, and maybe with a notorious opponent like IBM they might. But IBM is surely counting on people who are losing their jobs aren’t going to be in a position strong enough to file a law suit. There might be some guy working there, who does it because he loves it, not because he needs the money and might file, but most people won’t.
As Bernie Sanders says, the game is rigged. Actually I think George Carlin said it even better. It’s a club and you’re not in it.
When I was RAd in 2003, part of the package I received was a listing of every person included in the RA, by position, location, and age (names were not included.) Supposedly this was to show that there was no discrimination, even though even then it appeared to be skewed toward those over 40. I managed to escape that RA and stay with IBM, and have been with the company since then, for a total of 17 years and countless RAs.
Several years ago, IBM stopped giving out the position, location, and age information, citing privacy concerns (yeah right.) I will say that based on my observations, they seem to go after people approaching retirement age (because if they can call it a “retirement”, it doesn’t count as a layoff) and those who work from home or in smaller locations (so that the W.A.R.N. act isn’t triggered in the U.S.)
Watching IBM:
. Editor's note: Survey results for the following questions are displayed in graphical format:
Were you laid off in the recent (March 2 or thereabouts) &Resource Action& at IBM?
Do you think that age discrimination was a factor in your being affected?
What was your performance review rating for 2015?
If you received a &3& or lower, how justified was it in your opinion?
Were you replaced by an H1B visa holder, a contractor, or was your job offshored?
Selected comments on the
regarding this survey follow:
Whole company is a disgrace. Worked for IBM in Tulsa and management was a joke. 1st line managers and on up. Glad to be free for 8 years from there.
Nothing new here, IBM has been doing &age discrimination & for a very long time. It has been going on since way back in 2000 maybe longer and miss treating the workers too having had to train the replacements in India when the jobs got sent to them.
I'm glad to be walking away now while I can still walk. I asked to go with this layoff because I got tired of the BS and them continually taking away my benefits year after year. I hope they survive until I reach Medicare age to stay on their health care then I hope they go &belly up& with lawsuits up the wazzoo against the top officers and board. What bothers me the most as I leave on my own terms is that we were told at the beginning of the year no raises or bonus. The executives were not included...yes I am in my upper 50s.
Age discrimination goes back to 1992. Once Gerstner arrived, HR became a tool for discrimination.
. Selected posts follow:
Watching IBM: Watching IBM is hearing that more US job cuts will take place at the end of March and June/July. Expect cuts every quarter. As always keep this site informed and updated. Time for the Big Blue Flu worldwide.
Very sad, because they are clearly way past the dead weight and cutting into some very good people now. Can't tell you how many people were in disbelief and what their comments were when they heard that this happened to me. And management ... is by and large ... totally protected. Imagine ... aspiring to be a manager just so you can be protected from being RAed.
Watching IBM: Hearing that the next cuts will target lower management as well as workers.
I can't believe that I'm saying this, but IBM has some pretty good people in line management positions. My hope is that they're able to separate the wheat from the chaff.
From my experience, the good ones are fewer and fewer as the management teams have become more politically motivated and less employee-oriented. The Peter Principle in full bloom.
Watching IBM: This just in for the US: Manager HR training conducted today for identification. Names due to HR by the 11th. Roughly 15% of analytics, 30% of Cognitive tech sales effected. Same package as before, 90 day notice, 30 day comp.
I wonder if any of these are from companies we acquired in the last year or so, or if these are legacy blue.
The board and top tier executives will do very well in 2016. $$$$$$$$
If you have been RA'd, contact Sara Blackwell at:
or . Sara will review your severance package at NO cost. Sara is currently working with Disney and Abbott Lab employees as well. Sara's phone number is: 941-961-3046 email:
Respect for the individual--Tom Watson, Jr, when IBM was a great company.
IBM basic beliefs died the day LVG was placed in charge.
It's all driven by pure greed from the top down. I wonder how much money they need to be happy.
Thought analytics and cognitive were supposed to be growth areas?
More nails in the coffin of a company that at one time was head and shoulders above the all the rest. They sold out to the myopic lure of pursuing fiscal metrics over their core conscience.
Watching IBM: Watching IBM has received a tip about possible job cuts at IBM Toronto and Markham today 3/31. Please message me information or confirmation if you want to remain anonymous. UPDATE: Getting word that employees are being notified and sent home. Reports of one on one meetings scheduled. Toronto, Markham, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Montreal.
