Conference 7.286::digital

    	I think it's a mistake for us to start second-guessing individual
    	TFSO cases in this conference.  My opinion anyway.

    I agree with .1 in principle,  but couldn't resist passing comment on
    .0.
    
    Downsizing is painful, illogical and nasty. It's never right. There is
    no "right" case for layoffs versus folks who are seemingly safe.
    
    It's sad, but not worth getting bitter over.  We're all worth much more
    than that. By all means let out a yelp of pain, but take on the
    challenge and meet the future.
    
    All the best,
    
    /andy

    re .0   At least you're leaving with some sort of package. I'm not so
    sure that those leaving in the future will be that fortunate.

    I don't think telling someone that has just lost there job that
    "at least you're leaving with some(thing)" is appropriate.  Don't
    trivialize it and at least let's have some empathy for what he is going
    through.

    Re: .0 and .-1
    
    I do have a lot of empathy for those who were TFSO'd, but I don't
    think is is apporpriate for those people to blame that on another group
    in the support center, especially if they obviuosly don't understand
    the how that group works. I think I can speak to .0 quite well since I
    came from RDG and am now a member of the Mission Critical Team. Yes it
    is true that some customers do not want our service but some think it
    is great. That sounds just like every other group in the building to
    me, including RDG. And, yes it is true that the average RDG engineer
    takes many more calls that the specialist in Mission Critical, but it
    is a totally different environment that is obviously not completely
    understood.
    
    My two cents worth!!
    
    Rodney
    

    I'm not blaming any group, Rodney, for the TFSO. I'm just trying to
    point out the way this TFSO is going. When you have a group that has
    high visibility to customers, being downsized quite a bit, and another
    group that is only visible to certain customers not being downsized
    at all, well who's going to suffer most?? The customer probably. He/she
    will probably have a longer wait time for dial in service now that 
    there are 10 less people on days and still the same amount of customer
    calls. That may be critical to a customer with a down system/cluster.
    
    My real point in .0 was why cut into groups that are doing their best
    to provide a service to the customer (which is one of the main reasons
    DEC is in business) and yet not cut into a group that has a whole lot
    of unused talent. You and I both know the MST ISN'T going to take RDG
    calls.
    
    Denny
    

    Sorry to here about your news. Hopefully whatever package you got
    will at least help buffer your transition into something new and 
    perhaps even better.
     The entire TFSO/Layoff/Downsizing/Rightsizing/Whatever-we-call-it-now
    program, in the past two-three years has, unfortunately, let some very
    talented and good people go. The reasoning behind those moves are at
    times obscure at best, and in some cases make absolutely no sense at
    all. Ultimately the decision making process on who stays/goes is what
    is most probably the most suspect, largely because in many cases it
    is totally dependent on someone's personal perspective.
     I do remember being told (I was offered the first package, turned it
    down and sought another slot in DEC, lucky enough to find one quickly
    at that time) 'this isn't personal...' and, being somewhat upset by
    the entire thing, I recall saying 'just by the fact that you felt
    compelled to say that, makes me wonder if it isn't? Besides that
    of course it is personal, we're talking about me losing my job here."
     Losing your job is one of the highest causes of stress according to
    many counselling experts. Ranks right up there with the death of a
    spouse or child. So it's okay for you to feel pain and anger over
    it and you have empathy from some of us who've literally been there.
    Good luck in the future,
    
      _ J -

    I just got tapped on Monday. Even though I am working to find a new
    position in Digital, I kinda look forward to working elseware. If
    somehow I find a job here at DEC, I know I will have the same high
    enthusiasm for the company as before, but I realize that I will
    be working for the "NEW" Digital. It will be like working for another
    company in a lot of ways but the sholder tapper still may be around
    for awhile. If I take a job outside, the sholder tapper's brother
    could appear there too given the depression we are in. So I say,
    whats the big difference? Just one. DEC has a TFSO to at least
    this time and I probably will end up taking it the way things
    look this late in the game. I think that the "Great Equalizer" is
    the bad economy and that is really -> WHATS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE.
    So I end by saying, go out and vote even if the big choices are bad.
    You can always vote for the none of the above candidate so that
    the idiots who are ultimately responsible for the countrys condition
    get the message and do the right thing or get voted out!
    
                                       Good Luck... Everyone !!!
    
