Corporation Rant

[Hired Goon]

Been a while since I posted a new thread here. Maybe this is more of a discussion (time will tell) but for now it's just a rant.

I work as a full time in IT for a large multi-national corporation (won't say who just in case). This week another senior leader got laid off/made redundant/restructured or however you can put it. Since I have been working with this company, it seems more people have been fired than hired on a permanent basis (especially senior people). However, the company has poured millions of dollars into consulting services, and will continue to do so, which totally offsets any financial benefit achieved by firing a permanent employee.

My bitch is that it seems more and more organizational restructuring is taking place only for the reason of being seen to do something. Anything "off the radar", so to speak is total free reign. So on one hand you have good people being fired for the BS reason of "efficiency", and on the other they are pouring money down the consulting hole like there's no tomorrow! It is certainly hard to take at times...

Further to that, I think the more you look at the evidence, making a crapload of money between 25-40 years old is becoming the way to do it. Restructuring in large corporations seems to be a 2-3 year cycle and if you're in a support function (IT, Finance etc), it seems that it will happen to you sooner or later. If it happens when you're 45, finding another job is going to be more difficult. I think this is unhealthy for companies and society in general. But that's the way things are shaping up, and sadly I think that it's either get on board or get dumped in the shiezer.

That's my company rant. feel free to contribute your opinion/experiences.

[dozer]

i do the same thing but luckily im on the consulting side and enjoying the frivilousness of multinationals.

i think they enjoy contractors because they are easier to sack and cheaper than permanent staff. even though i get paid more than the permie they dont pay all that tax, health benefit, pension etc so it makes sense.

the way i look at it now is that you have to be responsible for yourself with educating, setting up your own pension and healthcare, while the meantime just ride the wave of contracts and try to swim to the top like all the other fish in the shoal.

[Aardvark]

The thing about corporate IT is this. The IT people know something. They sit around, waiting for the users to pull apart their beautiful network so they can fix it again, at the same time, hearing all sorts of tidbits and snippets of people's conversations, either while repairing the switch that had coffee poured over it the fourth time this month or while scanning the company email for porn, and they learn things. Management have this odd thing whereby they don't trust anyone who has more power than them. Thusly, they see IT as a threat. So they try and get rid fo them, wit no real thought for the consequences. Consequently, outside consultants are required to keep the place running, which means less profits overall, but no one'll point the finger where it belongs, which is mismanagement, and they'll just keep shedding staff to try and balance things.

That is why corporate whereveryoufeelikeit will not work and will eventually die in the arse and be taken over by a more successful company, which will then contract the cantankerous rot of management and fall thusly

[Hired Goon]

yeah dozer, exactly. I'm starting to see that being a FTE is for suckers. all you get is superannuation which is a total crock of shit anyway.

Average contract rates are 2-5 times more than permanent salaries. When the government complains about out of control spending and debt levels maybe they should consider making full time employment more beneficial.

And to Aarvark's point: I think it is more about liquiduity of support functions than fear of IT having power. The first thing to go when results are poor is funding for IT projects. I think across the board management feel threatened by anybody who has knowledge, but this is not isolated to IT. IT (and other support functions) are an easy target for management to claim that they have streamlined the operation and are more efficient. However, when looking at the actual cost (as opposed to the presentation detailing cost effiencies), in a lot of cases it would be higher, and that is what sucks.

[dozer]

contracts seem to be the way to go money wise. theres lots of tax benefits for running your own company.if you get a good out clause also you can change jobs weekly without a problem.

full time doesnt really guarantee you anything anyway, look at all these pension places that go bankrupt and peole get nothing, all permanent does is ensure you get some kind of redundancy payment when the axe falls, ive been made redundant twice.

[djgcorporation]

don't fuck with corporations