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• Newsday, courtesy of Physicians for a National Health Program: Health care: The best won't be the easiest. By Saul Friedman. Excerpts: As we’ve discussed, “Medicare for All” may seem the simplest and most logical path to universal health care. But the nation’s conservative traditions and the entrenched multizillion-dollar for-profit health care establishment will be formidable obstacles on that path.

  It took 20 years of political struggle to get Medicare, and it passed only because an overwhelmingly elected Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, had veto-proof majorities in both houses of Congress. Such one-party control is not the case now, nor will it be after 2008, unless there is a political earthquake.

  Thus, any proposal for universal health care will have to reckon with the combined power of the nation’s richest and most powerful lobbies - the insurance industry and drug manufacturers, as well as medical professionals who make out well in the current system. People are easily fooled by misleading ads. Remember the insurance lobby’s “Harry and Louise”?

  My mail shows that while most Americans say they favor publicly supported universal health care and social insurance, including Medicare and Social Security, a vocal minority strongly believes that would lead to socialism or worse. The minority will be aided by a network of right-wing think tanks that never supported Medicare but helped kill the Clinton plan in 1994. [...]

  President George W. Bush, who opposes government involvement in health care, says universal coverage should be provided only by private insurers. Under his recent proposal, government would grant people more tax incentives - greater deductions - to buy health insurance, perhaps through their employers.

  But many of the 45 million workers who are uninsured don’t pay enough taxes to benefit from any deductions. Many cannot afford insurance for themselves and their families, and others can’t qualify because of adverse medical histories.

  While the president opposes government health insurance for others, he and his immediate family, including his mother and father, have benefited most of their lives from government-supplied, taxpayer supported health insurance. And they’ll never be without that coverage. They (as well as Vice President Dick Cheney and members of Congress) earned it with government service. If government coverage is good enough for them, what about the rest of us?

• AlterNet, courtesy of Physicians for a National Health Program: Controversial Michael Moore Flick "Sicko" Will Compare U.S. Health Care with Cuba's. To state that controversy and Michael Moore go hand and hand is to utter the obvious, and Moore’s latest film Sicko will clearly be no exception.

  Sicko, which will be premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in May, is a comic broadside against the state of American health care, including the mental health system. The film targets drug companies and the HMOS in the richest country in the world — where the most money is spent on health care, but where the U.S. ranks 21st in life expectancy among the 30 most developed nations, obviously in part due to the fact that 47 million people are without health insurance.

  The timing of Moore’s film is propitious. Twenty-two percent of Americans say that health care is the most pressing issue in America. Health care will clearly be a major issue in the upcoming presidential campaign, as the problems with America’s health care system have mushroomed during the Bush administration. For example, between 2001 and 2005 the number of people without health insurance rose 16.6 percent. The average health insurance premiums for a family of four are $10,880, which exceeds the annual gross income of $10,712 for a full-time, minimum-wage worker. In addition, the lack of insurance causes 18,000 excess deaths a year while people without health insurance have 25 percent higher mortality rates. Fifty-nine percent of uninsured people with chronic conditions such as asthma or diabetes skip medicine or go without care. [...]

  America’s second-class health care system. Clearly one of the themes of Moore’s films, highlighted by the trip to Cuba, is to challenge the myth that the U.S. has superior health care when compared with other countries. In a recent AlterNet article, attorney Guy Saperstein explained.

  “The World Health Organization ranks health care systems based on objective measures of medical outcomes: The United States’ health care system currently ranks 37th in the world, behind Colombia and Portugal; the United States ranks 44th in the world in infant mortality, behind many impoverished Latin American countries. While infant mortality in the United States is skewed toward poor people, who have rates double the wealthy, the top quintile of the U.S. population has infant mortality rates higher than Canadians in the lowest quintile of wealth.

  “The United States has fewer physicians, nurses and hospital beds than most developed nations. In the United States, 28 percent say it is “difficult to get care”; in most European countries, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, 15 percent say that. In terms of continuity of care (i.e., five-plus years with the same doctor), the United States is the worst of all developed nations. By every objective measure, the United States has a second-rate health care system.”

