Go on IBMers, tell us what you really think If an IBMer of your acquaintance appears to have shed some stress, we've discovered the reason why: the company is circulating its annual “Engagement Pulse” survey of employees' attitudes towards the company. The parts of the survey seen by El Reg are mostly anodyne, asking questions like whether managers have managed well, …
If that's all that comes to mind, then I'm sorry for you. I spent a good few years working with and around IBM, it's a truly gigantic company with good parts, great parts and crap parts. Like pretty much every other Gigantocorp. One thing I do remember is that the people at ground level were amazing; I never met an IBMer I didn't respect or couldn't get on with.
IBM was also, unlike it's peers at the time, willing to change and learn. You told them something was crap, and they're move heaven and earth to make it better. Didn't always work, but if it didn't it wasn't because they didn't do their damnedest to fix it.
Fond memories here.
@Elpuss, I'd be interested to know when and where you worked at IBM. I joined at the end of the Gerstner era and back then it was a great place to work. It started to go downhill very soon after.
Before Palmisano and the downsizing started, teams were encouraged to innovate (albeit in their own, insular, IBM-centric way) and were rewarded for doing so. That stopped. You had to fight for, and were inevitably denied, any meaningful training. If you pointed out something was wrong, you would be punished for it. If you overachieved, you would be punished for it. Pay rises, if they ever came, were below inflation even if you were a top performer. I eventually reached the point where I realised that a PBC 1 was worthless, so I stopped trying and then left.
I worked with some very good products and some pretty terrible products while I was there. The biggest issue is those good products (which are profitable) have become worse as attempts are made to shoehorn features in (think what a bloated mess Lotus Notes became). This process does require innovation to get it to work and there are patents aplenty to prove that (one area where people are still rewarded) although I'm not convinced of the value of most of these.
The reality is IBM "innovates" mostly nowadays through buying other companies who have done that bit already. IBM takes the product, moves all the development to somewhere cheap where they don't understand it (while the real innovators leave and form another startup), blue-rinses it and lets it rot. Then changes its name a few years down the line.
One thing I do agree on, to an extent, is the people. While management is polluted by backstabbing slimeballs and those who wanted to progress their careers and were told that as intelligent productive people they were worthless and needed to be managers, generally the feet on the ground were diligent, hard-working people, many of whom I'd happily employ if only they built up the courage to leave.
I have fond memories too and in many ways I miss it. But I know that those days will never return. When I visit IBM sites now, or speak to former colleagues, it's misery, misery, misery. In fact, there are three words for you.
Here's another three: it's a shame.
@AC I was a contractor at IBM 1995-2001 (Based in Hursley but spent most of my time in Bedfont Lakes), with a 1-year secondment to a business partner in 1999. I moved across to the same partner in 2001. I now work for myself, but am still involved in the IBM ecosystem; and yes an awful lot has changed. In fact, when my partner secondment ended in 2000, I almost didn't recognise the company I came back to.
I still stay in touch with a lot of current and ex-IBMers, and they tell me the company is changing now faster than ever. From the people I talk to, IBMers are divided into 3 groups; the old guard who remember how it used to be (they're eternally disappointed in the company as it exists today), the new joiners who came on board in the last 5 years or so (they're generally positive, although they don't feel any loyalty and only stay as long as their compensation package remains viable), and managers. Managers tend to be one of two types; Excellent (usually those that came out of the field and worked their way up), or catastrophically bad. I don't recall any 'average' managers.
Innovation is an interesting one. Deep down I believe IBM still does innovation; some of the fintech/healthtech/blockchain stuff is really interesting and Watson is starting to show some real potential in the deep learning/cognitive arena, but in general IBM innovation is either massively undersold (nobody knows it exists) or massively oversold (a 'decent' product in alpha/beta form is presented as completely finished, world-changing and revolutionary, which inevitably disappoints).
I joined at the end of the Palmisano era too, and I agree with everything you've said.
I had some difficult conversations with various people during my time, they really didn't like hearing 'You're doing it wrong' and getting processes corrected was swimming against the tide, especially when it was one of our own products that didn't meet our own internal security standards when deployed as recommended, neither the security standards creators nor the product owners would budge, leaving me as the pickle in the sandwich.
The PBC process was morale crushing, and I remember the year Rometty announced the funding for Watson 2, and that this year, PBC grade 2's weren't getting a bonus, in the same frikking podcast. It was like 'Thanks for all the hard work, I know you've been thinking the bonus will make the torture of the process worth it, but we're spending your bonus money on a vanity project instead. Still, don't give up, you don't want to slip to a PBC 3 next year, and get put in scope for RA, do you, peon?'