                                       Dave Boudreau, Former 240C

    I was tapped on the shoulder a year or so ago and went from Development
    Engineer to driving a forklift truck in a DEC warehouse.  At least I
    still have a job (for now).  Over the last year I have done my
    agonizing over why me as some of you are doing now.  Fair?  Life 
    doesn't appear to be fair and along with that neither does DEC at
    times.  That fact is good competent people get let go for a variety
    of reasons which are as varied as the reasons in the 'outside' world.
    The bottom line for now seems to be that there are more qualified
    people in the computer industry than there is demand for computer 
    products.  Something has to give (or go I should say) and unfortunately
    its people.  This implosion of DEC hurts... both those who are let
    go and the survivors who are left still wondering if they will be next.
    
    I have been amazed at the courage and resiliance of people in general
    and I wish any of us TFSO'd good luck and the courage to handle it
    with dignity.
    
    Jeff

    I really want to state I'm NOT BLAMING anyone for me or anybody else
    in our group who got the TFSO this week. I just think if DEC is going
    to get through this downsizing, somebody somewhere better start doing
    a better job of who is doing what. I know it sounded like I was picking
    on the MST, I was just using that group of an example as how some 
    groups are heavy with people but from many others point of view,
    they do not have a whole lot to do. I just hope for their sake that
    they get a whole lot busier before the VP who created and is backing
    that group gets the package, because I'm sure it'll all go bye-bye.
    There are MANY talented people in the MST (yes Rodney, I think you
    are one of them) and I would hate to see many of them leave because
    somebody finally figures out that they have 10+ people for every
    account they have.
    
    Well, since I'm out of here, good luck to all of you that are left 
    at DEC, I'm going to miss the people and the NOTES conferences the
    most I think (especially the people)
    
    Denny
    
    

    re:-.1
    
    Acutally, I was glad to 1)see that the "test" was done, 2)glad to see
    the memo posted publicly!  
    
    While I knew that we were suffering from this (and MANY other) type of
    problem, I found it encouraging to really see someone doing something
    about it.  If this same type of evaluation takes place throughout the
    rest of the company, I'm all for it. I think that one of the major
    things affecting moral (TSFO/Layoffs aside) is that employees are
    constantly hearing about or experiencing internal problems in the
    company, but rarely, IF EVER, hear about anything getting done to
    correct the problems.  I, for one, find this to be a small ray of
    sunshine in a what has been a pretty gloomy climate...
    
    
    Jim
    

    Re: .11
    
    But the test did NOT include a followup to PCBYDEC or DEC Direct.
    
    After you go thru the calls in the field, you should see the service
    level from PCBYDEC.
    
    At laest we are consistant
    
    Howard
    

>    After you go thru the calls in the field, you should see the service
>    level from PCBYDEC.

	We may not be that consistant. A friend of mine after calling IBM,
	COMPAQ and PCBYDEC decided the service was best at DEC.

			Alfred

    re: last few
    
    I think that folks are missing the point made by .11...
    
    When I read this, I see nothing that even hints at a problem at 
    PCBYDEC...  I think the "test"/note is reffering to how calls are being
    handled by local sales offices throughout that area, meaning, when a
    customer calls the local sales office, this is what they encounter...
    
    The only fault that PCBYDEC may have any ownership of (emphasis on MAY,
    before someone set's the flame-enable bit) is in getting accurate
    communication out to the sales offices.  don't know if this is a
    problem or not.  But the way the "test" phone calls were handled is
    DEFINETLY a problem.  As the note memo suggested, the best way to
    handle the call would be to explain the benefit of PCBYDEC, the
    phone number, and then transfer the call.  How can anyone find fault
    with that?
    
    
    Jim

    My brother-in-law owns a small trucking company.  They've been using
    a PDP-11 system, but recently decided to change over to networked
    PCs.  He wanted to give the business to Digital, so he called...
    and got put on hold...and got transferred...and re-transferred...and
    on and on.  The sales person didn't seem to know enough about our
    PC offerings to know what to sell him.  Eventually, due primarily
    to his good will towards Digital and his willingness to keep calling
    and explaining what he wanted, over and over, he got the PCs.  Then,
    of course, they needed to be hooked up.  
    He wanted to give Digital first shot at it; after all, he bought
    Digital PCs and we claim to be networking experts, right?  He couldn't
    get a firm price quote for how much it was going to cost him.  Nobody
    at Digital seemed to know just what was going to be involved in doing
    the hookup.  In the end, Digital's quote to him amounted to, "give us
    a blank check and we'll do it for you."  I believe he then contacted
    an independent PC support company, who quickly gave him a price quote
    (about 1/3 what Digital was sort-of estimating) and told him exactly
    what needed to be done.
    
