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| reply to Shuttle83
Re: Layoffs and why said by Shuttle83:Speaking as a recently laid off employee, I can say that my layoff was due to my views of the Top management of Verizon. To talk about teamwork and then to try to squash a team of people that banded together to create patents for Verizon, just because some in Top management did not like the hue of these folks smacked of hypocrisy. So I spoke out in a town hall meeting, and you know what? I would do it again, only this time I would not hold back. Now to the bases of these layoffs, Verizon made some messed up financial decisions, and now to appease Wall Street and the Shareholders, heads must roll; the problem is Verizon is dumping some good people, but leaving some incompetent people in place because they fit their PIE philosophy. PIE stands for: P= Performance 10% I= Image 30% E = Exposure 60% Right away, you can see that even though you can have 100% in performance it only rates as 10% of your employee profile. Another way of looking at this is suppose you are just incompetent and have 0% for Performance. Guess what? You are still promotable, because you are still in the 90 percentile. Image and Exposure will carry you 90%. This results in the "If we like you, you are in" mentality. It is sad but true. It’s not Verizon the company that decided to do this but rather people who do not necessarily want the best of the best but rather the best of the yes to be viable. This will only come back to bite Verizon in the ass later-on down the line. The pricing premium (honeymoon) for FIOS compared to similarly priced cable dual & triple play is largely OVER & now they have to compete on bottom line price just as the cable company. Consumers will do what's best for THEM, not the corporation & vice versa. Verizon did make moderately BAD DECISIONS in spinning hard rhetoric about competition, but when push comes to shove & docsis begins arriving.. what do they do? Nope, not VOIP, not price cuts.. layoffs and footprint slashing (fairpoint). The learning curve for Video needed to be steep and was(and still is) very sluggish. Cable-tv is a dinosaur without transitioning from packages of channels to a more on-demand platform. Unfortunately, the cable industry will fight that with their last breath.. but they want to stick their heads in the sand from the internet perfect storm.. let them at their own perril. Ironically, this will benefit the telcos-- but not for a LONG, LONG time-- by then there will more blood letting of jobs above and beyond these cuts. Consumers will demand an entertainment "box" that serves up content on-demand and less 'live' entertainment. Live tv programming will be so-called "news", a handful of talk/specialty shows, and live concerts/sporting type events. The rest, pre-recorded! No more exclusive channel junk.. consumers will pay for only what they watch, otherwise they will get it free from the internet. If you look at satellite radio, that is cable-tv's future.. the fight to keep exclusive programming relevant while the business goes to hell-in-a handbasket for not evolving & putting forth some hefty price hikes to boot. Once the company's options run out, they are left with some very distasteful options in the future.. Sirius satellite radio is trying to hock 5 months of programming for $20.. then try to get you addicted to it's $13/month service... hah, good luck!
Just like the auto industry, making bad decisions about what to make & giving the union too much for too long cost the company dearly.. but in the end bankruptcy & government ownership is trying to right the ship but failing(hundreds of thousands of employees & retiree employees got ROYALLY SCREWED, right next to the air-traffic controllers of the 80s). The problem is, GM now lost so much credibility that no-one wants to buy gm products anymore without hefty incentives (5k clunkers program was a good example). Esentially making new cars that were rotting away and would need to be scrapped sold as 3-4 year old leased prices with a trade-in (if it qualified). The same kinds of harsh economics will be at play in telecom. Luckily, wireless is evolving into an unlimited model so they will last alot longer. However, POTS and cable-tv as it stands will be the losers in this next round of evolution and the more companies try to hold onto that old way of doing business, workers are the first, but not the last to feel the pain of loss in those profits.
Unions need to be transitioning from products that consume energy to those that produce energy: solar panels, self-contained home eletricity production (hydrogen units), battery technology, hybrid energy producing power plants, wind turbines, etc. We know the world is still addicted to OIL, if they do this NOW, the USA could get a jump-start on the rest of the world because we can prove these technologies work on a massive scale. In later years, it will be countries such as china which end up making them cost effective enough for the world to ditch oil.. but the innovation must be pioneered in the USA, for the USA interests. Then, the other sectors of the economy are able to resume past growth trends. Without regaining energy price stability-- everything else is subject to price manipulation & profiteering. Even the areas where unions are still strong (civil service jobs) are put at risk without helping to solve energy stability. |