Watching IBM: Posted in timeline: We're 12 in our team in Montreal. 3 permanents and 9 contractors. We had our &meeting& Thursday morning which our team lead gave. Basically saying that IBM is laying off perms with 20, 30, 40 + years, but contractors are safe for now. After the meeting the other 2 perms had a one-on-one with our manager. I never saw them back at work since then. NO email was ever sent out letting us know what's going on with our team.
Watching IBM: Many private messages today about the job cuts in Canada. A bleak day for those workers. Although some are finally glad they have been released from &hell&.
For Toronto/Markham appears to be GTS/GBS. Rumour has it that those spared this time around will be hit next quarter. Basically jobs are offshored/given to contractors. Any non-customer-facing FTE is fair game.
Watching IBM: Sent to Watching IBM: 185 RA's announced for A/NZ (Australia/New Zealand) three weeks ago. Conditions/payouts have been reduced from 2 weeks pay for every year of service (capped at 20 years) to a maximum of 16 weeks pay for 10+ years with an end date of 10 weeks post being told with the requirement of working up to the end date or lose the benefits all together. Many long-term IBMers have been targeted across GBS/GTS. It is expected three more rounds to occur this year with the next round being a smaller number of around 70 to be targeted. The total year end figure is approx 600 to go by year end.
Am I reading this right...Australia is getting a better buy out package than the poor folks here in the the grand ol USA?
Any country gets a better deal than the US because other countries have laws that regulate this and provide for minimums.
Watching IBM: This just in: Next round of RAs in US are imminent. HR to hold meetings this week. Pretty deep cuts in tech sales for US. 17% of the tech sales force is to be RA'd to make room in July for new Open Source positions. Code name Project Solitaire. Departure date June 30th. Be aware that in past RA's it has been 30 and 60 day notice.
Good grief... Cutting technical sales?!
I was in tech sales and I was cut on 3/2.
Death of what was once the premier marketing company in the world.
Good lord, they have not finished the *current* RA yet and another one is imminent?
This has happened in the past. One set of RA's were only 2 weeks apart.
Watching IBM: Sent to Watching IBM: 225 people in the IBM Sweden Kista Office to get notice. Announced today. 160 in Denmark. 900 in Germany. Only voluntary leaves in Austria. Germany is a first time ever enforced redundancy. Monthly job cuts in SAP in The Philippines. 360 in France (GTS) Estimated 100 in IBM Chile, 100 in Switzerland.
IBM's death spiral. From $100b revenue to $80b revenue. 20% reduction in workforce to match. They need to empower employees to value the client. Otherwise ground zero approaches fast.
Today the IBM Germany CEO announced that 900 jobs are obsolete. Affected are GBS (Global Business Solutions), MBS (Management&Business Support) and B&TS (Business&Technology Services). Separation should happen in socially acceptable way within 12 months.
From Germany: IBM to close down IBM B&TS (Business & Tech. Services) in DACH (Germany/Austria/Switzerland) until March 31 2017 latest. Jobs go to IDCs/CIC in eastern Europe...
. Selected reviews follow:
&Good working environment for women&
Former Employee — Associate Systems Engineer in Bangalore (India). I worked at IBM (less than a year). Pros: A lot of facilities for women, good training programs, good personality development programs. Cons: Difficult to get recognized because of its large work force.
&Delivery Project Executive&
Current Employee — Lead Delivery Project Executive in Fulton, MO. I have been working at IBM full-time (more than a year). Pros: Great company, has served me well over the years. Cons: Not a ton of room for growth.
&IBM not what it used to be.&
Current Employee — IT Specialist in Boston, MA. I have been working at IBM full-time (more than 10 years). Pros: It used to be a good company to work for. Cons: Wall Street driven, 14 layers on management and they don't care about their employees anymore. Advice to Management: Need less of them.
&Declining Company&
Current Employee — Unix Team Lead in Poughkeepsie, NY. Pros: Flexibility of hours, good technical people. Access to work on man access to large enterprise computing equipment and environments. Cons: Terrible treatment by executives. No increases, poor bonus even for top performance, terrible morale. Advice to Management: Cheaper isn't better.
&Not good for freshers...good organisation for retirement&
Current Employee — Associate Systems Engineer in Pune (India).
I have been working at IBM full-time (more than 3 years).
Work from home
Work culture is good. Employees are respected.
No increments.
Pathetic bonus
Pathetic resource allocation. No one considers your primary skill, they just throw you in any random project.
Too many managers and less working resources.
Managers totally lack technical understanding again because they are also allocated as per point 4.
Worst management.
Impossible to find the HR.
Advice to Management: Management sucks. And HR sucks even more
&Financial Analyst (Expense)&
Current Employee — Financial Analyst in Rochester, MN. I have been working at IBM full-time (more than a year).
