re: Alcatel-Lucent Job Cull Hits 12,500Here's a company that was actually doing well. They survived the meltdown. Not a whole lot of layoffs (even though they could have used a few in job-for-life France HQ). Now they've got the East Germany of the comms world to deal with. 7 years of layoffs and Lucent is still a bag of crap.
re: Alcatel-Lucent Job Cull Hits 12,500Boeing counts as East Coast, and seems they are still sticking it to Airbus, in spite of every advantage EU can throw their way on the one hand and still talk about free trade on the other.
HP: Carly and Patty are out, but agree the BOD (except for Perkins who very publicly quit) are still a bunch of hacks. HP is gone baby gone, except in name.
So your thesis is more or less Radon from bricks (East coast) or Mercury vapors from cement (West coast)?
re: Alcatel-Lucent Job Cull Hits 12,500"The East Coast culture seems to be much more political and focussed on appearances."
Are you serious? I've worked for two companies with east and west coast operations. Both times it was the west coast playing politics while the east coast was just trying to get stuff done. Not that blame can't be shared.
Then you have Nortel with the Ottowans coming down in their brilliance telling one of the two true founding companies of routing how to do IP... Now there's politics and appearances for you.
"The Lucent crowd in particular was extremely political." True, but the origins of the company was old-school, government Bellcore. MITRE is similar, and I'm sure the government labs and defense contractors on the west coast are similar.
re: Alcatel-Lucent Job Cull Hits 12,500I've wondered exactly the same thing. I think the answer lies in the West Coast being "newer" and away from Washington, perhaps?
The East Coast culture seems to be much more political and focussed on appearances. The Lucent crowd in particular was extremely political.
The West Coast has a lower tolerance for these shenanigans.
Just curious: what is it about the East coast that tolerates (and I mean long term) completely crap management at former industrial icons like Corning, Kodak, Lucent, etc? Old blood, old school, old boy networks? Radon out gassing from brick buildings? ____________________________________________________ Why,
Like Scott said "maybe itGÇÖs the weather" on the east coast that freezes everything including blood/brain and by the time it thaws it is winter again. :-)
re: Alcatel-Lucent Job Cull Hits 12,500Are the bulk of the cuts coming from USA?
You bet your sweet bippy the cuts are coming from the USA. Do you know how hard (impossible) it is to layoff someone in Europe who has worked for the company longer than six months?
re: Alcatel-Lucent Job Cull Hits 12,500I guess the major cut will be coming from USA (high cost..), China (too many people?..), but not Europe.
It is said Alcatel-France is preparing for the strike even when they heard there will be a 1000-2000 people cut. Maybe it is a rumor, but it is implying something..
re: Alcatel-Lucent Job Cull Hits 12,500"Clearly a reaction to a bad quarter, they respond by cutting more jobs over a three year time frame?" Genius!
"If too many employees is the real problem (not bad management), isn't that admitting that they'll have 12 more bad quarters until the problem is fixed?" Priceless...
"Obviously it's not the real problem. It's just the only solution they can figure out. So every bad quarter, cut, cut, cut." Brilliant!
So when will ACLU ooops! I mean ALU resort to cutting those pension payouts???
Is the paid evenly spread, or are some products are being affected the most?