Conference 7.286::digital

    I don't get the Times.  Could someone post the details?  Is it
    a one-day-only thing?

    The Sunday paper in Phoenix had adds for both Tempe plant and
    a facility in California.  Tempe is hiring Secretaries and 
    Calif. is hiring Software Engineers.  That is alot of hiring
    during stormy business times that calls for salary freezes,
    oh yes, and hiring freezes.  It would surprise me if the 
    Phoenix plant could not support the Tempe plant's needs.
    As for the Calif. needs -- hey any one out there want to go
    surfing on the Pacific???  Surf's up.

    re .2
    
    Why don't you call the employment recruiter at those plants, likely
    they could supply you with an answer. If not, maybe you could put in
    your $.02... 
    
    

I wouldn't be surprised if Digital was hiring in the N.Y. City area.

Digital would have to pay me at least double what I make now to be able to
afford to live there in the manner in which I am accustomed... even then,
it probably wouldn't be enough.  A friend who used to work in a NY field
office told me that it's hard to get people to go or stay there.

    I believe that the people being hired in NYC are for Sales support
    positions.

RE: .-1
	Of course, you don't think we'd hire people to bill for their time, do 
you??   :>)

Even during a hiring freeze, some external hiring will continue to
occur.  All it takes is for the hiring manager to justify, justify and
justify the reasons and needs for going outside the company and
push it up the management ladder until it is approved.  

Larry

I received this today in the mail: You can interpret its relationship to the
hiring freeze being officially over.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+

<Forwarding Deleted>

July 10,  PC Week

  Digital Equipment Corp. is poised to eliminate the jobs of or transfer as 
many as 25,000 employees within the next year, say several industry analysts.

"Twelve to fifteen thousand people are goint to be 'separated' in the next
6 months," said Steve Wendler, a former Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) marketing
manager who now tracks the minicomputer company for the Gartner Group Inc., a
market-research firm in Stamford, Conn.  By "seperated," Wendler was referring
to a planned serverance program that would give departing employees substantial
lump-sum payments.

Another 10,000 to 15,000 employees can expect to have their jobs eliminated
by next summer, he said, if the mini-computer market remains sluggish, and
if DEC's introduction of the new midrange and hing and low-end machines don't 
pull the company from its slump.

DEC officials deny that massive staff reductions are scheduled.  However, the
company acknowledged that sweeping organizational changes initiated last month 
will reshape its 75,000-member sales and marketing divisions by next summer.

"There are no plans for layoffs," said Nikki Richardson, a spokeswoman for the
$12.7 billion computer maker, headquarted in Maynard,  Mass., which employs 
approximately 125,000 people worldwide.

But analysts predict a dramatic retrenchment. "There are going to be cutbacks 
and layoffs and early retirements," said Alvin Lynd, of Morristown, N.J., who 
tracks the minicomputer industry for a newsletter called Edge. "I wouldn't be 
suprised to see them trim 20 percent by the end of the year."

The massive seperation program would reverse DEC's "full-employment" policy that 
virtually guarantees job security.  DEC has adhered to the policy since its 
founding in 1957.

But analysts' predictions of layoffs come on the heels of a deeply disappointing 
year, in which expected growth of 17 percent was revised downward to reflect an 
increase of just 10 percent.

A lackluster market for minicomputers underlies DEC's dilemma. This is 
particulalary true for systems relying on proprietary operating systems, such as 
DEC's CVMS, said company officials and industry analysts.

"It's going to be an immensely tough year for DEC," said Gartner's Wendler.
"It's trying to layoff all these people, and it's in the middle of a massive 
migration of its product line, and it's reorganizing its entire U.S. marketing 
and sales force."

These changes would continue this summer, ananysts said, when 4,000 
manufactoring employees may be switched to sales or service.

    This may come true or it may not.  I only see analysts PREDICTIONS.
    
    

    I don't know where the people that would be leaving, would come
    from...
    
    SWS seems to always be hurting to be able to fill an assignment.
    Sales? Who can find one when you need one?? ;^)
    Field Service, err, uhh, opps - Customer Services... don't think
    so.
    Manufacturing - I don't have the foggiest.
    Engineering?  Not unless you want to bring product introduction
    to a screeching halt.
    