• Reuters: Posing as pals, drug reps sway doctors' choices. By Julie Steenhuysen. Excerpts: Their study, which appears in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine, details the elaborate methods used by drug company sales representatives to make friends and influence drug sales.

  Reps scour a doctor's office for objects -- a tennis racquet, Russian novels, '70s rock music, fashion magazines, travel mementos or cultural or religious symbols -- that can be used to establish a personal connection with the doctor," Fugh-Berman and Ahari wrote.

  "A friendly physician makes the rep's job easy because the rep can use the 'friendship' to request favors, in the form of prescriptions.

  "The remarkable thing is how effective a very brief visit by a drug representative -- most often less than five minutes -- can be in influencing physicians' choices to use a drug for an unapproved indication," Dr. Michael Steinman of the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center said in a statement. Besides free drug samples, salespeople often bring gifts, lunch for the doctor or office staff, new pens and coffee mugs. "The doctor feels subtly, even subconsciously, indebted to the representative," Steinman said.

• American Prospect, courtesy of California Nurses Association: The Health of Nations - Here's how Canada, France, Britain, Germany, and our own Veterans Health Administration manage to cover everybody at less cost and with better care than we do. By Ezra Klein. Excerpts: Medicine may be hard, but health insurance is simple. The rest of the world's industrialized nations have already figured it out, and done so without leaving 45 million of their countrymen uninsured and 16 million or so underinsured, and without letting costs spiral into the stratosphere and severely threaten their national economies.

  Even better, these successes are not secret, and the mechanisms not unknown. Ask health researchers what should be done, and they will sigh and suggest something akin to what France or Germany does. Ask them what they think can be done, and their desperation to evade the opposition of the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry and conservatives and manufacturers and all the rest will leave them stammering out buzzwords and workarounds, regional purchasing alliances and health savings accounts. The subject's famed complexity is a function of the forces protecting the status quo, not the issue itself.

  So let us, in these pages, shut out the political world for a moment, cease worrying about what Aetna, Pfizer, and Grover Norquist will say or do, and ask, simply: What should be done? To help answer that question, we will examine the best health- care systems in the world: those of Canada, France, Great Britain, Germany, and the U.S. Veterans Health Administration (VHA), whose inclusion I'll justify shortly. {...]

  Oh, Canada! As described by the American press, Canada's health-care system takes the form of one long queue. The line begins on the westernmost edge of Vancouver, stretches all the way to Ottawa, and the overflow are encouraged to wait in Port Huron, Michigan, while sneering at the boorish habits of Americans. Nobody gets to sit.

  Sadly for those invested in this odd knock against the Canadian system, the wait times are largely hype. A 2003 study found that the median wait time for elective surgeries in Canada was a little more than four weeks, while diagnostic tests took about three (with no wait times to speak of for emergency surgeries). By contrast, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data from 2001 found that 32 percent of American patients waited more than a month for elective surgery, and 5 percent waited more than four months. That, of course, doesn't count the millions of Americans who never seek surgery, or even the basic care necessary for a diagnosis, because they lack health coverage. If you can't see a doctor in the first place, you never have to wait for treatment.

  Canada's is a single-payer, rather than a socialized, system. That means the government is the primary purchaser of services, but the providers themselves are private. (In a socialized system, the physicians, nurses, and so forth are employed by the government.) The virtue of both the single-payer and the socialized systems, as compared with a largely private system, is that the government can wield its market share to bargain down prices -- which, in all of our model systems, including the VHA, it does.

  A particularly high-profile example of how this works is Canadian drug reimportation. The drugs being bought in Canada and smuggled over the border by hordes of lawbreaking American seniors are the very same pharmaceuticals, made in the very same factories, that we buy domestically. The Canadian provinces, however, bargain down the prices (Medicare is barred from doing the same) until we pay 60 percent more than they do.

New on the Alliance@IBM Site:

• From the Job Cuts Status & Comments page
  • Comment 04/20/07: Well here is what I have experienced so far. I work for IGS in a tech support role. Recently all managers met in Boulder on the LEAN initiative. Several announcements were made upon their return. Folks will travel to Boulder, Raleigh etc (Competency Centers or CC), for training. We will not be dedicated to any one account and that we will be pooled.