I don't miss the management fads, 10/10, GDF, LEAN, the 40 hours 'training' goal, or the cascades of emails congratulating someone you've not heard of taking over a role you didn't know existed after the previous incumbent moved onto a new challenging role in something else that sounded made up.
PBCs were a joke.
You had to include what your management team wrote and some were very objective.
Then at the end of the day... even if you hit your PBCs and worked 80 hour weeks to hit your targets, you would still get a PBC of 2 or 3 based on the number of 1's and 2's your manager was allowed to give.
Oh there's a lot I could say... some of the issues were fixed after I escaped, but still, it was ugly.
And the games managers played. It was incredible.
Yeah, PBCs were graded on a curve, so it really didn't matter if you did everything that was asked of you well, because if everybody else did that too, some people still had to be marked down, to fit the curve.
And of course genuine slackers had been taken care of through redundancies, so the bar was totally artificial after the first round following a TUPE.
Plus of course the goals were a bit too salesy, revenue, cost saving, etc. I worked in Security, I just had to bang on about how we hadn't had any unscheduled downtime due to malware / virus / intrusion so no costs or service credits on my watch, but it starts to look a bit tired if recycled every PBC.
PBCs were a joke.
You had to include what your management team wrote and some were very objective.
Then at the end of the day... even if you hit your PBCs and worked 80 hour weeks to hit your targets, you would still get a PBC of 2 or 3 based on the number of 1's and 2's your manager was allowed to give.
PBCs might have been useful the first couple of years they existed; I think they were meant to let employees learn/understand their part in the company, and establish direction for teams. They very quickly became nothing more than bullshit paperwork that detracted from doing *real* work. All you did was regurgitate what your manager told you to put in the PBC, who had regurgitated what their managers all the way up the shit-pile had said to put in it.
The joke of the 1-through-3 PBC levels was you could bust your ass and get a 2-rating (because the couple of 1-ratings had already been handed to the manager's pet) or you could slide by with just enough to avoid a 3-rating. To the higher-ups you'd be just the same. Might have been more useful with 5 or 6 levels, but I don't think IBM managers can count higher than three.
> The reality is IBM "innovates" mostly nowadays through buying other companies who have done that bit already
True, but that's the same with many large orgs like Dell, HP, Cisco (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Cisco_Systems).
But they also do some great research too - https://fossbytes.com/quantum-computing-milestone-56-qubit-ibm/
I hope those running the survey take a serious look at the feedback, these articles and focus on client and employee success. I guess that can really only happen if they can hire a new CEO after Ginni who really believes in this, instead of focusing only on Wall St and the next quarter results.
I came in thru an acquisition.
I was shown a video message made by Lou.
Very strong and good messaging.
Sam? Yeah different.
We used to use Blue Pages to determine seniority based on the number of levels between the person and Lou / Sam because bands were not equivalent across divisions.
Unlike you, I met a lot of people, both good and bad. While heritage IBMers could be the worst, I had respect for the guys who came from PWC.
Oh the stories I could tell... ;-)
I worked for IBM at the end of the Gerstner era in Longmont, Colorado. It was my first job out of college and was miserable. It seemed like there was a big age gap between those just starting out and then everybody else who had been there for twenty years. It created this environment where it felt like everyone out of college were doing all the heavy lifting while the veterans were just trying to ride it out until retirement. Management was all about not rocking the boat and making sure corporate back in New York was appeased. That's all it was. There was no big technical insight or innovation there, just political games under the IBM hype. I went by that campus a few months ago. Part of it has been sold off to another company and there are weeds in the parking lot. It does not look healthy at all.
Dude!
Clearly you're a suck up.
Having escaped the Borg and still have several friends inside (fewer each month due to redundancies and retirement) , I can say as fact that IBM has both talented folks and tossers. I have met many IBMers across the board that I think are the worst excuse for an employee and at all levels of the company.
Sure, I have fond memories. I also have negative memories too.
Some of my current friends are part of the Cloud / Analytics work and they paint a completely different picture. Things are seriously messed up and people in charge haven't a clue on what they are doing and how to fix it. One person I know is getting a paycheck just so IBM can boast that said person works there while friends of said person are being made redundant. Others who are technically sharp are being forced in to firefighting drills to the point of wanting to chuck it.
