Conference 7.286::digital

Jerry

I can't really speak to Customer Ed as a possible outsource candidate, but
I rather doubt Sales Ed is one.  Much of what we SHOULD be teaching reps is
very proprietary, perhaps futures.  Much of the delivery necessarily must
be given by Digital specialists.  On the other hand, generic courses are
already delivered by outside contractors.  So unless I'm missing your point
I can't see the viability.

Bob

	RE: .1 Any out sourcing project involves agreements around
	confidentiality. I don't see that as a problem. Outside people
	can get the information they need to teach sales people or
	customers.  Remember that most product information sales people
	need is public information anyway. They *are* going to tell it to
	customers after all.

	The other issue around sales training is that it is, I believe,
	a lot more than just product information. It involves such things
	how to sell. I suspect that we could potentially get even better
	sales training if we outsourced this. And if we've got some really
	good sales people doing training now we could get them back selling.
    	And from what I've heard, we as a company could use some new ideas
    	about how to sell. 

	The one question I have around outsourcing customer training is,
	are we making a lot of money at it? I'm not sure it makes sense to
	outsource revenue generating activity. Sales training, an expense
	item, does sound like a logical thing to outsource. Lot's of training
	we are offered internally is being done by outside organizations and
	individuals.

			Alfred

    
    On the other hand, most of the sales training I've attended at DEC
    was terrible:
    
    	- amateurish
    	- wrong info
    	- incomplete
    	- so called 'proprietary' info already widely known
    	- DEC centric - not portraying the competition accurately
    
    
    Can an outsider do this better?  It depends. For certain things
    yes. We already use external 'experts' to teach us about
    new markets, or penetrating certain industries. Although
    sometimes these experts don't know what they are talking
    about, this is certainly better than taking a marketing
    person who knows nothing about a particular market and
    telling them to build a training course for the sales.
    
    For in depth technical training on various subject, outsiders
    can definately do better. In fact, we already subcontract
    much of this training to external consultants. The past
    three Ed Services courses I've taken were all taught
    by external contractors.

    At least some Sales Training is already being outsourced.
    
    					andrew

    as an instructor in  Digital Educational Services,
    there is no longer the distinction between internal and customer
    training, its training,
    
    sure you can out source it, but i disagree that outsourcing 
    will result in better quality training.
    
    in fact i predict just the opposite since these outsource instructors
    will not have the same resources available that i now enjoy.
    
    typical response from groups you may have questions about the product
    will be "oh you from customer training, you really dont need to know
    that, it's company confidential"
    
    thats the response i used to get 5 years ago when i was in customer
    training, thats one reason i moved over to internal training.
    
    one main point that impacts quality training right now is the comapany
    is reluctant to spend money to aquire the equipment needed to
    provide training, 
    
    it's tough to keep up with all the new products and software,
    it's a major expense, if there was another way of getting ed services
    the products without all the expense and red tape, training would be
    even more profitable
    
    they way these new training hubs are set up, we cant really do business
    effectively, 
    
    in closing, sure you can outsource but dont count on the same quality.
    
    mike
    
    and yes we do make real money when customers come for training,
    

    I have no axe to grind against training or any other organization that
    might be considered for outsourcing, but "quality" does not go down as
    a result of outsourcing.  In many cases, it improves because you can
    drive the vendor to a higher standard of quality.  This is a
    generalization, but accurate for most cases.  Quality and cost
    improvements are the most common reasons for this type of action.
    
    Chuck

.4> At least some Sales Training is already being outsourced.

    I was not aware of this.  Can you give me/us some specifics?

    My perspective is purely from the *sales* training perspective.

    I have one Hell of a lot of experience in selling Digital products and
    services - prior to that - I was a DEC/IBM/CDC/etc.. customer.  You
    could not describe a competitive situation that I have not seen in the
    last 16 years of selling for Digital.

    Couple that with the fact that I love teaching - did a short stint in
    Sales Training (up in Yankeeland) but had to leave.  I spent *less* than
    one percent (yes, that's 1%) of my time in front of the class ... the
    rest of my time was spent in, well, I'm sure you can guess.

    From the "reviews" of the students that I did teach ... it warmed me
    heart the likes of which was incomprehensible.  Nothing in the world
    made me feel better than to have a sales person say "...that's
    PRECISELY what I needed to get into this account" .. or "my God, IBM is
    all over me and I didn't even know it".  I loved every minute of it - I
    love it with a passion the likes of which would be difficult to put
    into words.