    Expenses for travel for LEAN will not be an issue. While my manager was in Boulder, he asked me if I was interested in a local position in my area (on site with a customer). I said I would be. Then a few days later he said he was told to hold off until Phase 4 of LEAN. I also found a job online for a Duty Manager.

    When I spoke to the hiring manager, he asked me if I was near a CC. I said I was 15 miles from an IBM location. According to him, the nearest CC is in Atlanta and that I would have to relocate. Yesterday in a team meeting our manager emphasized the importance in acquiring other skills. "You don't have a choice, If you don't cross train it will impact your position."

  • Comment 04/20/07: I was talking to my first line manager. He informed me that there will be cuts up to 40% in SSO. I am thinking IBM is crazy for doing this. I have been working on the VMware Governance board and hope this will enable me to keep my job with IBM. Good luck everyone and keep your head up. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 04/20/07: If you work in service delivery in Raleigh, Poughkeepsie/Southbury, or Boulder, you're in scope for LEAN. 30% of you will be losing your jobs. 30% minimum; many groups are being cut much more. Anonymous 4/19 is right: if there are subks doing the same job as you, that is NO protection.

    First lines have been told the rules are no more, and regulars can and should be cut right alongside subks. If you're in account management in these areas, you get to explain this stuff to your customers. In particular, LEAN means that if the customer is paying for 97.5% server availability, 97.5% is what they get, not the 99.9%+ they have been getting. If they want 99.9%, they have to give us more money. Funny as hell.

    Someone asked Diane Digglemann "Aren't customer reference-ability and what we have to do for LEAN *polar opposites?*" She didn't deny it, and said (if you can believe it) "it's a balance." Yeah, it's a balance between walking to the right and walking to the left. Thanks for the advice, eh? -TickedoffFirstline-

  • Comment 04/20/07: About 320 LEAN Employees were hired last month at IBM East Fishkill NY. People from all diverse backgrounds getting minimal compensation and no real benefit package. Their HR mission to be cross trained and to take your job. What a way to say:"You did good but you could of done better" This could be the makings for an annual IBM country western song .. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 04/21/07: Just heard that a couple of people on my account are being sent to Colorado as part of this wave, but no other details yet. Our customer is supposed to find out about LEAN next week, so I expect there will be more people affected. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 04/21/07: With regards to what will be happening starting in May, has anyone been part of a VISION 2008 presentation. It was given by IBM in INDIA to a select few. Target is 120,000 IBM INDIA employees by mid-2008. At that point with US redundancies, IBM INDIA will be the largest block with CHINA second. *** For all of you GTS/GBS folks that feel secure, can you spell acquire SATYAM. *** -no_ky-
  • Comment 04/22/07: I was cruising the bookstore today and found 2 new books on LEAN. I looked at the explanation of LEAN in Chapter 1 of "LEAN for Dummies" and found the 6th point to be : Respect for employees. Looks like we may have blown it already.... -any mouse-
  • Comment 04/23/07: If you work in IGS in United States it sounds like LEAN is headed your way. News we have here is that "Wave 3" has been expanded from about 100 accounts to 600 accounts. Does anybody know how many SO accounts IBM has in the US? -Anonymous-
  • Comment 04/23/07: I cut my own job; I'm outta there. IBM is just a dot in the rearview mirror and the pedal is to the floor! -Communist-
  • Comment 04/24/07: Rumors of big cuts in Roch, May 3rd. ( In the lab and mfg. ) ...iSeries sales in the ditch, 1Q. Anyone hearing the same cut rumors?? -Sick Of It-
  • Comment 04/24/07: As I was just walking down the corridor I overheard our plant exec saying "They are still weighing up numbers for the layoffs in Roch" I wonder when Its going to happen over our side? -IrelandIBMer-
  • Comment 04/24/07: I have been working on the LEAN project for a year now and laying off a lot of people. This is not good for anyone working at IBM. NG MAN -NG MAN-
  • Comment 04/24/07: I hope IBM lays off a lot of employees. The scope of the company is too big for success. One Life to Live -Anonymous-
  • Comment 04/24/07: You know when a company is in big trouble when the IBM CO is urging its share holders to vote on a proxy to vote for a decision to sell its own company. Sort of cutting off your arm that feeds our own face -Save our ship-
  • Comment 04/24/07: Msg from TickedoffFirstline- seems pretty accurate. Dug up some documentation in dbs I administer and looks like big cuts in Strategic Outsourcing/ITD organization and others over the next 3-4 weeks with a off payroll date around 6/1/07. One 200 page presentation says up to 12,000 ppl in next 10-18 months (not sure what divisions are affected). Been 'pre-notified' to find something quickly, if possible. Not really interested. This company sux. -NCDBGUY -lean_victim-
  • Comment 04/24/07: Some answers: Rochester Mfg has few "employees" other than people and project management - the people working the line are minimal skill supplementals, regulars were already taken out in a prior layoff. Roch also makes pSeries, but that won't stop 'em from hacking.

