IBM is currently in the midst of a workforce reduction. Journalist Robert X. Cringely
reports that more than 100,000 current employees will be dropped from
the payroll by March; IBM counters that it’s planned a layoff that will
be less than a tenth of that amount. The IBM union website, Alliance@IBM, says 5000 already have layoff notices in hand. TechCrunch says some 43,000 will be gone by the end of the year, at a pace of roughly 10,000 a quarter until “the company righted the ship.”
Besides all sorts of numbers being tossed around, we’re hearing about
all sorts of internal IBM acrononyms, all of which mean bad news for
employees. There’s RA’d, or Resource Action’ed: that’s IBM-speak for
laid off. There’s put on PIP, or Performance Improvement Plan—that’s
when an employee gets a poor performance rating, and a deadline to
improve it or leave.
For IBM—indeed, for the computer industry in general—layoffs are
nothing new. However, every person laid off or threatened with dismissal
has a unique story. And I’d love to hear them. Please share your
experience with me directly at t.perry@ieee.org, on Twitter
@teklaperry, or in the comments below. Keep yourself anonymous if you’d
like, identify your job function and location if you’re willing, but
tell us your story, we want to hear it.