Conference 7.286::digital

    
    
    
        I see this in most electronic companys yes.
      But maybe some what diferant else where.I am
      going to win the lotery anyway.
    
                 Smurf.

    I thought that the formula Allied Signal has taken might be something
    we could look at.
    
    
    See "The Perilous New World of Fair Play" in Fortune 13 June, page 57-64.
    
    
    It states that "many employers want to make pay more variable, rising and
    falling with the company's fortunes."
    
    

    >It states that "many employers want to make pay more variable, rising and
    >falling with the company's fortunes."
    
    I'm sure they do.  It'd make things much more flexible for them.
    
    However, it wreaks havoc on the employee and the employee's family.
    Stability goes out the window.  
    
    Say you're in a large company and you are doing a _terrific_ job
    (consistently a 1 performer, for years on end). But the economy goes in
    the tank.  Or senior management screws up and the company runs into the
    economic shoals.  They then decide to cut everyone's salary so there's
    more money to help keep the company afloat.  Nice disincentive to
    continuing to work at the same high level.  Sooner or later you're
    going to either slack off somewhat or leave the company for another,
    more intelligent one. After all, what's the point if doing 1-level work
    is rewarded with a pay _drop_?
    
    Also, constantly fluctuating income will make it harder to do minor
    little things like applying for credit.  Creditors want to see
    constant, predictable income with no large gyrations.  Ask someone
    who's both self-employed and had income swings just how much extra
    bother s/he had to go through to apply for a car loan or a mortgage.
    
    There are some industries and jobs where such fluctuations come with
    the territory. Construction work is one example -- there are fewer jobs
    to go around in the northern US during the winter than in the summer.
    This might be called "structural" fluctuation.  It's expected every
    year.  You can compensate for it by saving money during the fat months
    to have more during the lean.
    
    But if you're _not_ in a cyclical industry, the fluctuations are very
    hard to predict -- and therefore to prepare for.  You don't see the
    downturns coming. You don't know how long the bad times will last. You
    likely have little to no influence on the company's fate outside your
    job responsibilities.  Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me...
    
    
    John
    

    >It states that "many employers want to make pay more variable, rising and
    >falling with the company's fortunes."

        I might be willing to accept this new deal if it applied to
        the relationship between me and my creditors as well!

        Bob

"There will never be job
security.  You will be employed by us as long as you add value to
the organization, and *you* are continuously responsible for finding
ways to add value.  In return, you have the right to demand interesting
and important work, the freedom and resources to perform it well, pay
that reflects your contribution, and the EXPERIENCE AND TRAINING TO
BE EMPLOYABLE HERE AND ELSEWHERE."

It does appear that this is more or less the "deal" DEC is now offering
its employees (minus the resources and training, I suppose). Take your
cue from the man at the top. As, in a previous era, CEO Ken Olsen set
an example of behavior for employees to follow, so does current CEO
Robert Palmer: in his answer to why he accepted a $150,000 raise, he
said "that's what people doing this job get at other companies".

Loyalty can be there, but is not a material part of the contract. DEC
is not interested in paying for your loyalty, only your performance. If
you can deliver without being loyal, DEC has no problem with that (and
might prefer it).

    If there were a roughly stable number of people working in the computer
    industry, this would not be a problem.  Companies would have to be
    formed using a fraction of the labor pool, and one company's growth
    could come only from another's decline.  If Digital got into trouble,
    its employees would naturally bail out and stream to Sun or HP or
    whoever was on the rise.  If Digital went out of business altogether,
    fine: if a job isn't a right, neither is continued existence of a
    corporation.  If, on the other hand, Digital was renewed, labor would
    tend to flow back from Sun or HP or whoever was in decline.
    
    I say that if we have no right to job security, corporations should
    have no right to expect continued existence.  What do you think of
    that?

re Note 3120.6 by TNPUBS::JONG:

>     I say that if we have no right to job security, corporations should
>     have no right to expect continued existence.  What do you think of
>     that?
  
        But they're bigger than us!

        (Which is one of the observations that led to the formation
        of unions, and I surely don't want to get into that rathole!)

