The axe falls again...[UPDATE - axe brushed aside!]
 

I got laid-off from Sun Microsystems this morning - just about 6 years to the date they laid me off the first time. Back in 2001, I was working for Sun Professional Services at a time when they were losing tons of money, watching their stock fall from $190 to $3, so they instituted layoffs for the first time ever. I got the axe.

This go-round, I was part of Sun Managed Ops, formerly an independent company called Sevenspace. I joined Sevenspace in 2003 when they were a small 100-person shop that did remote management. Sun decided they wanted to do that too, so they bought Sevenspace 2 years ago, took the technology, and have been slowly getting rid of the key players. A few months ago Sun announced they were opening a new NOC identical to the one here in Ashburn, Virginia. In India. To be operated by a third-party. That made a bunch of us "redundant", so after I finished training my counterparts (the last con-call to wrap things up was Wednesday), they let me go.

Oh, the severance package sucks ass, too.

Sorry to hear that bad news - sounds sucky all the way around.

Sorry to hear that my friend.

Where do you live at, I'm hiring here in Houston, TX for all types of IT and Support related jobs.

That sucks, dude.

Thats brutal man, sorry to hear it

Sorry Todd. Hang in there.

:(

Sorry to hear that, Todd.

Advice...take a printer and go Office Space on it!!!

Sad to hear Todd.

I'm not sure what your exact skillset is or if you might be willing to make the short move down this direction, but I know we're looking for some Solaris types here... PM me if you happen to want more info.

Sorry to hear this, Todd - have you spoken to any Sun partners about possible positions? They're always looking for solid Sun people - especially in your area (D.C.-ish).

Sorry to hear that.

Hope something good turns up for you soon!

The sun sets not every evening, but twice every sixth year...or some shit...


Sorry about the tough luck.

Dang that sucks Todd... sorry to hear that. Some positions here are also going to India.


That would be cool... Houston is a 3 hour drive from here... come to Texas! :)

Hang in there, Todd... :(

Sorry man...getting laid off sucks. Hang in there.

Hang in there Todd.

Sorry, Todd... hope things turn around for you immediately, if not sooner. :)

Sorry to read this Todd. It really sucks that good professionals everywhere are fired because there is cheaper labor (and usually abused) in other countries, i guess it's the price of globalization.

That sucks. How does this effect your healthcare? I would imagine that is as much or a bigger concern than the salary for you.

Good luck on finding a new job.

Damn. Sorry to hear about this. Feel free to PM me if you need anything.

Ouch, I didn't even think of this aspect of it until you mentioned it. Anyway, I just wanted to add my well wishes, Todd. I hope you find a better job and that you find it very quickly.

What kind of severance package are you getting?

I'm being laid off from my job of approximately 9 years on the Friday before Christmas. My severance package is roughly about 38% of my yearly salary plus whatever my share of the corporate bonus may be when that pays out in March/April. Not fantastic, but not as awful as some people have been stuck with. We just had our third child at the end of July, so I have to be concerned with getting a family of 5 under insurance at the beginning of the new year... :(

I love how the economy is so wonderful while I know tens of thousands have lost their jobs in the second half of this year.

Heh, my package was 2 weeks + 1 week for each year of service. Oh, and my COBRA payment is due on the 17th of October for $1500. Unreal.

Dang...

Wow, very sorry to hear that, Todd. I don't know exactly what you do, but if you are looking to stay in the area and find a job that looks interesting at Orbital (http://www.orbital.com), please let me know, and I can pass your resume along.

/tk

THANK YOU to all the well-wishers who have stopped by to lend some kind words. I'm buying each of you a beer. Promise.

I'm technically on the payroll for another 60-days so I can search for another position inside or outside the company. During that time I still get full benefits and all that jazz - which is kinda nice because our current employee-stock-purchase period ends on October 15, so I'll still collect on that. My wife is covered by her (better) plan at her job, as is my daughter. She can also add me to her plan now that I've lost my job, so health insurance isn't an issue at all - thank goodness.

As for severance, I'm being offered one week of pay for every year I've worked here - so that's 4 weeks. I'm going to ask that they accelerate the vesting on my unvested stock-options which would net me approx. 2-weeks more pay. Severance is supposedly negotiable, but we'll see. I can't imagine I've got any leverage whatsoever.

The DC-area meet-and-greet is looking pretty good so long as there is gonna be beer... :)

Seems to be happening everywhere. :( Our company was bought out a few months ago. Nobody really knows what's going to happen. I wouldn't be shocked to walk in and be told I'm exiting stage left in a month or two. I hope it doesn't happen. I really like this job.

I feel for all of you guys who are going through this. Good luck to all of you.

I'm working for a company that laid me off in 2000 (I returned this year). We're looking at a major loss of income, so I'm getting a little worried that it will happen again.

If you're interested in IT (mostly deskside laptop/desktop/printer support) shoot me a resume. I work our Verizon contract and I know we have a site in Asburn.

I'm not sure if we're currently hiring down there, but I can forward your resume if you would like. Shoot me a PM and I'll give you my work email address.

That sucks though.... seems like the IT field is all going over to India. The Verizon helpdesk has moved over there already.

It's in writing, I'm taking you up on that offer ;)

I'm glad to hear insurance won't be an issue and that you have 60 days to find something else.