    -Jp

    I don't place much faith in Analyst's predictions.  I always suspect
    that they are motivated to say something attention-getting, in order to
    peddle their papers.
    
    I've never seen a formal announcement of the end of a hiring freeze.
    Apparently, the only way to know that the previous hiring freeze is
    over is to notice that the next one has started.  I asked my
    development manager about this once, and he said that hiring freezes
    don't have formal ends, it just gets easier and easier to get an
    exception.  Therefore, there is no way to answer the question "Is the
    hiring freeze over?"
        John Sauter

	The article talks about CVMS [sic]. They can't even get the name
	of our biggest software product and people are believing them about
	layoffs?? Get real.

				Alfred

    That article must have been produced after a fifteen-second glance at
    a few stock graphs, by someone who has little knowledge of our company
    or even of the industry.  It draws most of its conclusions from a few
    numbers, not from any valid analyses of the market or our products.
    
    If you pick up last weeks edition of Digital News, you find a long
    article about the pent-up demand for high-end VAX systems, and another
    one on the market share gains of our latest crop of workstations.  So
    who are we to believe here?
    
    Geoff
    

    Maybe, but it's only been two weeks since I personally heard a DEC
    VP comment that this company needs either 80,000 employees or 20
    Billion in revenue.  Same VP acknowledged that a large number of
    measures are being looked at.  
    
    Where would the cuts come from?  From manufacturing and that curse
    of all large firms which have been successful in the past -- The
    "Bloated Staff".  As a member of that bloated staff, I would roughly
    estimate that half of all such positions in the entire Corporate
    and US Headquarters could be eliminated tomorrow, followed by an
    immediate surge of productivity.
    
    Staffee........

    In Sundays Atlanta Constitution, Digital had an EMPLOYMENT AD!!!
    
    The CSC is looking for Office Automation and PC Software Support people.
    What's the deal! All the doom and gloom notes coming down from on high
    are saying we are over staffed by at least 10% (12,000 people).
    
    Surely some sort of innovative searching by personnel should be able to
    find these type of people. For example go to individual sites and
    plants with excess people and hold job fairs. 
    
    With the salary freeze and cost cutting going on this seems pretty
    frivilous.
    
    - John
    
    

	You may find this hard to believe but not everybody wants to live
	in Atlanta. Really. It's true.

	There have been job fairs in New England. Atlanta jobs are listed
	in VTX and the JOBS notes conference. But believe it or not some
	people would rather not move. Even if it means leaving the company.
	Short of ordering people to move maybe we just have to hire a few
	people who already live in areas where the jobs are. Sad but true.

	BTW, relocation isn't always cheap either.

			Alfred

	PS: Move the CSC to Orlando and I'll send in a resume. How's that
	for a deal? :-)

Just out of curiosity, why do the CSC folk have to sit in Atlanta?
With a decent phone system, is there any reason why some phone support
groups/folk can't be located in the New England area?

Martin.

    
    CSC/MA in Westboro. Manager is Anne Cinquemani. 
    
    But are you an environmental or power products support person?

    
    Not all CSC persons are in Atlanta. At this time there is a CSC in
    Atlanta, Colorado Springs and Marlboro. These take care of different
    pieces of Hardware and the various Software Products.
    
    I would suggest that you speak to your Manager and have him/her explain
    the functions of the CSCs.
    
    George
    

	RE: The last couple pointing out that there are other CSCs.

	The point is, why does someone working for the Atlanta CSC
	have to work *in* the Atlanta CSC? 

			Alfred

    re: .20---I spent a few weeks in the Colorado Springs CSC a while ago,
    so although I am not an "insider" I am not totally ignorant of
    conditions within a CSC.  There is a lot of office-to-office support in
    a CSC.  It is not uncommon to have two or even three specialists
    working a call through a speaker phone, though usually one person
    communicates with the customer while the assistants talk to the
    call handler.  Also, the CSC provides a library with lots of
    references, a laboratory for attempting to reproduce problems, and
    "backup" people who can be consulted with on difficult issues.
    