    Development Lab has already made cuts, mainly of vendors, but there are a lot of people looking for jobs that don't exist and there will be more.

    SO accounts in the US are slightly more than 600 - there are only a few exceptions to LEAN and they are approved at the Moffat level.

    The 120K in India is insane - India is already running out of skilled people, the rest are largely unskilled and inexperienced with a university degree that isn't worth the paper it's printed on. To get the skilled ones, IBM will have to pay dearly, thus losing much of the reason for going there.

    As for the 04/24/07 Anonymous post, the real problem with the company is not size - it's structure of 10 layers of interlocking matrix management. Flatten the organization, dump the matrix and empower the employees and you'll see an amazing turnaround. -Anonymous-

  • Comment 04/25/07: We were just told that LEAN was going to affect some people in POK in the server tower and they would be "leaned" over to a building at the Fishkill site. IBM is not even telling the customer about this. Our management told us that things would break and we had to let it break....good way to run a business. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 04/25/07: Folks, laid off sometime ago, have a job with a smaller company. I make more money then I ever made at IBM, and am appreciated for everything I do...you need to get out, IBM no longer cares about you, the american people that made this american company what it is today - they turned their back on you, do the same...the grass is much greener out there. -Ex-ibmer-
  • Comment 04/26/07: I just spoke with my first line manager from Southbury and he informed me that 30 percent cuts are coming on May 4th. They are calling it BLACK FRIDAY. Good luck everyone. -LABBIE_Lady-
  • Comment 04/26/07: Comment 04/25/07: I am reading astonishing things here about massive numbers of hires in India and probably similar layoffs in US. Meanwhile today IBM stock reached a new 52 week high. Is there any correlation? Or cause and effect? -Chaingang-

    To take the pressure off themselves, the Board of Directors vote to increase the dividend. This makes everything look wonderful to Wall Street, hence the increase in stock price. They also use money that should be going to the employees in raises to buy back stock. This inflates the earnings to share ratio, which also pleases Wall Street. Unfortunately, this is all financial engineering and someday soon the house of cards will tumble and fall. That's the real shame of it all. -Anonymous-