    Somehow (don't really have time to explain right now) I feel that if
    the *internal* bureaucratic ... "stuff" ... was put aside an outside
    organization could possibly do better with respect to sales training.

    Alternative?  Make me a Digital Vice President, Training.  I'd make Ross
    Perot look like a pussycat.

    Jerry

>.4> At least some Sales Training is already being outsourced.
>
>    I was not aware of this.  Can you give me/us some specifics?

    Unfortunately not, as they haven't yet released anything.  When
    things hit the streets, I'll post any details I can.
    

    
    Unless I'm mistaken, all of the courses I have taken from Ed Services
    in USA had an external instructor.   So in one sense we have out-sorced
    already. 

I thought I heard someone say yesterday that we had sold off our Australian 
and another GIA ed services branch.  Any truth to this?  Any explanation 
provided if true?

    
    re.7
    
    we dont enjoy the luxury of a 1% platform time!
    
    if 1% is the norm for sales training than maybe we should outsource.
    
    i can tell you that my schedule typically is 8-10 weeks on platform
    per quarter (13 weeks).
    
    the other weeks i use for new product course development, customer
    course customization, etc.
    
    and the quality issue i might add, our training center consistantly 
    gets the total overall QA rating in the MID 90's.
    
    not bad i'd say.
    
    mike
    

Re: .10

The idea in Digital is to cut down the number of full time employees.  So we go 
from 135000 (?whatever?) fulltime employees to 85000 plus 50000 contractors.  I
think there is supposed to be a purpose to it all but it escapes me!

In answer to you question, yes, Australia has transitioned all of Edu Services 
and outsourced Edu to these people.

The same way Brazil transitioned their repair center employees and outsourced
repairs to them.

The same way ...

    re .12
    
    >I think there is supposed to be a purpose to it all but it escapes me!
    
    Digital is not responsible for the 50000 (if that were the number)
    contractors and the only laws applying to them are ordinary contract
    law.  All kinds of red tape and labor laws are applicable to employees
    that don't affect contractors.
    
    It turns out that it is much cheaper to write a performance contract
    each year for $x than to hire a person at $x per year to do the same
    work.  On the other hand, you have to rethink each year, do I still
    need to do this?  Whereas with an employee, that question only gets
    asked when we go into "downsizing mode".
    
    
    
    Dick

    I am an instructor with Education and Training, and this is a
    topic that I feel very strongly about.  We have been, to use the current
    term du jour, "outsourcing" within training for quite a long time.  It
    was called the Seminar program.  We advertised that the courses were
    taught by knowledgeable industry leaders, etc. etc.  They were (are) very
    popular.  The topics taught had relatively little overlap with the
    courses taught in-house.  There are subjects that make sense to outsource,
    and there are some that don't.  There should be some courses, such as new
    technologies-based courses, that we will be familiar with before any
    outside vendor will.  There are courses that customers attend where
    they look for a representative of Digital (as in an employee) to get
    the official Digital position on a topic or problem.  The list goes on.
    Outsourcing everything would not, in my opinion, be what customers
    want or expect from our training on a purely expertise level.
      On a business note.  If I am a customer that purchases training from 
    Digital at my site, and a third-party contractor shows up to teach the
    class, I am quite likely going to get the instructor's name, hire them
    directly next time and save any overhead caused by Digital's part in
    the whole thing!  The customer wins, the outsourced instructor wins,
    and Digital loses!  And we will have done it to ourselves!  Folks,
    the whole idea of training is complicated enough that attempts to
    deal with all of it in one particular way isn't realistic!
    
    Mark Thorne
    Chicago Training Center
    

Re .14:

>    I am an instructor with Education and Training, and this is a
>    topic that I feel very strongly about.  ...
>    There are subjects that make sense to outsource,
>    and there are some that don't.  There should be some courses, such as new
>    technologies-based courses, that we will be familiar with before any
>    outside vendor will.  There are courses that customers attend where
>    they look for a representative of Digital (as in an employee) to get
>    the official Digital position on a topic or problem.  ...