    I'm not stating this too well---I guess you have to be there to see it
    work---but specialists get a lot out of being near other specialists
    on the same or related products.
        John Sauter

    I was helping out the Atlanta CSC a few weeks ago for a week, and the
    only reason (well, maybe not the *only* but the *best* reason) to have
    a CSC in 1 place for a product set (ie, ALL-IN-1) is the support you
    get from the co-workers.  Just when you think you know a software
    product inside out, you start handling a call where the customer is
    doing something that makes very good sense to him/her but it doesn't
    work.  Yea, it should, and you wonder what planet that customer is
    native to, but you still solve the problem ... *frequently* with help
    from co-workers who are also familiar with the product, a "luxury" that
    may not be available at your "home site".
    
    Why does Atlanta have openings?  One of the big reasons is customer
    satisfaction.  A customer pays real money for the service of being able
    to call and get questions answered, and if those phone calls are not
    returned *promptly* and by someone who understands the product and is
    willing to understand this problem, then customer satisfaction turns to
    toast in a very short period of time.
    
    Before working there for a week, I had thought the CSC to be one of
    those "cushy jobs" talked about in another note in this conference. 
    (If there are really any "cushy" jobs within Digital!?)  But after
    having done it, it's not a picnic by any stretch of the imagination. In
    fact, it's rewarding (albeit that's an intangible benefit) to be able
    to increase customer satisfaction that way.
    
    fwiw
    Jon

RE: .21
    
>    I'm not stating this too well---I guess you have to be there to see it
>    work---but specialists get a lot out of being near other specialists
>    on the same or related products.

I really don't think anyone disputes the truth of this, but it's not the 
issue:

At a time when thousands of people are in the "excess" category, it seems
dysfunctional to be hiring externally for any function requiring less skills 
than brain surgery. Surely many of the people could be trained in a matter of
months to perform "PC Software Support" and would be delighted to relocate to
Atlanta in return. And please don't quote relocation expenses:
severance/early_retirement would cost more both in terms of $s and people. 

/George

    I believe that Rich Nortz is freeing up mucho bucks to do just such
    retraining for folks to move out of HPS and into SPS... 
    
    Marge
    
    HPS - Hardware Product Services 
    SPS - Software Product Services (primary delivery mechanism is CSC)

        Amazing though this may be to some people, you can't train
        someone with little or no software applications background
        overnight to have the level of expertise that's needed for
        providing the service our customers expect.
        
        Consequently, when skilled people can't be found inside DEC
        to meet the staffing needs, we hire outside.  It's not a matter
        of not relocating people -- not just any "body" can provide
        the service.
        
        Training/retraining is a way to meet *future* staffing needs,
        but it's not a way to meet current critical needs.
        
        Tom

    The current backlog of calls at the Atlanta CSC for products related
    to our favorite OA products is well known to most of the customers
    I see.  Other notes conferences related to ALL-IN-1 support
    specifically indicate that estimates for required skilled support 
    and current staff numbers assigned/available are not at all near
    each other (i.e. estimated required support after v2.3 upgrade was
    x and current headcount is somewhere around y; x being four times
    y).
    
    This isn't satisfying the customers. 
    
    oa$2centsworth_rene

    re: .-1
    
    >This isn't satisfying the customers.
    
    There's a further corollary:  unsatisfied customers soon turn into
    *former* customers.  Since SPS-type contracts happen to be some of
    our most profitable items, it is sheer madness to jeopardize that
    income by allowing the situation to continue.  I believe that we
    were caught off-guard by the amount of support required for our
    most complex products like ALL-IN-1 and MAILBUS, but the idea of
    waiting and training people from scratch won't work, because by the
    time we had the people, we wouldn't have the business ...
    
    Geoff
    

Re: The last few.

Excuse me if I'm beating this to death but: If we're talking about a 
reasonable number of people devoted to a support task, the group is made up of 
people ranging from wizards to entry level. You can't produce wizards 
from scratch in a few months but you certainly can produce entry level 
candidates who'll be useful with the help of the wizards. And in a year or so, 
some of those entry level people can become quite expert on their own. 

This has been done many times in the past - eg when Rand hired many non 
programmers to work on SAGE - with a lot of success because they were highly 
motivated. And in this case, we're talking about our own. 

/George

.27 says...
>    I believe that we
>    were caught off-guard by the amount of support required for our
>    most complex products like ALL-IN-1 and MAILBUS....
> (and so on)

Interesting.  The number of calls for the 2.3 release of ALL-IN-1 is
RIGHT ON THE FORECAST.  