  • Comment 04/27/07: been hearing rumors of a black friday in ROCH, too. May4th,,,, the lab rats, mfg floor folks and ME support targeted << -what happened to us-
  • Comment 04/27/07: Well, I know 1,000 contractors will be released on May 1st. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 04/27/07: The LEAN program really works; but it's a shame that IBM is going to lay off 50 percent of SSO this year. I hate being a first line manager right now. -NG_MAN-
  • Comment 04/27/07: Our entire team in Rochester has been called into a meeting with our manager, on very short notice (Fri 4/27). It must be a resource action. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 04/27/07: I am headed off to training tomorrow for lean. They want to 'empty our brains' into a database so they can lay us off and give the info to our curry eating friends across the sea. -offfortraining-
  • Comment 04/27/07: Our manager has told us that he is also being layed off due to lean. He has over 20 years service with IBM. He is trying to stay upbeat about everything, but it is tough. He has said 'unofficially' that folks better start polishing their resumes. *hint*hint* -losingajobsoon-
  • Comment 04/27/07: This whole lean thing is a joke. Most everyone in the dept is headed out to Boulder for training. We have been told that the days will be long and hard. They are also shortening the training down from 5 weeks to 3 weeks to save money. -23yearswithibm-
  • Comment 04/27/07: 2nd line said that 40% of SWG in RTP will be let go on 5/4/07 as a part of LEAN. Same 2nd line said that there will be rolling layoffs through the year and that only 10% of RTP SWG would be left by end of 2007 due to LEAN. -RTP Guy-
  • Comment 04/27/07: Those asking what the Alliance can do about job cuts must first understand that the Alliance is fighting to get collective bargaining rights with IBM. What does this mean in regards to job cuts? Take a look at what a union contract says at this resource page: http://www.allianceibm.org/professworkerunions.htm -unionyes-
• From the General Visitor's Comment page:
  • Comment 04/23/07: RE: Comment 04/16/07: "Anybody know what IBM does these days for employees making 25 years? -Anonymous- " A quarter Century T-shirt with a target on the back. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 04/23/07: > So, our results were good. But we should have done better.< Dear Sam, I'm glad you use the word "we". This is a team effort to get IBM back on the right track. Let's make a joint effort and turn in our bonuses given this year to help the company. I'll return my $547 variable bonus and would like to see you do the same with your $5,800,000 bonus. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 04/26/07: Let's be honest here. We are losing our jobs and unless somebody comes up with a solution, IBM, at least the IGS division, will no longer exist. I see a lot of finger pointing and belly-aching but what I don't see are any solutions to the problem.

    LEAN is just a tool and a tool that is being exploited by IBM management. It's ironic don't you think? LEAN should be used to cut management to the bone, and not as an excuse to cut already over-worked and under paid support people. I have worked my way up from the bottom (support) and I am always amazed at how little is understood about day-to-day support by IBM/IGS management. That's the real crime here.

    How can you sell a customer account, for example, something like 11 FTE, then only put 2 support people on the account, with no backup and expect flawless support? At the same time those 2 support people are probably working on 2 or 3 other accounts. Where the heck is the money going? Most support people are working their collective a__es off and are exhausted.

    Support is NOT the problem. Support is NOT overpaid and lazy. They lack proper training, not proper skills. Don't you think that charging a customer for FTE that they are NOT getting is illegal? IF I knew how employees could buy IGS and have it managed by technical/support types, who understood the product, which is support labor, I would jump on that ship in a heartbeat. BTW, what is the Alliance solution to this? -What's_The_Solution-

