IBM = Lousiest IT Company I've Ever Dealt With

[T_Yamamoto]

Until one of the "newbs" gets trained up and makes half of what dad makes, then dad will be shown the door. You have to be careful in those situations.

He's been there for over 20+ years he's an old timer.

 

[trmiv]

IBM has a big campus right down the street from where I work. I know quite a few coworkers who've worked there at various times. Not one of them has anything positive to say about their time at IBM.

 

[klinc]

I think Siemens tech support beats them. Iranian president Ahmadinejad phoned them with the Stuxnet attack and Raj of Tech Support asked him if his Nuclear Powerstation was plugged in.........

 

[ultimatebob]

But they play a mean game of jeopardy.

Yes, they do. The sad thing is that they'll probably start replacing the first level tech support people in India with Watson systems once Research figures out how to get the hardware cost down.

 

[ultimatebob]

He's been there for over 20+ years he's an old timer.

Honestly, it seemed like the old timers in the band 8 to 9 range always seemed to be the ones getting cut when I worked there.

For the cost of their legacy pension plans and health insurance costs, they can hire three project managers in India or Brazil.

 

[yllus]

I've yet to meet a competent IBM employee. Must be one somewhere though.

 

[klinc]

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." ¡ª Thomas Watson , chairman ofIBM, 1943

 

[Andrew111]

I've yet to meet a competent IBM employee. Must be one somewhere though.

I've visited plenty of forums talking about IBM's hiring "process"....they love to hire unskilled college grads so they can pay them like shit or anyone else they can con into working for a low salary. To IBM, why hire one competent American and pay them well when they can hire three unskilled people here and still save money...or just farm it out to India. Too bad senior management doesn't realize or care that their company's image is going down the tubes and the customers AND employees aren't satisfied.

I haven't seen ONE article praising IBM for coming into town with their new facility other than the initial news reports where they claim they'll hire X amount of people and pay them an average wage of over $40,000....I know that number is an outright lie after seeing the salary bands people have been revealing...like mid 20s for system admins and other tech positions. It's obvious now that they moved out in the middle of nowhere Iowa so they can pay people like crap and con the city into giving them millions of dollars in incentives.

 

[Demo24]

My state has a contract with them to do some state level tech work....its..so bad. Oh, and who provides the internet and telephone? That's right, ATT D:


Thankfully I don't deal with them much as we've basically given them all the middle finger and done our own thing. Although, ATT is providing us with some new free phone and data equipment at a few locations so in some cases not bad.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Honestly, it seemed like the old timers in the band 8 to 9 range always seemed to be the ones getting cut when I worked there.

For the cost of their legacy pension plans and health insurance costs, they can hire three project managers in India or Brazil.

He only just turned 50

He worked at IBM Japan for a number of years then they moved him permanently to IBM USA.

 

[Aharami]

and their commercials make you think that being an "IBMer" is such an honor!

 

[Raghu]

The company I work for and IBM are located in the same tech zone. IBM has ~50% of the buildings in the area and employs ~30000 people. And they are getting 2 more buildings (~5k employees). Gotta fill up the new buildings from somewhere.

 

[tfinch2]

He only just turned 50

He worked at IBM Japan for a number of years then they moved him permanently to IBM USA.

IBM == I be movin'

 

[WackyDan]

It sounds like location plays a big part...the Dubuque office is where they seem to funnel the unskilled/incompetents/local Dubuquers willing to be paid dirt: Did You Know That Dubuque IBM Employees Are Paid an Average of 20K Less Per Year Than GDF Workers in Fishkill

Location is everything. There was a good reason why BMW built it's plant in Spartanburg, SC... Thousands upon thousands of readily available unskilled yet easily trained workers. THe workers at the plant make a pretty good wage even though they aren't professionally employed or college educated. Look at any other foreign company car plant that opened in the last ten years... All in the south, in part for the "right to work" aspect but also large population of available workers.

So can you blame IBM?

 

[WackyDan]

what exactly is field sales engineering?

Catch all phrase for a systems engineer that works in sales and is paid commission.

 

[Skel]

Honestly, it seemed like the old timers in the band 8 to 9 range always seemed to be the ones getting cut when I worked there.

For the cost of their legacy pension plans and health insurance costs, they can hire three project managers in India or Brazil.

That's exactly what I thought of when I read that. It seemed for a while there, it was a blood bath of legacy people. Of course it really depends on which group you're with, SSO will cut everyone and then some just to see what happens.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

IBM == I be movin'

Pretty much

 

[Vic Vega]

I'm not sure what IBM even does anymore.

Logistics, field services, independent R&D they won't talk about, mid rang and main frames, storage... lots of stuff. IBM is still a cool company.

 

[Vic Vega]

what exactly is field sales engineering?

Environment sizing, migration planning and implementation, post deployment honeymoon support (60-90s days post sale to work out bugs).

There are two jobs you can do once you've been to prison: Mall cop and Unisys field engineer.

 

[Vic Vega]

Oh, and anyone who complains about IBM Global Services will be BEGGING for them after dealing with Unisys.

 

[Scotteq]

what exactly is field sales engineering?

You turn the Sales' guys bullsheeit into technical bullsheeit for the geeks at your vict... Ummm.. customer... :biggrin: :awe:


or, more properly - A Field Sales Engineer supports the Sales guy by cutting off his/her pitch in mid sentence... in favor of something that's actually technically accurate... ish...

Spawn of a Saleswoman and an Engineer. <scary thought, if you think about it>

 

[Mahaguru]

What really happened is that they interviewed you to show that they cannot find a suitable candidate locally. They used that as justification for bringing in an H1-B.

 

[Vic Vega]

What really happened is that they interviewed you to show that they cannot find a suitable candidate locally. They used that as justification for bringing in an H1-B.

Entirely possible. My company has used this excuse to staff on the East Coast because it's cheaper than staffing in Silicon Valley and generally you get a more stable worker to boot.

 

[Mahaguru]

Entirely possible. My company has used this excuse to staff on the East Coast because it's cheaper than staffing in Silicon Valley and generally you get a more stable worker to boot.

Well to be honest, the American employee is probably seen as someone who will do some or all of the following:

1) Take all of his vacation and demand more next year.
2) Demand a raise every year.
3) Want a "work-life" balance so he/she can drop off kids in the morning to school and pick them up at 3:15 PM.
4) Complain non-stop about traffic, non-ergonomic chairs at work and lack of good coffee.
5) File a lawsuit because he/she burned his pinky toasting a pop-tart at work, or because the bathroom didn't have a "Slippery when wet" sign.
6) Go to work paid training and leave to work for a competitor six months later.
7) Jump from one job to another citing "Lack of motivation"
8) Will likely be an EEOE hire, so he/she cannot be expected to do anything really.

Outsourced Indian employee will not do any of that and put in 15 hours work days just because his boss looked at him angrily.

Yeah I am trying to be funny, but I think the American IT worker is going to go the way of the buffalo.

 

[Train]

I'm not sure what IBM even does anymore.

They leverage synergy.