What actually went wrong is:  management just couldn't get enough people
into the CSC to handle those calls.  The req's have been open for months
and months.  The (various) skill levels (of the req's) had an appropriate
mix.  There just aren't enough bodies doing the work.

If we've got any ALL-IN-1 talent in the company that needs to get moved,
there are plenty of places one can go - Atlanta is just one (fine) choice.
I know we could use some help here in Southern California, for example.
And yes, MAILbus is in the same state of affairs, at least here.

But, yes, in the meantime, we have serious customer satisfaction problems
to cope with...

K.

	Perhaps I have an attitude problem but my interpritation of the
	last couple of replies is that ALL-IN-1 and MAILbus are too hard
	to use and that perhaps we should be worrying more about making
	the products easy to use than hiring people to hold customers hands.

				Alfred

re: .30,

	Exactly!  We should be learning a lesson from what has been happening
    in the American automobile industry over the past decade or so in that
    higher quality Japanese (and other foreign) cars are now preferred over
    "easy-to-service-but-perhaps-lower-quality-to-begin-with" American cars.

	Would you buy something that required good service when you could buy
    something else that had good quality to begin with?  Whether the quality
    factor we are refering to is that of ease-of-use, or whatever, the concept
    is the same.  We must be willing to make the initial investment up front
    in terms of built-in quality in our products in order to avoid these sorts
    of service staffing problems (and associated loss of confidence from our
    customer base) down the road.

				    -davo

    Actually MAILbus (TM) *IS* getting easier to use. A "get-well" plan was
    laid down almost two years ago and over the next two major versions
    you'll find it made a LOT simpler with FAR fewer ways to screw it all
    up.
    
    In the meantime, Chris Mackay and I, as the CSSE Engineers for MAILbus
    at the time (I've since moved on, Chris is still there) did a LOT of
    work to characterise the training needed and the people needed to
    provide pre- and post- sales support. A lot of work went into (and
    continues to go into) getting training out to the field.
    
    However, if people aren't getting the training, maybe they don't exist
    because they were not hired in a timely manner, maybe the training
    wasn't prepared in a timely manner, maybe Chris and my forecasts of
    impact to DIGITAL if we didn't all "do it right" were ignored by some.
    
    All of the above in fact.
    
    Take this to FORTY2::MAILBUS please.
    
    - ���

>   <<< Note 886.28 by XLIB::THISSELL "George Thissell, ISVG Tech Support" >>>
>                   -< Every Group needs a range of skills. >-
>
    From a support role, I can see no benefit in having an "entry level"
    person on the phones attempting to support a "wizard" with a problem
    except that, perhaps, the "entry level" person may benefit from the
    experience.  Certainly, the "wizard" does not.  At any rate, it
    -does- happen.  But that's a different topic...
    
    As has already been mentioned, there are a number of posted OA reqs 
    that have been open within the Atlanta/CSC for some time.  I have no
    idea if relocation is available but if anyone is interested they should
    get in touch with our personnel department.  Unfortunately, there
    haven't been enough people to fill these reqs hence the need to hire
    from outside.  
    
    It isn't as if hiring from within the company hasn't been tried. 
    Personnel has held job fairs across the country.  I was lucky enough to
    assist in one trip (Nashville, New Orleans, Orlando) back in May of
    this year.  Unfortunately, the turnout (for whatever reason) just
    wasn't that great.  I guess, as was mentioned by Alfred, not everyone
    would like to live in Atlanta (though I don't know why! ;-)
    
    At any rate, customer satisfaction is on the line here.  If we don't
    have the bodies (entry level or otherwise) to man the phones from
    within the company, we have to go outside.  In this particular
    situation, I feel personnel is justified in doing so...
    
    -Andy (who has difficulty reading DIGITAL because of slow response)
    
    BTW, there are a number of people within the CSC who've recently
    relocated here from the field to entry level positions.  It does 
    happen -- probably more often than you know (certainly more often 
    than I know).

In this case, there could be another factor at work.  Here in Dallas, we have
about 60 PSS people.  Out of these 60, only 2 are trained and willing to work
with All-In-1 at customer sites.  The rest of us will do almost anything to
avoid working with it.  The last time an All-In-1 assignment was available,
I chose a COBOL conversion over a chance to set up and manage a brand new VAX
sight.  Why?  Because I would have had to support All-In-1.  Then, management
would know I have All-In-1 experience and I would probably be stuck doing it
for a very long time.