    I may not have all the details correct in the story, but that's the
    gist of what I got from talking with him (or from listening to him
    harrangue about the general incompetence of Digital's PC sales and
    support).  We've got to fix that.  People in business, like him, don't
    have time to waste waiting around while we figure out who he should
    talk to and what we have to sell that will solve his problem. 
    
    In defense of the sales person, I believe that part of the problem 
    was that the sales person, through no particular fault of their own, 
    "couldn't be bothered" with a small order; selling a half dozen 
    (or whatever) PCs does not particularly help make a sales budget.  
    We have to figure out how to make sales like that economically 
    beneficial to Digital, and to the sales force.

re: .16

Your brother should have been steered toward a distributor for the Digital PC
solution, including the networking and support.

You are correct, in that the Sales force cannot handle these opportunities.
It would cost us more to process the order than we would make on the deal.
And the Sales person should know that.

Thats what channels are all about.

Bob

    I'm surprised that no one has remarked that Roy Wickland seems to be
    caps lock-challenged.  In any case, it detracts from the readability of
    the memo.

    It's likely to backfire: "How dare you publicly embarrass Digital?"

    And while it appears here in a private file in a private computer on a
    private network, we can expect it to be on USENET and in print, if it
    is not already.

    Digital has always had poor telephone courtesy to customers and it
    never seems to have engaged any management attention units to fix it.

    The author of 2086.11 asked me to delete it as he didn't have the mail
    message authors permission to post it here.
    
    Bob - Co-moderator DIGITAL

    Thats a shame - it was very interesting - and forwarded around by mail
    by at least three noters here.

Pssssst... its still readable in the Digital Shadow conference...
Not for long, I bet.

    Perhaps now we might get back to the question raised in the base note
    and the implication, I believe, that this whole down-sizing process
    is totally random and fortuitous.  Does anyone else get that feeling?
    

Re:        <<< Note 2086.22 by MIMS::PARISE_M "Southern, but no comfort" >>>

>    Perhaps now we might get back to the question raised in the base note
>    and the implication, I believe, that this whole down-sizing process
>    is totally random and fortuitous.  Does anyone else get that feeling?
    
Yes, not only random and fortuitous, but thoughtless and downright stupid. I 
know of cases where:

	- A sales rep who was 200% of budget in FY92 was TFSO'ed

	- A Sales Support person started (transfer from Digital Services)
	  the same week another competent Sales Support individual was TFSO'ed

	- A VMS Partner and Performance Analysis Specialist, who was 
	  a well-respected and valuable worker from what I could tell,
	  was TFSO'ed

I am in total disbelief regarding the ways we are going about fixing this
company. I've heard nothing concrete from our leaders and all I see around me
is confusion and sadness.

Good Luck to us all, because we'll need it. (and before you flame about this 
doom and gloom, I'm trying real hard to be up-beat. If you think you can boost 
my morale, I'm all ears.)

Regards,

Jim

If I may take the liberty of summing up a bunch of the recent discussions,
here are some of the changes in DEC culture I see taking place:

$ While asking for hard work and dedication on the part of employees in 
  turning this company around, DEC is not able to return the favor by 
  providing any reasonable degree of job security to those who work hard.

$ If at any time, your work is determined to be redundant or unneccesary, 
  funding for your work is cut, or you're just in the wrong place at the 
  wrong time, you may be terminated.

$ DEC owes you nothing for your years of loyalty, and you should expect nothing,
  except your last paycheck.

$ You in turn (I assume), owe DEC nothing, and should look out only for #1.

$ Most forms of employee appreciation, i.e. outings, awards, service dinners, 
  Christmas turkeys, etc. have been or will be eliminated.

$ If you are out on LTD for an extended period, you should not expect to return
  to your previous job, and should expect to be targeted for TFSO.

$ Any employee who doesn't like what's going on, is free to go and should be
  careful not to let the door hit them in the a#@ on the way out.


Somebody please tell me that this is not the case.  There are plenty of hard
working employees here, dedicated to helping turn this company around, if only
we knew what to do.  I'd like to think we're more than just "resources" to be
discarded once our usefulness (as determined by some manager) runs out.  The 
above description of the current or future employment relationship between DEC 
and employees sounds very much like a contract shop.
    
Rick

    re .24
    
    You seem to have captured the essence of how many people feel.  You will
    find some who think it is a false picture, some who think it is true,
    and many like yourself, who suspect it is true but hate the idea.
    
    fwiw,
    
    Dick

    
    Re: .24
    
    I hope you're wrong.  If it is true, than to paraphrase a quote
    once attributed to government: Digital will get the workforce that
    it deserves.  
    
    shudder,
    Steve