        Bob

    	The inverse of job security is project security. I know someone who
    is a contract project manager with DEC. They have no guarantee that
    their contract will be renewed at the end of this June, so obviously
    they are looking around for another job. The project is an 18 month
    project, and other people on the project are also contractors.
    
    	One of DEC's advantages of using contractors is that they can 
    get rid of a contractor at a week's notice with no cost. One of the 
    contractor's advantages is that they can walk out of a project at 
    a week's notice with no cost. Would you want to be a project manager 
    in an environment like that?

    
    	I think that if any company wanted to "go into variable pay"
    territory, then that should start at the very top!
    
    	Nothing can destroy morale quicker, in any company, than "the
    bosses" taking pay rises when they impose pay freezes or reductions
    upon the rest of the workforce - upon whose efforts they depend,
    directly or indirectly for their renumeration.
    
    	What happened to morale in DIGITAL when RPs 20% pay rise was
    announced?  At that stage, I was into my 3rd year of 0% pay rise "due
    to the state of the company!"  I am now in my 4th year of 0%!!!!
    
    				Malcolm.

   When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought
   as a child , but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

   Paul, I Corinthians 10:11.

   
   Digital has grown up into manhood.

   It had to happen.

   Hank   

This is a quote from Helen Keller.


"Security is mostly a Superstition.

 It does not live in nature nor do the children of men experience
 it as a whole.

 Avoiding danger is, in the long run, no safer than
 outright exposer.

 Life is either a grand adventure or nothing."



Companies in the past have provided us with what appeared to
be security.  In the past they were highly centralized so that
we could move from on part to another to remain employed.
However we can now see that this security was a myth or a
superstition.  We created this myth of security to allow us
to feel secure about the future.

Harry

    
    
    I think that the new deal is 'personal responsiblity'.  This is a new
    deal term that is being used more and more, and not just for those that
    are employed, but also for those who are unemployed.  Corporations and
    government have to operate leaner and meaner.  This means no one's job
    is secure; you must have a personal plan, i.e. educuation/training; you
    must be flexible; and entitlements are basically dead.
    
    ems
    

    re .8
    
    As another senior contract person I can speak with authority on the
    need for security. I basically do the following things each year, see
    how different or not they are to permanent staff feelings:
    
    -  every 3 months I have to request a Purchase Order and worry
    -  every re-shuffle I have to make sure my new boss understands my
    capabilities and commitment to the company
    -  every month I worry that my contract will be closed early
    -  every time my swipe card fails to read, I wonder if its time
    -  every time there is an expense clampdown, I have to re-justify that
    I am revenue generating
    -  every time a permanent person goes I feel guilty that it should have
    been me.
    -  I shelve plans for holidays, redecorating etc. until I have my next
    3 month PO, and then still feel insecure, so I shelve them again.
    
    Of course it is not all bad. Some of the good things that are
    applicable to the NEW DEAL style of working are that:
    
    -  I do not worry about career, it just happens
    -  I have a minimum of admin at work, making me more time efffective
    -  I do not carry baggage from my last project around, making me more
    focused on my new project
    -  I have no real title/job code/job level so I can talk to people at
    all levels with impunity
    -  I constantly have to sell myself, and therefore know how to sell
    Digital better
    -  As a minority group member, I have to work harder to prove myself
    -  I have no redundancy payment to cloud my judgement when I need to
    move out
    
    All in all the stress is more manageable because it is under my
    control.
    
    Hope it helps.
    
    Peter
    
    
    

    
    I will go back to something I said several months ago in here.
    It appears to me that large American corporations are basically
    saying to workers that "you must consider yourself a business"
    (with all that implies). *You* must look out for yourself; *you*
    must figure out: a) what skills will be needed in the future,
    and b) how to best go about acquiring and retaining those
    skills (your edge).
    
    Now, that's all fine and good. The problem is that when you
    give that message to employees (in the form of implicit or
    explicit messages), you need to understand the ramifications.
    
    And this is basically what I said before: if I am a business,
    and I invest in myself in order to effectively compete in
    a tough job market against similarly motivated people, then
    I *must* look at my co-workers as competitors. Then,
    my incentive to function in a team environment is tempered
    by my need to keep a skills edge on the competition -- just
    like Digital needs to keep that edge on *its* competition.
    
