Conference 7.286::digital

    >the company would agree to pay double TFSO if they HAD to downsize you

    	Double what their paying now for a package don't amount to enough 
    for a good party.

    Joe

    My manager only 2 weeks ago told me I was totally "safe" for FY95.
    Then they canned 60% of the salesforce, without branch/unit mgr
    input.
    
    Package for 8 yrs: 4 weeks further employment, 6 weeks TFSO + vacation.
    
    What a ******* deal!
    
    But the payments go back to 100% salary. 
    
    "I pity the fool" who stays!

re: .0

>						And we need every last
>    remaining employee spending 150% of their energy on getting that job
>    done.

Please keep in mind that this opinion is not shared by the SLT. Continuing
plans to downsize indicate the opposite.

    
    Unfortunately, signing binding agreements to pay full salary to 
    10's of thousands of people would be viewed rather dimly by the 
    investment community. In fact, it probably would border on negligence to 
    a senior officer's fiduciary responsibility. 
    
    Wall Street likes to see progressive, incremental improvement - not
    dare-devil plays with their money. I personally think DEC will pull
    through, though it won't be with dramatic steps like this. I think
    Palmer's comment in the DVN "...the only person who can insure your 
    job are your customers..." is a more realistic model for us.
    
    /ljj
    

    so tell me -1, what number do we give to the customer's working on
    deals with Salespeople that just got whacked to complete their deal?
    
    P.S. do think that a customer would want to call again if the company
         he selected to do business with yanked the person taking the
    	 order?  
    
    The problem I see here is that EVERYONE in a management role (at least
    the ones I've dealt with in the not to distant past) think that WE ARE
    STUPID AND CAN'T SEE WHAT GAMES ARE BEING PLAYED!
    
    
    Parrot_trooper

    re: -1:  Not to downplay the issue you present, because it is 
    certainly valid, but don't you think, really, that our customers are 
    used to this by now?  Even before we had these massive TFSO's and the 
    fast-running waters of attrition, many of our sales reps swapped accounts 
    and territories often enough to keep our customers on their toes.
    
    This is not something new for our customers, it is simply happening
    all too often now.
    
    M.

    
    	Actually our customers don't really care about our internal
    "problems". Most of them have, or are, downsizing themselves. If they
    like VMS, they continue to purchase; if they are UNIX-oriented, they
    find OSF/1 "interesting" and "getting more robust"; if they are PC-
    centric, they like our quality and the "prices aren't bad".
    	Fact is we can probably survive quite nicely with 50,000 employees.
    
    	The hardest part is our acknowledgement (or lack of it) that we are
    a mid-range computer company; and the mid-range is good for about
    40-50,000 systems a year cash sales. Problem is the prices keep getting
    lower, and even if margins remain the same, you have less dollars to
    spend. It's a tough world out here, folks - so what's new?
    
    	Many manufacturing industries suffered through the 80s. 
    Now its our turn. Remember the Boy Scouts motto - BE PREPARED.
    
    		the Greyhawk 

Re .5,

>  I think Palmer's comment in the DVN "...the only person who can insure your 
>  job are your customers..." is a more realistic model for us.

WOW! now it all makes sense.  Our new focus is supposed to be on the customer,
that's it.  We focus on getting the customer really mad at Digital, why didn't
I realize that that was what Bob Palmer has been saying all along.  If Bob
can't guarantee anyone a job, and he does his best to chase away the only ones,
ie the customers, that could, then we're all out of a job.  Then Bob can go 
into realty and make big bucks selling off Digital property.  Boy, what a 
relief.  For a minute there I thought Bob had no plan at all. :-)

Rob

    re:.9
    > I think Palmer's comment in the DVN "...the only person who can insure your
    > job are your customers..." is a more realistic model for us.
     
    No, you misunderstood him.  He meant,
    
    "You're supposed to leave Digital and get a job working for the company
    that used to be your customer."