They have to give 60 days notice of these big events thanks to a federal law. Sorry to hear about this, though. There is a lot of people out there going through the same thing right now, but I don't know if that is really a good thing or not (more competition).

Sounds like you're going to be able to get through it alright. In the case of my wife, she stays at home with the kids, so there is no other coverage that kicks in. She was laid off a few years back and just decided to care for the kids.

My employer is actually complaining that Indians are too expensive these days. They are talking about going to Kenya.

They outsourced a lot of internal helpdesk stuff to India through some company called NIIT, and these people can barely speak English. I can't wait for the Kenyan experiment to start...but I probably won't be there to "enjoy" that.

Hey, hey! So sorry to hear about your troubles, Toddzilla. :)

Okay, seriously, hope that made you laugh. First time I was around to see the thread. Sorry this is happening to you.

I was laid off by the LA Times with 199 other community news workers (mostly reporters, unit editors and photogs out in the community) in late 2000 after Times Mirror was bought by the Trib (the media conglom that owns the Cubs). Seems they felt the LA Times should be a cosmopolitan newspaper and had no room for community news. :(

But I bounced back, and I'm sure you will, too.

Never asked, how's your shoulder? Is that better at least? Hope otherwise things are going good for you.

No way you're buying as long as you're out of work. I doubt it matters now that I've moved out of the metro area, but if you end up in central Indiana for any reason stop by the house and drink as much of my beer as you'd like.

Glad to hear health insurance isn't a big problem. Having been laid off a couple of times myself that always jumps to the front of my mind when I hear someone else has lost their job.

Tell me about it. The users hate calling the helpdesk and unfortunetly deal with issues for far too long because my company gets paid per ticket. :(

This field has REALLY changed since I started 11 years ago.

w0rd.

I got into my first help desk on a federal government contract about 5 years ago and that's the way to go. It is generally written into the contract (or required by law?) that the Help Desk has to be in the US. The small help desk i run now has zero risk of being sourced out of the country.

You're lucky. ;)

It's funny though.. companies like Verizon, Dell, HP, etc.. preach about customer service, yet they outsource their own EMPLOYEE helpdesk and it's terrible.

Outsourced customer service makes sense. You can have 3 to 4 times the amount of people that can provide the same level of service for the same amount of money. I hate the fact, that I actually agree with the business sense of this.

But a level 1 helpdesk person can be in India and still do as good as a job as a level 1 helpdesk person in the US.

What alot of companies do is outsource the level 1 help desk, but keep the level 2 in the states.

I don't think "same level of service" means what you think it means.

Yes it does. In fact the average American who lands a level 1 job as a support technician is a complete tool. These are people who graduated from ITT technical or pick your local tech school, doesn't know shit about computers beyond their two years of BS.

Your average Indian, usually has a four year degree in computer science. I'm one of those assholes who deals with outsourcing and I have to say it has been incredibly sucessful for our business.

We just sent a program offshore for development to India. The program we wrote would of cost us four times the amount of money to be developed in the US. They had 28 programmers working on the project, where if we would of kept it in the states we maybe had the budget for about 6 programmers.

This might be true, but I have to question your sensitivity when you post this in a thread started by a person who lost his job because of this.

Programmers and Help Desk technicians are completely different ballgames.

I don't know your background, but I have been in Help Desk for over a decade and spent the last 6 or so of it in Management. You are just simply off-base here despite what appear to be "Help Desk people are a bunch of morons" bias.

Sorry to hear that Todd.

When I read about stuff like this, I don't mind working for a small web development shop. I know I could go out and get a higher paying job elsewhere (even here in Little Rock). But the security of not having to worry about layoffs is nice.

I don't think the help desks in India are all that bad. Sure, they never help me with my problem, but it's always great to talk to a guy named Bob or Charles who I can barely understand.

I'm glad you have had a good experience with it. Mine has been quite the opposite, where we ended up feeling most of the people we have tried to work with over there completely misrepresented themselves. In every situation where work was offshored, my employer has reduced all "success criteria" for them compared to what the standard was when it was done here. To me, that reveals a truth that few want to admit or address when bullshitting about the wonders of offshoring.

This is one of the talking points for many pro-offshoring people. I've heard it and read it many times. Another one used often, that really blows my mind, is when they start claiming that Americans don't want these jobs. All the bullshit about "highly educated and trained workforce" goes against my personal experiences, as well as knowing with certainty that most offshoring initiatives are not intended to "maintain the same level of quality" as those they are replacing (despite what executives/companies may say to the public.) It is a cost-reducing move where they routinely change the rules in order to make it look successful since executives tell them to "make it work" (which is code for "your job is on the line if you don't make this look pretty for us.")

Yeah it really sucks. My company outsourced a ton of IT jobs last year. Result is, these people do not understand the business, they have no problem solving skills, anytime there's a slight deviance from the formula the entire process stops and the sales team in Canada is expected to resolve things (even though we usually know nothing about EDI programming). We went from 20 projects open to 400 projects open within 6 months because they couldn't finish any of them, and then we ended up rehiring a bunch of the people that were laid off.

I really do believe that you get what you pay for. Sorry to hear about you losing your job and hope you can find something new quickly.

And I hope the 3rd party company they brought on to take over your position tanks.

Ping: Asshole.

Take it to another thread.

Agreed, I was arguing a point and I shouldn't of brought it into this thread.

Sorry Todd.