    So, we (as a corporation) are faced with a nasty little 
    conundrum. Digital needs people to function effectively
    in teams.  The teams need to be staffed with hungry, lean,
    tough individuals; within those teams, therefore, rugged 
    competition must exist. If a team is staffed with five
    software engineers (say), and they all realize that shortly
    there will only be four survivors (20% cut), what happens
    to the team dynamics?  What is the motivation for one to
    subordinate one's need to survive to the overall needs of
    the team?
    
    Multiply this all across the economy, and what happens?
                          
    Glenn 

    One of the consequences of "no security" has always been "higher
    wages".
    
    Once I hired an architect, and when construction encountered an
    obstacle that could be traced to the drawings, the architect said "bill
    me".  How could this be?  Probing, I discovered that the architect knew
    that x% of the document would be in error, as we all make errors; so he
    built a cushion into his fee.  Doctors pass on costs of liability
    insurance.  Construction gets all the market will bear. Etc, etc.
    
    So, one consequence of working under a security contract has been 
    "below-opportunist" wages. This describes past standards in the field,
    as well as at home.  Human Resource has known this for ever and ever.
    
    So, prevailing wages with a "no-security" contract are a pay-cut.
    Remember that, next time you negotiate wages.   

    
    As one who has always practiced individual responsibility, even when it
    meant those who didn't were getting a free ride on the backs of those
    who did - I know takling personal responsibility is the right thing to
    do.
    
    But I don't see DEC, er, Digital, turning into a company of contractor
    & guns for hire. 
    
    We are hearing a lot about 'taking responsibility' but it seems to come
    from management (who does not practice this) directed at the worker
    bees. Management seems exempt from the implications of this policy.
    
    This 'do as I say not as I do' is becoming typical. 
    
    If we follow the trend of having only 'key' personel on full time, and 
    technical people ' resources' on part time or contract I see the
    company evolving into sort of a feudal caste system.
    
    You'll have your Palace Courtiers (management) who will be full-time
    employees. They will have little reason to worry about security. as
    long as they lick the right boots, and political manouevering will take
    the place of innovation as a criteria for advancement. Barring any
    major changes in the Palace administration, they will be safe.
    
    Like the Ronin or 'free samurai' of Japanesee history, the hired
    techincal guns will be free to come and go, and will be asked 
    occaisionally to shed their blood in order to protect the Palace
    Courtiers. But in the in-between times they will be well paid.
    
    The question they will have to ask themselves is...
    With all these other companies out there... why work for DEC, er
    Digital...?
    
    
    -Publius

    
     I agree with .3  
    
      It will wreak havoc on the employee......in many ways.
    
      More stress, more back-stabbing, longer hours.  
    
     Yup, some day, ( not just Digital ) we will all be working 12 hour
    days, no breaks, lousy conditions....like back around the turn of the
    century.   We'll all regret bashing the unions, and embracing the
    idea of a global economy.  With tremendous competition from abroad,
    all of the employee benefit gains will, over time, wash away.
    
    Sorry, I'm "in a mood" today.
    
    

	If anybody hasn't noticed, we are moving more and more towards
	capitalism as our driving social philosophy. This applies to the
	workplace (as in this note string), politics (trade decisions, at a
	minimum, but also decisions on when to use military force), and just
	about every aspect of life in the "world economy." 

	Companies are no longer to sacrifice "competitiveness" in order to
	take care of their employees, and governments are either unwilling
	or unable to take up the slack -- in part because the dollars to pay
	for that slack are not there.

	I realized a couple of years ago, and others have stated in print,
	that we face a new job market. All companies will be CONSTANTLY
	trying to become more efficient, do more with less, and raise
	productivity. This means keeping only those with optimal skills,
	always trying to reduce headcount and associated costs, and
	automating everything that can be automated.

	The bottom line is that capitalism and the free market have no
	conscience, just as nature has no conscience. The "new deal" might
	as well be termed "survival of the fittest." Under these conditions
	YOU, the individual, must take responsibility for staying current
	and saleable in the marketplace. YOU must push for training, stay on
	top of technology, and stay aware of what's happening and what's
	valuable in the job market. And if you feel undervalued, YOU must
	take the responsibility of either making sure that your current
	employer places the right value on your services, or take your
	services elsewhere where you will be fairly compensated.

