Whitman said to be planning massive HP job cuts

EDS = Extinct Dinosaur Services

It is not as though EDS was doing particularly well before HP, but they have chased away anyone who would consider their services. HP thinks that services are the same as PCs where, if sales are down, you hack off some accountants and marketing people. If you hack your services staff, you are cutting product quality. That might work for a little while, but big services customers watch the staffing numbers and are going to be running away from HP before their services are delivered by a few 16 year olds in Guatemala who "no hablo ingles."

That old chestnut again

Get hired as boss, proceed to lay waste to the workers who are the ones making sure you have something to sell especially the expensive ones who actually know what they are doing, sell off as many bits as you think you can get away with and merge those bits that you can't. Point to the figures in 12 months time that show just how much money you saved the company so it looks like profits are up and get the board to give you a massive bonus. Leave as quickly as possible for another top job somewhere else using the same figures to show why the new company should employ you and do the same again as in companies of that size it takes a few years before the massive damage you have done begins to show and then watch the company slide into a shadow of its former self if it manages to keep going at all.

"EOW" already started

We got notification of the latest "Expression Of Wish" programme in the UK on the 8th May. Strangely there are no details of the number this time. Now I know why. We've got a number of re-bids going on, I can almost hear those customers thinking "how the hell can they deliver more with even less than they've got now ?"

There's still a few good people left that are managing to hold stuff together despite the crap service that India is providing.

Hey Meg, instead of decimating the workforce...

...why not try the more radical plan of (drum roll)...selling more hardware and services?

Sad reality

HP has had management issues for years and of course employees are the scapgoats for bad management. Another loss of 25K jobs is sure as Hell not going to help pull us out of the world wide economic disaster that we have been in for the past five years...

But wait... I'm sure Bama has a re-election campaign policy that will find jobs for all of these people and more - or NOT.

"Consulting firm McKinsey & Co is helping HP come up with the plan"

There's a suprise. How many times will EDS/HP pay McKinsey's a fortune to tell us to do what people on the ground are screaming for already?

It seems the only time the EDS/HP board listen to an idea is when it comes from someone they are paying to come up with ideas, whether they are their own or not.

Please I left HP 2 months ago, although a little bit gutted that I didn't manage to bank an EoW for 6 months pay. Hey Ho.

McKinsey''s

When I worked for EDS/HP we got McKinsey's chucked off the account. They came in and we gave them loads of months of metrics and explained that due to the nature of the customer the volumes of email, web and telephone incidents did vary depending on the time of the year and what the customer was doing and provided explanations for each month.

However, they ignored that and pulled together metrics from different months to make it look like we were massively over capacity. After much 'disccusion' with senior management we got the internal guys in and they agreed with us that we were doing everything right and the McKInsey's guy had been on the crack pipe.

Now working in the public sector for more money with less responsiblity and stress.

Are HP like EDS used to be?

Blimey. I used to work for EDS in Telford. Strangest 9 months ever. I went for an interview, the guy flat-out told me I wasn't "right" for the position but, just as I was about to get up, said, "Actually hang on, I'll have a chat with Bob"

5 minutes later I'm sat in another office with Bob, who hardly says anything to me and admits that he "doesn't need anyone right now".y

2 days later, a job offer gets posted and I accept, presuming that the role of "Systems Admin" is for the original job I went for. I turned up at one of their many buildings and had the HR intro, then one by one people were taken off by various managers. I sat there, no-one turned up. The HR ladies vanished and I noticed about 6 other people still sat there. We all waited a bit longer then eventually a HR bird came back and told us to go to our respective buildings. We all did and I was met by a puzzled guy who "wasn't aware" that I was starting. He turned out to be my new boss.

I waited two weeks for a PC, then a month in someone told me what I was supposed to do. It took about 2 hours, then there was nothing else to do. The interweb was totally locked off, so I sat and read books. After pushing for more work I was met with puzzled faces. Everyone told me that "there was plenty" and that my tasks should take "most of the day".

After a few more months of this crap I complained, so they chucked loads of courses at me. I came back with so much knowledge and asked everyone what new tasks I could do.

"Oh, we don't need you to do any of that, you have to do the same thing"

Using my new-found Linux HP Unix scripting skills I reduced my 2 hour task to 10 minutes. They caught wind of this and gave me a pay rise, but didn't give me anything else to do.

A day later they had a mini "Town Hall" meeting in a very hot meeting room. Everyone stood up as a manager walked round to tell us all about something dull. After about an hour of standing a guy feinted. The manager WALKED OVER him as he lay on the floor and it took a good few seconds for it to hit us.

The guy got given some water and helped out. The manager carried on talking all the time.

I handed in my notice the next day. They offered me another 10k to stay. I said no.

Insane. Hated every minute of it. The Government were pissing money up the wall with the Employment Service and Inland Revenue contracts. Lots of people doing not-that-much. 12 meetings to agree one tiny change. Crap.

So you can sack ES staff who mainly work T&M contracts, all be it restricted to maximum of 7.5 hours a day, and still increase profits?