Now, Atlanta would seem like a nice place to live, but you couldn't pay me
enough to do phone support on All-In-1, no matter where it was located.

Bob

< Note 886.34 by THEPIC::AINSLEY "Less than 150 kts. is TOO slow!" >
               -< Want to clear a room fast?  Mention All-In-1 >-

=> Because I would have had to support All-In-1.  Then, management
=> would know I have All-In-1 experience and I would probably be stuck doing it
=> for a very long time.

Sounds like job security to me....

    Throwing more bodies at the phone banks seems like an expensive
    way to alleviate the symptoms of what I think is a deeper problem.
    If I may offer a radical suggestion:
    
    One bottom-line measurement of product quality is support costs.  Calls
    to the support center can be declared a quality metric, and reducing
    customer support calls to a given level can be set as a quality
    goal.  This is done, and measured, at other companies.  The advantages
    of reducing calls are obvious.  The fewer the calls, the less it takes (and
    costs) to staff support centers.  And it's self-evident that a customer
    with less need to call for support is a happier customer.
    
    Assuming a quality goal is established to reduce support calls for a
    given product, how does one go about improving its quality?  The answer
    lies in engineering and documentation.  Engineer the product so it
    doesn't fail and so it's easy to use.  Document the product so that no
    one has any questions about how to use it (as a technical communicator,
    I'm thinking of task-based documentation here, but that's a subject for
    another day).  If you don't know where to start, analyze the calls on
    record, determine what's screwing people up, and FIX IT!
    
    This approach is very attractive, because it avoids the kind of
    distasteful philosophical arguments ("If the customer has a problem 
    with my product, then we're attracting the wrong kind of customer")
    seen from time to time, and because reducing support costs reduce
    expenses.  There's a lot of money to be saved by improving quality,
    money that doesn't come from salary plans or other expenses, and 
    money that goes straight to profits.

    re: .35
    
>   Sounds like job security to me....
    
    The question is not job security, it's job sanity!  ALL-IN-1 is bear to
    support and lots of people hate working on it because it doesn't have
    very much internal consistency.  Even more so, because it has its roots
    in word processing, many specialists consider it to be a lower class
    application compared to things like CASE, CAD, and AI applications.
    
    re: .36
    
    I agree that one aspect of the problem lies in "cleaning up" ALL-IN-1
    somewhat, but:
    
    	ALL-IN-1 is not really just a product, it's a whole system, with
    	its own language and lots of external interface points.  There are
    	a number of third-party packages out there that integrate at one
    	level or another, and the customer expects *us* to provide the top
    	level support needed to make everything work.
    
    	ALL-IN-1 is often a "mission-critical" application at many sites,
    	with direct visibility to the top executives.  Having ALL-IN-1
    	down is just like having the whole system down; even worse, when
    	ALL-IN-1 is in one of its "data-corruption" moods, it makes top
    	executives and MIS managers even more distressed than if it was
    	just down.  There is nothing that these people fear more than the
    	idea of data getting lost or corrupted on their system!
    
    	ALL-IN-1 is often used as a front-end for many other applications,
    	so that when ALL-IN-1 is down, the other applications are down, too.
    
    ALL-IN-1 is a money-maker for DEC in many ways, and it's one of our
    main competitive edges over the other mini makers, and even IBM.  We
    need to support it like the critical application that it is, and we
    must change the perception that many specialists (and managers!) have
    that it is suitable only for the junior ranks.  I know of a couple of
    people who got away from ALL-IN-1 support because they felt it was
    standing in the way of promotions, and I think they were right ...
    
    Geoff
    

>    One bottom-line measurement of product quality is support costs.  Calls
>    to the support center can be declared a quality metric, and reducing
>    customer support calls to a given level can be set as a quality
>    goal.  This is done, and measured, at other companies.  The advantages
>    of reducing calls are obvious.  The fewer the calls, the less it takes (and
>    costs) to staff support centers.  And it's self-evident that a customer
>    with less need to call for support is a happier customer.

