New Job (longish)

[crokett]

Well we found out last week that job cuts are coming to our group. Approx 1% of headcount on regulars. A lot of contractors got axed last week. The company is making efforts to move people before that happens. Part of that was a pitch for a job working with the sales team to design and validate technical solutions as well as get them running after the customer buys stuff.

I applied got an interview and was offered a job. I applied cause I thought it was interesting, not cause I was worried about my current spot. There is a lot of travel - approx 60%. Anyway, I told my boss yesterday I probably would not take it, he said I should. There are across the board cuts coming to the stuff I work on and in my group it would probably be me and one other unspecified person. We already lost 2 contractrs who were backfilling for us.

[bfrikken]

Good luck to you. Sounds like you are taking the new position then? Hope it works out. (and good timing).

[Rslaugh]

David,

(longish???)

Anyway good luck with whatever you decide. New doors opening can be exciting and scary especially when you're being shoved thru them. My last job looked good at first but after 18 months I knew it wasn't long term. I took my current job 3 years ago as a "placeholder" till I figured out what I really want to do when I grow up (after all I've only been in this industry 31 years) and it turns out I really like it and can see my self retiring here.

The bottom line is you can always make another change if this isn't the right one. Pity the guy who's been unhappy at the same company for umptyump years "because it might not work out" if he made a change.

[crokett]

David,

(longish???)

Well it started out as that. I edited it down but forgot to change the title.

The bottom line is you can always make another change if this isn't the right one.

Yup. It is a whole lot better than sitting around waiting till I find out if my job is indeed gone.

[LCHIEN]

what I don't understand is if all the people are busy working and they are not just doing make-work or useless stuff then cutting back people across the board is going to

1. make the people remaining work harder for the same pay
2. cause some shortcuts to be take with resulting possible customer alienation and possibly even liability lawsuits as deliveries suffer, quality suffers and shortcuts are taken.

I guess that's all factored in. Stock prices usualy go up when a company announces layoffs.

Seems to me that if you are losing money then you are either not competitive with your industry or your not charging what its worth or there's not enough demand. Laying off people is only good for the last category, the rest doesn't seem to make sense.

[Jeffrey Schronce]

what I don't understand is if all the people are busy working and they are not just doing make-work or useless stuff then cutting back people across the board is going to

1. make the people remaining work harder for the same pay
2. cause some shortcuts to be take with resulting possible customer alienation and possibly even liability lawsuits as deliveries suffer, quality suffers and shortcuts are taken.

Both occur. Then what occurs is that the top performers are retained by the company and forced to do others jobs for the same money, resulting in resentment of the remaining employees. You are absolutely correct in the that shortcuts will be taken to make up for doubling job duties (if you are lucky . . . it could quadruple!).
This logic is the exact reason that I decided to leave that non-sense and work for myself. I now perform the tasks that the company felt they could outsource so much cheaper. Ya, right . . . .

[crokett]

what I don't understand is if all the people are busy working and they are not just doing make-work or useless stuff then cutting back people across the board is going to

1. make the people remaining work harder for the same pay
2. cause some shortcuts to be take with resulting possible customer alienation and possibly even liability lawsuits as deliveries suffer, quality suffers and shortcuts are taken.

I guess that's all factored in. Stock prices usualy go up when a company announces layoffs.

Seems to me that if you are losing money then you are either not competitive with your industry or your not charging what its worth or there's not enough demand. Laying off people is only good for the last category, the rest doesn't seem to make sense.

Well my group has the essential stuff related to driving product development through and the support stuff - ordering what we need, tracking parts changes, making sure labs are equipped, etc. Ideally you have your developers do the real work then you have a lower-paid contractor or 2 to take care of the rest. The contractors got axed last week. What happens is the rest gets shoved to the back burner until somebody has time to deal with it, which is never.

In this case, products will suffer and people will work a LOT harder. At least one product is going to slip right, if not be decommitted. But the business has decided it doesn't care. I am not being layed off so much as I am told I might be told to find a new job. I'd rather not sit and wait and worry.

We have a few guys in the dept who are happy to wait and see. I'm not wired that way. I have a pathological need to take active control. So I will take the new job in a growing section of the company. If it doesn't work in 6mos or a year I find someplace else to work. Meantime, I have a paycheck.

[mater]

Good luck on your new job David.

[JR]

what I don't understand is if all the people are busy working and they are not just doing make-work or useless stuff then cutting back people across the board is going to

Usually cutabacks are not designed "accross the board". Top management may decide that an accross the board cut is needed and leave it up to middle management to decide how to do it. This technique is bad for the reasons you mention.

Three other cutback categories are now prevalent.

1. Decide on fewer projects. Particularly in "technology" companies this is meaningful. You've got to have 10X the number of products in the pipeline than you expect to succeed. Picking the right ones is always challenging, but can get a bit easier when the wolf is at the door.
2. Firing people after a merger who are "redundant". This is usually clerical, finance, or HQ functions. Once again it makes some sense and usually provide the opportunity to weed out the deadheads.
3. Outsourcing. The guy next to me on plane this week was a salesman for a company with >35,000 people in India, doing a variety of helpdesk, business process, and engineering jobs for hire. The relative merits of this are still not clear to me.

Does it sound like I know what I'm talking about? I've been through the meat grinder on this in my career as both manager and "managed". It all sucks.

JR