I don't know what's worse about this announcement I got today - an outsider
teaching this course, or an employee benefitting from it:
				/AHM

             .....   T N S G  -  SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
             ! ..:..
             !.!.: ! ~~""""'''''' ' ' ' '  '   '     '     '
               !...! Human Resource Development and Training

     *** REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED - SET HOST WECARE - USERNAME = CRS ***
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TITLE:   ENABLING OPEN SYSTEMS WITH NAS	 
	 Presented by: Larry White

DATE:    December 17-18, 1992        	TIME:      9:00 - 5:00

VENDOR:  Winthrop Lawrence Assocs.  	LENGTH:    2 DAYS	COST: $ 600  

FORMAT:  Lecture               	        LOCATION:  Galileo C.R. ZKO3-3
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THIS COURSE IS INTENDED FOR:        

The target audience generally includes anyone who needs to understand the
components and implications of NAS, the Digital model for application
integration in an Open Systems computing environment.

This seminar is targeted to IS managers, planners, designers, and developers.
The training is geared for a moderately technical audience; primarily those
involved in planning, software development, end user computing and support
functions who are implementing a multivendor open systems computing
environment, or who plan to move in that direction.


COURSE DESCRIPTION:                 

The Network Application Support (NAS) Technology Overview serves as a
broad-based introduction to the NAS Open Systems strategy, architecture, and
available product set. This seminar covers the components of NAS Open Systems
and discusses NAS goals and strategies, stressing open systems characteristics
of portability, interoperability, and distributedness. It explains the benefits
of using NAS Services, describes the relationship between NAS and other open
systems strategies/products/architectures, and provides a conceptual
introduction to the NAS model for application integration.

The course will help managers, system designers, developers, planners, and
support staff gain a technical understanding of NAS in order to make decisions
about, and plan for, multi-vendor distributed application development.


FEATURES & BENEFITS:      

  *  Comprehensive Open Systems Computing overview...
     -  Implements a unified multivendor systems environment with the desktop
	to mainframe systems you already have.
  *  Demonstration and video...
     -  Shows how to unlock existing computing applications and data to work
	together on as many platforms as needed.
  *  Multiple Case Studies...
     -  Shows how to solve typical incompatibility problems to free time to
	address new business challenges.


PREREQUISITES            

  *  Students will benefit most from this course if they have some
     experience with operating systems (UNIX,VMS,MSDOS, etc.) networks
     (TCP/IP or DECnet), and applications.


OBJECTIVES               

Upon successful completion of this course, the student should be able to:
  *  Discuss open systems and NAS relative to their environment
  *  Define NAS and its Open Systems goals, strategies, and benefits
  *  Describe the relationship between NAS and other Open Systems
     strategies/products/architectures (such as DCE, ACE)
  *  Describe the NAS model for application integration
  *  List NAS services, products, application programming
     interfaces, and application development tools
  *  Assess and analyze with NAS different Open Systems case situations

OUTLINE                  
...

.14> There are subjects that make sense to outsource, and there are some
.14> that don't.  There should be some courses, such as new technologies-based
.14> courses, that we will be familiar with before any outside vendor will.

Fully agree. Some courses ("technolgy" oriented) must be maintained "in-house".

.14> There are courses that customers attend where they look for a represen-
.14> tative of Digital (as in an employee) to get the official Digital
.14> position on a topic or problem.

Let's take a course like ... for example ... "VAX Utilities and Commands".
One of my customers, a large DEC shop, took bids for an on-site course.
Our price was nearly double that of our competition.  The customer surveyed
the references of the competition and found them to be quite good.  The
contract was given to the competition.  The customer told me that if
the quality of the course, instructor, materials, etc ... was not up
to par it would be the last time they would be into the site.

The student opinion forms were almost 100% exceptionally favorable.  You
can guess as to our future with respect to Educational Services in this
account.

Therefore, courses like "Utilities and Commands", language courses, 
system tuning courses, etc ... any reason why *not* to out source?

.14> On a business note.  If I am a customer that purchases training from 
.14> Digital at my site, and a third-party contractor shows up to teach the
.14> class, I am quite likely going to get the instructor's name, hire them
.14> directly next time and save any overhead caused by Digital's part in
.14> the whole thing!

Were a customer to come to a Digital instructor and ask him/her to do
some teaching "on the side", external of Digital, the instructor would
not do it - conflict of interest, etc ... not to mention the fact that
the Digital instructor would not remain in the salary continuation plan
of Digital. Similarly for the instructor who is employed by a contractor?

Jerry

>Therefore, courses like "Utilities and Commands", language courses, 
>system tuning courses, etc ... any reason why *not* to out source?

Correct.