Pros: Great job to gain valuable experience and the agile principles that corporate has implemented show promise for better management in the future. Also, great place for young professionals as there are many recent college graduates at the office. One of the best work-life balances I've seen for an entry level position as there are ample opportunities to work from home/remotely and paid time off is good for entry level.
Cons: High turnover for employees (leaving for better opportunities, not fired) and even small changes can take months to become implemented. Even in Rochester, cost of living is essentially the same as MSP but employees are not compensated as such. Not the only option but the best option to make a salary that is comparable to an FA in the MSP area is to move to New York where cost of living is much higher as well.
Advice to Management: Work on new hire training as the current training is too broad and much of it did not apply to my role.
&Software Developer&
Former Employee — Anonymous Employee. Pros: They make it a fun place to work at. Cons: NO cons that I can say. Advice to Management: Keep doing what you are doing.
&Not your father's IBM&
Former Employee — Sales Specialist in Newark, NJ. Pros: Access to great thought- world-class IP, great experience when you have a team that communicates well. Cons: Politics can get a bit chippy between the diff justifying cost of
solutions to customer over-reliance on managing to numbers sometimes conflicts with m slow moving to a SaaS-based world. Advice to Management: The coarsening of the culture is noticeable. It's not what it once was.
Former Employee — Anonymous Employee. I worked at IBM (more than 10 years). Pros: Ability to work from home but that might be changing. Awesome peers and everyone work well. Benefits weren't too bad, but they could be better. It did go down every year but you still have choices. Cons: Non competitive pay, severance package was an insult. Severance package was recently changed and I doubt it will get any better. Cut peers and you have to split their work between whoever is left. Advice to Management: Loyalty goes a long way, go back to your roots and make your employee proud to say they work for IBM.
&Horrible 'leadership'&
Current Employee — Manager in Boulder, MT.
I have been working at IBM (more than 5 years). Pros: Decent work and good people. The clients are large and are looking for solutions to business problems. Cons: Executives as a whole are completely useless. Individually they state they are powerless to effect change. In groups they are simple-minded group thinkers. The main problem is that execs are only operating on short-term financial goals while talking out the sides of their mouth to the rest of the business. Advice to Management: Cut your own pay and ranks. Show you are worth listening
you have no integrity.
&IT Services&
Former Employee — Anonymous Employee. I worked at IBM full-time (more than 10 years).
Pros: IBM provides lots of pretty advancement opportunities IF you can take the time to look for them and IF they are not in another one of their many many downsizing projects which seems to always be going on. IBM employment looks nice on the resume.
Cons: IBM is not what it used to be and they do not care at all about their employees in my opinion. Like so many other big companies, it's all about making more money than they did last year regardless of what that means to their employees. Working for IBM used to mean a lot more than it does now.
Advice to Management: Stop being so bloody greedy and show some loyalty the many people who make your company run! One of these days you will cut one too many US jobs and hire folks that have no idea what they are doing offshore.
&Great Internship&
Former Employee — IT Administrative in New York, NY. Pros: Really laid back environment. They expect a lot of you, but really allow you freedom if you get the work done that you need to do. Cons: There wasn't a community culture that I was able to join or tap into. Everyone punched in and punched out. It would have been nice to bond more with my coworkers. Advice to Management: Don't require college degrees. I was prevented from continuing my internship into a position simply because I did not have an undergraduate degree.
&Not too bad — Not too good.&
Former Employee — Business Analyst in Delray Beach, FL. I worked at IBM full-time (more than 10 years). Pros: The people I worked with truly cared about getting the job done - and done right. My boss respected me and we had great
2-way communication. Cons: Many times it was &duck and cover&. It seemed like upper management were only looking to find ways to cut costs. Sometimes you cut a little too deep. Advice to Management: Look out for your people. Truth to power needs to be used much more. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not a good idea. (Projects).
&My 21 years at IBM&
Former Employee — Sales Director in Miami, FL. I worked at IBM full-time (more than 10 years).
You really work with very smart people, best of class
Extensive portfolio of business solutions
Multicultural exposure and international experience
Can create your own path and re-design your career as needed
Edge technology in some areas
If you know how to navigate the network you will always will find the top resource for every solution
Commitment to clients and stock holders.
It is strategically ran by CFOs and a huge bunch of bureaucrats that never had client or field experience.
Too many old guys that already made millions trying to apply changes to adapt to new time.
Too fragmented in different P&Ls that focus on their own mini-results affecting the whole.
Senior Leadership is not accountable at all for their multi-year lame results and continue cashing bonus, while asking for accountability down and limiting truly organizational change.