	That's reality, folks. Companies don't want to hire (or keep)
	engineers who have been hacking Bliss for 20 years any more than
	they want to buy PDP-8's. Digital has seemingly finally realized the
	realities of the market. It's time that Digital's employees did the
	same.

	Roy

    
> 	The bottom line is that capitalism and the free market have no
>	conscience, just as nature has no conscience.
    
    I've never understood why "capitalism" gets saddled with these negative
    descriptions (probably you didn't mean it that way, Roy).
    
    People equate "survival of the fittest" with things like dog eating dog
    pounding your competition into oblivion by any means necessary, and looking 
    out for Numero Uno.
    
    I firmly believe in capitalism and I'd like to defend it.  First off,
    it does come closest to ensuring that nobody gets more than they deserve 
    (defined by what they're willing to work for).
    
    But my real point complaint is that a lot of people automatically assume
    things like:  it is not capitalistic to help others; it is not
    capitalistic for two entities to exist for each other's mutual benefit;
    it is not capitalistic to charge "fair" prices, etc.
    
    All those things are capitalistic because they may in fact be something 
    you do for the *very* selfish reason of "adding to your wealth."  It
    is decidedly *uncapitalistic* to do things that alienate your
    work-force.  It also seems capitalistic for employees to "love" their
    company and want it to do well.  Capitalism doesn't have to exclude 
    pride, loyalty, and cooperation between entities.  
    
    "Doing the right thing" and "being a nice guy or company" can very well
    fit into the capitalist ideal as things we all do to ensure our selfish
    personal gain.
    
    - Sean

    I guess it was another string in this conference that started
    discussing Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. Happens to be very appropriate
    here, too. In a capitalistic environment, both economically and
    socially, an individual should act in his or her own self-interest. As
    said previously, this doesn't preclude helping others, having morals,
    etc, it simply means thaqt within the rules/laws of society, we act in
    such a way as to best meet our own needs. It does ensure optimal
    contribution to society, best allocation of resources, etc.
    
    FOR THE MOST PART, if people are working for the benefit of OTHERS,
    they tend NOT to work (play, contribute, whatever) as hard as they
    would for themselves. Yes, this can be "difficult", and doesn't make
    for all getting equal "returns", but does deliver equity in
    opportunity, i.e. you get out what you put in.
    
    MY personal name USED to be "Who is John Galt", but then I joined the
    "AlphaGeneration"! 

    Re. .6:
    
>     I say that if we have no right to job security, corporations should
>     have no right to expect continued existence.  What do you think of
>     that?

    Corporations DO have no right to continued existence.  That's a plain,
    indisputable fact, and there are plenty of corporations that were in
    the computer business and now do not exist to demonstrate the point. 
    Corporations exist only so long as they can generate enough revenue to
    pay their expenses.

    Of course, there are exceptions and aberrations created by politics and
    other factors, but in a true capitalist economy, corporations have no
    entitlement.

    Consequently, individuals working in a corporation also have no
    ultimate guarantee of security.  At most, it is limited by the
    continued existence of the corporation.  At times in U.S. society, big
    corporations have enjoyed considerable stability and, therefore,
    security, and that security has accrued to the employees.  This has
    both good and bad results.  The bad results include the growth of
    unproductive bureaucracies and a loss of individual incentives to
    effective work.

    For a variety of reasons, corporations in the U.S. now face greater
    competition, and that leaves less room for inertia and other forms of
    stability. This inevitably affects the stability of jobs and the
    security of employees.  This is not the only way it could possibly be
    however.  In Japan, despite recent economic difficulties, corporations
    can still count on government help to keep things running smoothly, and
    employees can still count on lifetime employment.  These are not
    independent variables however.  Those benefits(?) exist only within a
    social context far more regulated and regimented than our own.

    People working for DEC have, up until recently, have been able to
    expect a very high level of stability and security -- I would say a
    level that is better than 99.6% of ALL other human beings now living or
    who have ever lived.  All the traditional ways of life -- farming,
    herding, shopkeeping, whatever -- were subject to whims of nature and
    man that made "security" a foreign (or at least very relative) concept. 
    What is difficult for us now is the change -- a loss of this
    expectation and sense of security, and a feeling of betrayal.  Somehow,
    somebody broke the AGREEMENT we thought we had.