• Pension Comments page
• Raise and Salary Comments
  • Comment 04/16/07: Here's an update, with Band 4 added:
    • Band 4: 9 respondents, avg: $44K, standard deviation: $11K, range (min/max): $32K to $60K
    • Band 6: 19 respondents, avg: $64K, std dev: $7K, range: $53K to $78.5K
    • Band 7: 33 respondents, avg: $73K, std dev: $13K, range: $57K to $110K
    • Band 8: 35 respondents, avg: $98K, std dev: $16K, range: $60K to $130K
    • Band 9: 19 respondents, avg: $119K, std dev: $17K, range: $90K to $152K
    • Band 10: 11 respondents, avg: $146K, std dev: $26K, range: $107K to $190K -Anonymous-
  • Comment 04/16/07: Salary = 89k; Band Level = 7; Job Title = IT Specialist; Years Service = 6; Message = Can we get some salary postings from IBM competitors such as HP, Dell, or Cisco? If I had hard numbers on how much I am underpaid (if I am at all), I might be motivated to start looking for work elsewhere. Please include years of service, bonus, information, current job role, location, etc. if possible. Thanks! -Anonymous-
  • Comment 04/19/07: Salary =$105,000; Band Level = 9S; Job Title = Project Manager; Years Service = 10; Hours/Week = 45 Div Name = 07 Message = None -OnChoppingBlock-
  • Comment 04/20/07: There are two kinds of raises this year: market adjustments (if you're below the market reference %) and top performer bonuses. If you are in job family 24 or job family 09... in other words, if you're pretty much anywhere in IT delivery... there will be *NO* market adjustments for you. You can be at 50% below the market reference percentage; it won't matter. No market adjustment raise for you. Top performer bonuses will be limited to people who got a PBC 1 and a few people who got 2+. -TickedoffFirstline-
  • Comment 04/21/07: Salary = $87,000 + ever decreasing bonus; Band Level = 7; Job Title = IT Specialist; Years Service = 5, 13 years experience before joining; Hours/Week = Varies from 40 - 80; Div Name = 07; Location = Texas; Message = No raises for 3 years, although I've been a 1 or 2+ the entire time. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 04/21/07: Salary = 60k/year; Band Level = 7; Job Title = SDM/DPE/PM; Years Service = 8; Hours/Week = 45; Location = NYC; Message = 1998 salary of $36k as band 4 current salary of $59k as band 7. Only making $13/month over minimum market range for my job. I've been getting promotions in regards to band but my pay has not kept up at all. -8 year IBM Vet-
  • Comment 04/21/07: Salary = 45,000; Band Level = 4; Job Title = State Delivery Coordinator; Years Service = .25; Hours/Week = 40; Div Name = After Sales / Logistics; Location = Queensland, Australia Message = no message -Ian-
  • Comment 04/21/07: Salary = 110K; Band Level = 8; Job Title = Adv S/W Eng; Years Service = 6; Message =
    • 2001 Salary 60K (new college hire), 2001 Bonus 0K
    • 2002 Salary 60K, 2002 Bonus 4500
    • 2003 Salary 70K, 2003 Bonus 8500
    • 2004 Salary 85K, 2004 Bonus 2000
    • 2005 Salary 90K, 2005 Bonus 5000
    • 2006 Salary 100K, 2006 Bonus 10000
    • 2007 Salary 110K, 2007 Bonus 5000

    It is unbelievable how IBM treats the hardworking veteran employees. When you get older, there is no raise, have to put in more hours, and have horrible benefits (if any). I am going to look for a way out because there is no future at IBM. -Bit Flipper-

  • Comment 04/24/07: "Message = 1998 salary of $36k as band 4 current salary of $59k as band 7. Only making $13/month over minimum market range for my job. I've been getting promotions in regards to band but my pay has not kept up at all. -8 year IBM Vet- " The reason they move you up in band and basically freeze your salary is that the higher you are in band and the less you get paid, the more profit your management makes off you. You are probably way under paid vis a vis the market but are billing at full value to the market. In other words, you're being played out and once you are used up they'll drop you like a broken wrench or laptop. -IGS Old Hand-
  • Comment 04/25/07: Is BitFlipper legit? College hire, nearly doubles income in six years and makes $110k a year??? and then complains! -bitsandbytes-
  • Comment 04/25/07: >> It is unbelievable how IBM treats the hardworking veteran employees. When you get older, there is no raise, have to put in more hours, and have horrible benefits (if any). I am going to look for a way out because there is no future at IBM. <<

    Dear -Bit Flipper-: Your pay is a perfect example. You were hired 24 years after I was. Yet after only 2 years you were exceeding my salary. Oh yeah - I also had a MS in Computer Engineering. I was dumped in 2005 after having basically no raise in those two intervening years. Last year you got a 10% bonus (guess what most people got). Now look at what you're making - six figures - and you're complaining on how IBM might treat you in the future? Looks like you're living the good life now. If only everyone were as lucky as you. Count your blessings. -Downsized&Bitter-