The question on my mind, however, is "how come other people are
able to explain the stuff we build better than we can do it 
ourselves?".    This doesn't feel good.

(OK, I know "doing it" and "teaching it" are different skills,
 but even so...)

    
    	re -1
    
    	They are not necessarily doing it better than us, 
    	just cheaper. After all, they generally take a finished product
    	and teach it, without all the overhead of engineering, debugging,
    	course development, documentation development, etc., etc. We also
    	have training hubs to maintain, and many courses from external
    	vendors are done in a rented hotel conference room.
    
    	Some outsourcing makes sense. Some would be folly to outsource
    	because of the profit margin in it. Some we cannot outsource
    	because of the proprietary nature of the material or because of 
    	its strategic importance to Digital.
    
    	Jerry Beeler - your generally positive experiences on the platform
    	indicate one thing to me...you love your job and you are an expert
    	in your field. The best instructors have those qualities, plus an
    	ability to communicate well. Nothing is more frustrating than
    	taking a course from someone that doesn't understand your job.
    	Nothing is more rewarding than taking a course from someone that
    	not only understands your job, but knows - and imparts to you -
    	the skills and knowledge necessary to make you successful.
    
    	John 

    Thanks, John.  Yes, I love selling .. love it with a passion and
    contrary to some I consider it to be an honorable occupation. :-)

    For me, I would dearly love to take this 16 years of Digital sales
    experience and do my dead level best to "transfer" some of this
    knowledge to existing and future sales force.  I honestly think that I
    could do some good for the corporation and have a positive impact on
    the future of Digital.  The question (for me) is .. can I do it within
    Digital?  I tried once and failed.  Will the "system" permit me to do
    it?  Perhaps Mr. Palmer will do some re-shaping of the training
    organization and the door will open .. but ... I've heard rumors to the
    extent that there may be more and more outsourcing.  This is one of the
    reasons that I started this topic.

    We'll see.

    Jerry

>The question on my mind, however, is "how come other people are
>able to explain the stuff we build better than we can do it 
ourselves?".    This doesn't feel good.

The question on MY mind is how in the WORLD can paying an outside company
(with all of their overhead, etc.) do the job cheaper than our own employees?

I believe there are two answers:

One: for our internal employees, we add an overhead burden to cover development
of the course, the training center, etc. etc.  Yet when we consider
contractors, the only costs factored in are the direct contract costs.
Of course they are cheaper!  Could they do it if we didn't develop materials,
provide facilities, etc? Hmmm.

Two:  There are a LOT (not all) of managers running around believing and
preaching that the greatest value that Digital has to offer is our shining
management talent.  Thus, they will strive toward a world where our obviously
valuable management structure is preserved at the expense of all else.
This is said only half tongue-in-cheek.  I have seen much action and verbage in
the SI world saying "Our primary value is out management skills.  We can
contract the rest and sell our project management to the customers."  That's
pretty close to a direct quote.  Call it a composite quote.  I'm sorry.  I've
worked on alot of SI projects, and I have again and again pleased and delighted
customers with my value as a technical resource.  I have NEVER heard a customer
request more Digital management.

Kevin Farlee

    re: .19 
    
>   it?  Perhaps Mr. Palmer will do some re-shaping of the training
>   organization and the door will open .. but ... I've heard rumors to the
    
    Sorry Jerry, but it looks like the only door open leads outside ...
    
    Seriously, there was a time when there were two aspects to "training".
    
    One was the imparting of technical knowledge in an efficient manner.
    Teaching "VMS Utilities and Commands" falls into this category.  The
    focus is on accurate and timely information, and effective ways to
    present the information so it will be retained by the audience.  It's
    easy for lots of people to comprehend this aspect, after all, it's
    just like junior high, right?
    
    The other aspect is *training* akin to sports training, that is,
    helping other people achieve more by direct application of the 
    instructor's combined knowledge, experience, and hands-on practice.
    This aspect of training seems to be much harder for people to grasp,
    because it takes more effort to quantify the payback, and trainers
    with the skills to do this kind of work are always harder to find.
    
    Our current situation is unfortunate, because I believe that helping
    people achieve more is crucial to the company's continued success, 
    but DEC actually seems to *punish* instructors who take this approach.
    
    I would love to be told otherwise, but I haven't seen it in the
    courses I've attended in the last few years.  Well, I have, but it
    was in a course put on by someone who was notorious for breaking
    rules, and who couldn't wait to chuck it all and go back to selling.
    