	I agree Steve ... and we do have measurements and metrics and it is
	CSSE's job to communicate this to Engineering via a Servicability
	Requirements Document during the Phase Review process.  Know what ?
	It sometimes works too !  But, sometimes for Engineering to 'fix' 
	all the problems identified scewers the FRS date too far out to
	have the next version (or the initial version 1.0) fall into the 
	correct time-to-market window.  Soooooooo,  compromises are made to 
	'do the right thing'.  
    
>    Assuming a quality goal is established to reduce support calls for a
>    given product, how does one go about improving its quality?  The answer
>    lies in engineering and documentation.  Engineer the product so it
>    doesn't fail and so it's easy to use.  Document the product so that no
>    one has any questions about how to use it (as a technical communicator,
>    I'm thinking of task-based documentation here, but that's a subject for
>    another day).  If you don't know where to start, analyze the calls on
>    record, determine what's screwing people up, and FIX IT!
 
	Again CSSE's job to ensure that it gets done.  However, have you 
	ever tryed to convince very dedicated Engineers that the product 
	that they have been slaving over (& working OT) needs a 6 month
	Field Test to shake out bugs before we ship to real customers.
	(WHAT !  This product is bullet-proof .... I GAR-RON-TEE it !)
   
>    This approach is very attractive, because it avoids the kind of
>    distasteful philosophical arguments ("If the customer has a problem 
>    with my product, then we're attracting the wrong kind of customer")
>    seen from time to time, and because reducing support costs reduce
>    expenses.  There's a lot of money to be saved by improving quality,
>    money that doesn't come from salary plans or other expenses, and 
>    money that goes straight to profits.

	Here here (clap clap clap) .... the fact is that SERVICES are the
	most profitable piece of the computer business NOW & in the future.
	Invest in it up front rather than paying for it later.

	Chuck

Re:       <<< Note 886.37 by AUSTIN::UNLAND "Sic Biscuitus Disintegratum" >>>

    
>    .....many specialists consider it to be a lower class
>    application compared to things like CASE, CAD, and AI applications.

Speak for yourself.    
    
>    	Having ALL-IN-1
>    	down is just like having the whole system down; even worse, when
>    	ALL-IN-1 is in one of its "data-corruption" moods, it makes top
                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^      
    	executives and MIS managers even more distressed than if it was
    	just down.  There is nothing that these people fear more than the
    	idea of data getting lost or corrupted on their system!

I have been working with ALL-IN-1 for over 7 years now, and in all that
time I have NEVER, EVER heard of ALL-IN-1 "corrupting data", much less
being in a "mood" to do so.  You are WAY out in left field here.    
    
>    ALL-IN-1 is a money-maker for DEC in many ways, and it's one of our

That's right - in fact, it's the number 2 money-maker for Digital in
software, right behind VMS!!!!

Rather than take this whole thing down a rathole, suffice it to say I found
your remarks somewhat offensive toward a great product (which I happen to
support).  There are very few of us ALL-IN-1 delivery specialists who
really know the power of ALL-IN-1, probably because of maligning statements
like those posted here!

Now, back to the topic of this note chain (freeze over?)

    Al    

    re .39
    
    Thanks Al, for saying something in a much more pointed manner than I
    was capable of doing after reading the "ALL-IN-1-bashing" comments
    here.  I was also offended; guess it just goes to show once again that
    people tend to fear whatever they don't understand...
    
    Back to the regularly scheduled topic...
    Jon

    re: .39 and .40
    
    I don't "love" any product, even VMS, to the extent that I would
    think that it couldn't stand improvement.  And I've worked on VMS
    for ten years and ALL-IN-1 for five years.  And if you don't think
    that ALL-IN-1 couldn't stand improvement, then I will refer you to
    two Log numbers at the Atlanta CSC, and my Area Management Team that
    has had to stand in front of my customer and apologize for the product.
    I  wonder how many "advocates" have had to support it in Field.
    
    Back to the topic at hand, the Atlanta CSC is not the only place
    willing to hire ALL-IN-1 expertise from the outside.  At least two
    different units in the field that I know of would gladly hire any
    outside candidate who had an in-depth knowledge of ALL-IN-1, freeze
    or no freeze.  Lots of that knowledge really comes from experience
    on the product, not from any training class.
    
    Geoff