Ethics of firing people while cashing big bonuses at the top because of bad results.
Disparity of salary structures.
Lost focus on employees.
Advice to Management: A generational change at senior executive level is urgently required. All of the Band AA and A should go, as most of the band B. Company should get rid of most GBS Consultancy area and other low-profit services, and focus on technological edge competitive solutions to expand its market, complementary to Watson. Infrastructure Software and Services should be merged and offered on the cloud.
&Okay Company&
Current Employee — Senior Consultant in Washington, DC. I have been working at IBM (more than a year). Pros: Decent starting salary. Your experience could be good if you happen to be on a good team. Cons: Very inconsistent manager. If you are stuck with a bad manager, your experience will not be good. There is if your utilization drops, you're out the door. Advice to Management: Give bigger bonuses.
&A good company terribly managed&
Current Employee — Cloud Software Developer in Guadalajara, Jalisco (Mexico). I have been working at IBM full-time (less than a year).
Pros: Great culture, great talent, very good work-life balance and a great brand with some cool ideas. The company has many assets, but the most important of them is the people and the talent working there.
Cons: IBM has become a v their f too much bureaucracy and layoffs even in &strategic& areas just tell you how much the company cares for their talent.
Advice to Management: You're not doing enough and most are disconnected from reality. They live in a world that doesn't exist anymore, IBM loves to complicate things, the more complicated, the better, and that doesn't work anymore. Also, the Agile m you can see it in small and big things.
&Glad to be gone end of May&
Current Employee — Anonymous Employee in Los Angeles, CA. Pros: My first 15 years were very good. Literally got to see the world. Worked great projects and with great people. Work-life balance was pretty good. Enjoyed coming to work every day. Cons: Last 4+ years nothing but resource actions. Very stressful. Was very happy to be laid off until my manager told me about the new severance packages. I felt totally disrespected considering all the work I put in over almost two decades. IBM could not pay me enough money to come back. The upside is I've had multiple job offers already because of my IBM experience. Can't wait to be competing against IBM. Advice to Management: They can take their current severance package and...
Current Employee — Vice President in Dubai (United Arab Emirates.)
Pros: Will to win. Determined. History of reinvention. Cons: 24/7 work. Competing priorities. Stress levels high. Advice to Management: Prioritize and focus.
&Graduate being sold to another company&
Current Employee — Software Developer in Hursley, England (UK).
I have been working at IBM (less than a year). Pros: Great work-life balance, great team, decent starting salary. Cons: After 6 months of being at IBM in their graduate scheme they have already put me through redundancy but changed their mind last minute and have tried to sell our team to another company. So joining IBM's 2 year graduate scheme left me with no job security and half a years experience with them. Advice to Management: Maybe don't hire graduates if you plan to get rid of people shortly after with no regards to their situation. Maybe some future planning from a company this size could be good.
&Great people, salary and benefits&
Current Employee — Technical Consultant in Manchester, England (UK).
I have been working at IBM full-time (less than a year). — People and pay. Availability of technology is fantastic and they encourage you to participate in the IBM communities. Company car if you're eligible as well. Cons: HR and general admin is cumbersome. There are 3 different systems for everything, so for example, you have to record your vacation time in 3 separate systems. Advice to Management: Streamline onboarding for new hires. It's embarrassing having to ask every time you need the toilet just because you don't have a pass.
&IT Specialist&
Former Employee — Anonymous Employee. I worked at IBM full-time (more than 5 years). Pros: great networking opportunities, good work environment. Cons: Hard to get training approved, more focus on cost savings than anything else. Makes project-based travel (which is necessary) very hard. Advice to Management: You can't project the goals for the company to each employee. Realistic project and selling goals need to be the focus, as wel otherwise the young ones will leave.
&Love the people — execs out of touch&
Current Employee — Client Executive in San Antonio, TX.
I have been working at IBM full-time (more than 5 years). Pros: I work with some of the brightest, most creative and fun people I've ever met. They work together to bring new things to clients despite corporate. Cons: Corporate tends to make severe course corrections with little to no warning. No longer a sales culture, but managed by spreadsheet and financial engineering. The result is that you never know if you've won the lottery or about to be laid off. Advice to Management: Reducing feet on the street and acquiring new niche firms will not transform your cost basis nor solve the issue of declining top-line revenue.
this week include:
Supreme Court Split in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association is a Win for Labor
Seniors in Physically Demanding Jobs Rely More on Social Security
In Canada Old Age Security Eligibility to be Lowered Back to 65 Again
Sign up for Midwest Regional Conference in Detroit Extended to April 8th}