    Well, the world has changed, but IN ADDITION, Digital has screwed up. 
    Badly.  See the front page of the Globe yesterday for one more
    discussion of how and why.  In this case, it's a comparison of DEC and
    HP over the last 10 years -- a period of steady growth of revenue and
    profits for HP.  So that's a big part of the frustration. It's not just
    that the industry has changed, but that our company has bungled it and
    is still bungling it, and that each of us individually feels powerless
    to fix it.


    dlm

    I've been working at various companies for the last 34 years, and
    in various groups, and at various occupations.  All of it has been
    under the heading "Digital" but change has been continual.  I have
    never had much of a sense of what some contributors on this string
    seem to mean by the word "security."  I have never been comfortable
    for long at Digital, because I've been aware that the company has to
    re-invent itself every few years, and each of these is a highly
    risky crisis.  And, I've seen many companies that I once regarded as
    important competitors disappear under the waves during this time--
    so I know it can happen to Digital if we aren't both clever and
    reasonable lucky as well.
    
    I really can't understand how anyone who works in this industry could
    develop a sense that stability could be available here.  The only way
    I can imagine that happening, is if someone was naieve enough to think
    that the question "are you comfortable with this...?" was coming from
    a mind grounded in reality.
    
    My perspective is that being uncomfortable is a condition of aliveness.
    The extreme form of stability would be if nothing is happening.
    Nothing happening:  that's a pretty good operational definition of
    death.
    
    
    I think it is fairly careless reasoning to think that you can't be
    loyal in the presence of risk and change and aliveness and discomfort.
    I can be loyal to any person I interact with even for an hour or less!
    I don't have to have a guarantee of a lifetime stable relationship.
    Just show me that you are alive, that you have decent intentions, and
    that you are committed to making a contribution--you have my loyalty.
    
    I believe most people who know me see me as a loyal Digital employee.
    (I certainly see myself this way!)  Yet I'm fully aware how careful
    Ken always was, not to ever to promise that we'd never have a layoff.
    All I expected from my co-workers here was, as I say:  aliveness,
    decency, and a commitment to make what contribution the person can.
    I think in the aggregate, we can say that we've had this from Digital
    as a whole.  An alive company, a decent company, a company committed
    to making whatever contributions in the lives of human beings that we
    could.
    
    The "new deal" does not seem new to me--as far as I can understand it,
    it seems like the "deal" I've always had.
    							Russ

    
    	Have to respond because this is all getting so interesting.
    
    	If we as employees have to do everything discussed in this topic -
    
    	Wash our hair
    	Keep our clothes clean
    	Tie our shoes properly,
    	etc.
    
    	What is management supposed to do? I can't believe it is to be
    toadies, lackeys, or The Lone Ranger. Changemeisters, where?
    Controlfreaks, how? Policymavens, who?
    
    	This is now big people stuff. The real problem is mindsets -
    everyone is either in the 50s, or the 70s. Some just want less stress,
    others want stability. My grandfather used to say "There ain't no free
    lunch". He was absolutely correct. We keep trying to make Digital
    appear as a people, having human traits. This place is an organization.
    It functions like one. So, what's management to do?
    
    	My bet is they do not have a clue.
    
    		the Greyhawk

    
    re: -1
    attn: mr. the Greyhawk,
    
    thank you for sharing that with us.  perhaps you could gain a more
    appreciative audience in pear::soapbox.
    
    regards,
    
    the bill

    re .23
    
    I appreciated your comments.  Of course, I also appreciated the last
    discussion we had over a beer at Chez Paree. :-)
    
    re .24                                     
    
    Perhaps. :-)
    
                               Dan
    

    
    	Thank you all. Humor at this particular point is probably far more
    important for our sanity than vast introspection on our relationship
    with our employer.
    
    	We work, they pay. As my collegue in hockey just noted, I believe
    having fun in life is far more important than the quantity of work. No
    one ever died mouthing their final words as "I should have worked more"
    
    		the Greyhawk