IBM is in a world of hurt and they don't know how to fix anything.
Posted Anon for the obvious reason.
Having left many moons ago, I can still reflexively cite my serial number. Can you say the same?
Completely agree with this. What's more, when I worked as a Mainframe contractor upgrading and installing IBM software on large projects, I could not praise IBM enough for the support they gave me even though I was an independent contractor. A truly great company hollowed out by successive incompetent senior management interested in share price in the short term so they can then cut and run with their ill gotten gains.
Current IBMer here. Problem is that the survey isn't anonymous; you have to log in with your W3ID before you can start it. Many IBMers (me included) remember the time when IBM used surveys such as this to identify skills gaps (e.g. how much training do you think you require over the next 12 months to do your job - Massive amount, Lots, Normal, Very Little, None) and used the results to orchestrate a round of techie layoffs - getting rid of those that felt they needed lots of training.
Hence; most IBMers will be INCREDIBLY positive - joy to work for etc etc. Ask them anonymously, and you might get a different response.
At this other gigantocorp much the same can be said - people are great to work with, but going up the management chain there is increasing reality-filter - "everything is awesome" - and it is just not done to let bad news enter from the real world.
That slows down the firm's response to new threats and opportunities & damp out the course corrections that should happen in the early stages of a project when the architecture is not yet set in stone.
@Chairman of the Bored - its not just pre-teens, I recently attended a conference that was trying to attract talent for new apprentices and graduates. Many teenage and even older kids would ask 'who are IBM then' and I was genuinely shocked to discover how quickly a household brand can disappear overnight one it stops making things that are actually used by the general public. I imagine that Lenovo is already better known to kids these days.
My brother used to work for IBM UK (in a round about way) IBM won a support contract for PC's, for a large company, they then sub-contracted the actual work to manpower.
No interest in customer or employee satisfaction. treated their employees like dirt, always passing the buck. Took the contact at below cost and then spent the next few years trying to figure out how to make a profit.
I get the general impression that a lot of outsourcing deals are taken by undercutting an existing supplier (who could not make a profit) and then they spend the rest of the contract cutting costs (staff) in an attempt to make some money.
That's mostly true, although in many cases IBM are able to take on contracts by using skilled people to get the job done more quickly and efficiently. Or at least that's the plan.
The reality is you end up with a bunch of people somehow assigned to the project who add little or no value. Project managers that aren't needed (with due respect to PMs who often are invaluable), so-called "experts" who've never touched the product set let alone use it (but are great at bullshitting about it in front of a Powerpoint slide), managers who stop people doing their actual jobs and insist they talk about it instead, and so on.
Then there are the skills gaps that are usually identified by whoever is scoping the project up. He'll assign a budget for training, but will be told that there's a world-wide training ban so no training allowed. No exceptions. And on that subject there'll also be a world-wide travel ban, with exceptions having to be personally signed off by some exec in a faraway land, so each time someone has to go to site, that £300 of travel you had budgeted for suddenly becomes £1000 for a last-minute plane fare on the day of travel, plus a techie who has to get up at 3AM to get to the airport so arrives on-site utterly knackered.
Multiply this by every time you need to send anyone to site and you've got a project that's never going to make a profit.
But this is your budget, not the bean counters'. So it goes down as a successful cost cutting plan.
Arseholes.
“What change at IBM has made the most difference for you in the last 12 months?” The toilet paper is now rougher and less absorbent
“What else do you want to share with your leadership?” Herpes
There was a level of relentlessly positive middle management taking the worst crap from Armonk and distributing it evenly across the local organisation while smiling and saying it would make everything better. I can think of three words but writing any of them would get this post removed.
Of all the words that you could use to describe IBM, positive negative or vitriolic, 'boring' is probably the least appropriate. I think most current IBMers would be happy if their existence actually was boring - at least it would take the worry away from - you know, wondering whether you have a job next Monday.
Stuck competing on price, so moves work to cheap labour countries, so quality takes a hit and reputation suffers, so no longer seen as the premium supplier, so stuck even harder competing on price..
Morale was bad for a while but after a few years of saying goodbye to all my friends I just came to look forward to my RA day as it was accepted as inevitable.
Only real issue I had was the mother-effing tool they rolled out to everyone expecting us to track minute by minute the time spent on tasks. Why not just pay someone to stick a pin in my face every 15 minutes. Utterly boneheaded decisions like that which completely ignore the impact on staff because some twit exec had a special moment typifies IBM as a workplace.
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