    Geoff Unland in Austin
    

    re .21
    
    >but DEC actually seems to *punish* instructors that take this approach
    
    	Can you elaborate on this?

    Rumor has it that 50% of customer training is being cut.  Internal
    Sales Training is also rumored to be hit hard - up to about 35%.  Where
    are they going to get the instructors/course developers/course
    designers?  Right.  Outsource.  We already outsource many of our
    courses and instructors.  
    
    Digital needs to cut expenses.  The way to cut expenses is to cut
    people.  I have even heard of a person in Ed Services who is an
    excellent instructor told that unoffically she will be cut and then hired
    back as a contractor.  This is not unusual at other companies - it may
    be different for DEC.  I worked at Monsanto and a manager took the eary
    retirement package on Friday and was back as a contractor on Monday. 
    Now Monsanto didn't have to pay benefits etc and he was "cheaper" to
    them on Monday than he was to them on Friday.  It all boils down to
    dollars and sense - unfortunately.
    
    Rick

    Re .0
    
    I've heard this arguent many times ie
    
    "Contractors are cheaper than employees"
    
    I'd love to know what that's based on. I manage an engineering cost
    center and the typical cost of a contractor for a year is about 1.7-1.8
    times the typical cost of an engineer after you've included the cost
    of fringe benefits for the engineer. Fringe cost is 30% of salary.
    
    Yes I know that in addition to the fringe all the other cost center
    expenses are loaded in and the final cost per person is about
    equivalent to a contractor (but still a little less). But these costs
    are for things like
    
    	- Office cost
    	- Travel
    	- Computer Depreciation
    	- Field Service Cost
    
    etc. But all these costs you incur whether you use employees or
    contractors so it is invalid to artifically load up the cost per
    employee when comparing to the contractor cost.
    
    The only advantage of a contractor over an employee is that you've got
    a lot more flexibility in playing the headcount game. In addition
    contractors can genuinely be looked at as variable cost items whereas
    it costs money to terminate employees not to mention that a good degree
    of job security for an employee leads to a much higher productivity
    employee.
    
    Of course the reason people gravitate towards contractors so much is
    that in the recent Digital when you're given a budget you can never be
    sure it won't be changed in a few months. If the puzzle palace could
    come up with stable budgets and make people stick to them (ie fire them
    if they didn't) it would enable managers to staff positions with a
    higher percentage of permanent employees. And in the long run it would
    be cheaper.
    
    This tendency to outsource everything strikes me as really short
    sighted. I bet it is more expensive in the end.
    
    Dave

    re .24
    
    Dave, I have to disagree.  I think you have missed a big problem in
    Digital.  We justify the centralization of some things based on a
    theory that we avoid duplication and therefore achieve economoy of
    scale.  That theory is false.  Here's a simple example why.
    
    Lets say we have 500 different physical facilities worldwide and that
    each of them has certain administrative functions that require computer
    record keeping.
    
    The theory says that we can achieve economies of scale by doing all
    that record keeping in one computer system because we will need only
    one disk farm, one system manager, one program, etc.
    
    But the fact is that you don't get the economies of scale without
    forcing everyone into one administrative mold.  And when the local
    management decides (correctly or incorrectly) that they are different,
    then managing the new local records will be instituted which will cost
    the same as the centralized records we thought were going to get
    replaced.
    
    The other factor is that a program for centralized data management has
    to have distributed multiuser access, location codes, codes that
    identify special local circumstances, all of which make the centralized
    program much more complicated and unreliable than 500 copies of one
    simple record management program where the differences are managed
    locally.
    
    The added cost of this centralized system is allocated to every one of
    the 500 facilities, effectively increasing the cost per person of
    operating all this diverse activities.  If we contract external people
    to do this, we avoid the fallacy of centralization because nobody in
    Digital feels empowered to tell the contractors that their personnel or
    health or purchasing or safefty records have to be centrally controlled
    to produce "economies of scale".
    
    I think that if we dig into the organization, we can find many examples
    of wasteful centralization and perhaps, even wasteful decentralization
    too.  The bottom line is that it costs Digital $x just to have an
    employee on the books, regardless of salary, regardless of function,
    regardless of location.  The cost to the subcontractor is $y and y is
    much less than x.  So Digital gains the difference (x-y) for each
    employee whose function is outsourced.  Once all the employees are
    "outsourced", the company will be pure overhead which even the birds in
    the bird cage can't justify.  Then, and only then, will we see
    significant reduction in the overhead.
    
    fwiw,
    
    Dick

    
    I have a hard time mapping .25 to .24, or to my experience with the
    way we use contractors in general.
    