  • Comment 04/25/07: I think bitflipper is exaggerating. Does his salary history ring true to anybody else? -flipped-
  • Comment 04/26/07: A number of very talented and key people I work with are leaving IGS for positions at other companies. They are raking in salary increases of up to 30 - 60% in base salary and more if you include bonus and stock options ... which are their NEW companies are actually worth serious bucks if things go well. IBM's strategy of holding back on increases and bonus $$$ may be coming to an end. I predict more suffering for the account brass as turnover increases and those left behind realize that IBM's compensation is not anywhere close to market value for the effort and long hours IBM expects. Dust off those resumes folks the times they are a changing --- companies are hiring techies, and paying well! -Anonymous-
• PBC Comments
  • Comment 04/19/07: Prior Yr PBC = 2+; This Yr PBC = 2+; This Yr Bonus = 2050; Prior Yr Bonus = 3408; Message = IBM's higher earnings were trumpeted to validate the business model. Maybe for my PBCs this year I'll commit to emigrate to the 3rd world -Joe Hill-
  • Comment 04/24/07: Prior Yr PBC = 2; This Yr PBC = 3; This Yr Bonus = 0; Prior Yr Bonus = 2.5K; Message = Has anyone who receive a 3 been able to change jobs. I was new in this job and received a 3. I find jobs and interview, but am blocked from getting the job. I know the mgr wants to hire me. I have skills they need, need but not in my current job. 28 year employee and never receive "non performing rating" -skiprock-
  • Comment 04/24/07: Prior Yr PBC = 2 ; This Yr PBC = 3; This Yr Bonus = 0; Prior Yr Bonus = 0; Message = In my case, it doesn't matter what my PBC rating is. My bonus will always be $0. My manager told me that. By the way, my department doesn't give a "1" rating either. They tell all the employees that. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 04/25/07: Prior Yr PBC = 2; This Yr PBC = 3; This Yr Bonus = 0; Prior Yr Bonus = 2%; Message = "Has anyone who receive a 3 been able to change jobs. I was new in this job and received a 3. I find jobs and interview, but am blocked from getting the job. I know the mgr wants to hire me. I have skills they need, need but not in my current job. 28year employee and never receive "non performing rating" Skiprock, with a "3" you are screwed. See you on the unemployment line. All the best. -I'm a 3 too-
  • Comment 04/25/07: Prior Yr PBC = 2; This Yr PBC = 2 ; This Yr Bonus = 2.2%; Prior Yr Bonus = 3%; Message = PBC has become an exercise in 'cut n paste'. Corporate, business unit, and on down the food chain dictate our PBC's then we cut and paste them into the PBC tool. Performance bonus system is a joke, IBM made a "bazillion" dollars last year but because we didn't make our target, a "bazillion" and one dollars, IBM pleads poverty. I used to be proud to be called an IBMer. Now I'm called a "practitioner"! Sucks. -lonestarmatt-
  • Comment 04/26/07: I think once you have that 3 there is no way your going to be able to move since new manager wont be able to bring you on board with an outstanding 3. If you think its unjust you can appeal but good luck I met or exceeded all objectives and was given a 3 and the explanation on PBC provided no justification or reason just good luck in new job. Appeal process is a scam. I was lucky to move before the 3 got pasted on me but what's more amazing is that after 25 years of top performance appraisals and promotions all of a sudden I am also now 3. So need to get that 3 off our backs so ya can change jobs next year, assuming there are jobs to change too -to skiprock-
  • Comment 04/27/07: The PBC review / appeal process is a complete fraud. HR tells you it is fair and unbiased, but it is really nothing more than a cold war style secret tribunal. There is no record of the issues. You will not be told anything. No feedback whatsoever.. What makes this system corrupt is there are no records kept, you cannot refute conflicting testimony, and even if your position is supported, HR can lie and say you lost. The process is not open.. The process is not fair.. The goal of the whole process is appearances. IBM wants to *appear* to be helping their employees and avoid expensive lawsuits.. period.. -PBC review is a fraud-
  • Comment 04/27/07: Prior Yr PBC = 1; This Yr PBC = 1; This Yr Bonus = $5000; Prior Yr Bonus = $4000; Message = I'm tired of hearing all of the poor performers wine about getting the 2 and 3 that they deserve for poor performance. If you spent more time doing your job instead of wining about how bad you perceive it to be, you would be getting 1's as well. You're paid to a do a job and IBM expects you to do that job. The days of allowing poor performers to hide in the shadows are gone. Perform your job or get out before you get managed out due to poor performance. -RTP Guy-
  • Comment 04/28/07: -RTP Guy- You are a joke. I know you.You are the guy who spends all his time talking to management about yourself and your "accomplishments". One good thing about LEAN is that now you suckasses are going to have to do some real work. -YouAreAJoke-

Vault's IBM Business Consulting Services message board is a popular hangout for IBM BCS employees, including many employees acquired from PwC.