May You Live in Interesting Times
For the past couple of months, I've been acutely aware that some sort of shake up was imminent at the IBM magazine for which I write. Talk of budgets and outsourcing, and a whole bunch of other terms that bore me to the point of taking a hammer to my head, have been tossed around like a nerd during lunch break. I've known something was going to happen, but I didn't know what.
Well, it looks like I'll be retaining my job, which is great because I enjoy the work and the pay makes me happy, and I'll still be able to work in the same building. The only change, as far as I can see, is that my employment status will change from being a vendor for IBM to being a full employee for a company in Minneapolis. I'm not sure when this transition is to take place, but I'll be able to rest a little easier knowing that I still have a job.
However. . .this whole experience has given me yet another reason to dislike the way IBM operates. I don't quite understand how they can function with such an obviously defunct system of operation. Prior to this job, I worked in another area of IBM. I was then laid off, only to be hired one month later at this IBM job, for three dollars more an hour than I was making previously. Does this make any sense to anyone? Not that I'm upset to be making more, but you'd think, if they valued their employees at all, they'd look for other positions where workers could make a nice fit rather than dropping them and then going through all the work of hiring them back elsewhere. That costs money, and that takes time.
And yet, through it all, IBM preaches the importance of employee loyalty. Hmmmmmm. Well, IBM, from this loyal employee, let me just extend my middle finger in gratitude for your fine human resource expertise. I figure I need about two more years of experience before I can start picking and choosing my own employment, preferably as far away from Big Blue as I can get.
Posted by Ryan at June 20, 2002 10:46 AM
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