    My understanding is that it costs an average of $100K a year per
    employee, with about half that in direct salary. If .24 is correct
    in assessing benefits at 30% of salary, the then total savings in
    cutting an employee is $65K; the other $35K can be saved only if you
    can reduce the infrastructure that supported the employee. But if you
    replace the employee with a contract worker, the infrastructure is
    still needed. Therefore, you save money only to the extent that the
    average contract worker costs less than $65K a year (which I have reason
    to disbelieve), or to the extent that the average contract slot is
    filled for less than a full year (which also does not seem to be the
    case).
    

>    the other $35K can be saved only if you
>    can reduce the infrastructure that supported the employee. But if you
>    replace the employee with a contract worker, the infrastructure is
>    still needed. Therefore, you save money only to the extent that the
>    average contract worker costs less than $65K a year (which I have reason
>    to disbelieve), or to the extent that the average contract slot is
>    filled for less than a full year (which also does not seem to be the
>    case).
    
That is exactly the point of .20.  I believe that we are not comparing apples
to apples if we compare the cost of an employee with all the overhead burden
to the straight contract price of outsourcing.  I have heard many plans to
outsource *ALL* technical talent in the field.  When all the techies don't work
for Digital anymore, will the overhead have vaporized?  Nope. It'll still be
there, and we won't be saving anything in the long run.

It reminds me of the classic Business School problem:
A company has three plants.  One of them is marginally in the red. 
Corporation is marginally in the black.  What do you do?

Step 1:  Close plant in the red (plant C).

Result: Plants A and B must now shoulder the portion of the corporate overhead
previously borne by plant C.  This nudges plant B into the red.

Step 2:  Close the plant in the red (plant B).

Result:  Plant A must now shoulder all of the corporate overhead previously
borne by plants B and C.  This puts  plant A firmly in the red.

Step 3: Close down the corporation since it is obviously no longer capable of
being profitable.

I sincerely hope that we are not headed for step 3.

Kevin Farlee

    Re .last few
    
    If somebody who knows the contract rates we pay to SSEs and PSEs would
    like to post them here you'll see what my argument is based on. I'd
    prefer not to post them because I'm not sure if the information I have
    is considered "Digital Confidential".
    
    But I will say there are standard rate ranges set by "Temporary Human
    Resources" for contractors.
    
    Dave

I can tell you from my experience in knowing friends who are contractors, and
having hired contractors at my previous job that they can make anywhere from
50 to 100 bucks an hour.

- Mike

    
    Based on .29:
    
    For DEC to save money by hiring contractors, and assuming the
    infrastructure has to stay in place, the average conractor could make
    no more than $32.50 an hour.
    
    The $50/hour contractor would have to work less than 8 months/year
    to save DEC money; the $100/hour contractor would have to work less
    than 4 months/year. On average, contract workers would have to work
    less than half-time.
    
    Does this match anyone's real-time observations?  Anyone??
    

    On some individual projects, yes.  However, on most of the projects
    I've seen locally, the contractors get ~ $50/hr and the time period
    averages 6 months.  Do we save money?  Maybe.

    I have to admit that my guess is based on a questionable assumption:
    that when the infrastructure to support employees (as compared to
    contractors) is no longer needed, we (well, who ever is left by then)
    will discard it.  
    
    The other alternative is actually nicer: All the talented folk who
    actually produce value for customers of Digital are paid to leave and
    find better employment elsewhere.  The "infrastructure" that adds cost
    remains and the company is decently buried with it.
    
    cynically,
    
    Dick

    Contractors don't get:
    
    holiday pay.
    sick pay.
    health benefits.
    a company car.
    a pension.
    redundancy money when they're fired.
    LTD/STD.
    Maternity/paternity leave.
    
    and most importantly... a DECTurkey at DEChristmas.
    
    Laurie.

    
    Re .33:
    
    We're very close to the point where I can say...
    
    
    		Neither do we!
    

    I can remember that when I graduated college I just cared about finding
    a job then offerred decent pay, decent vacation, decent health
    insurance, and decent working environment. I didn't care about perqs. I
    went through 3 companies before coming to DEC.
    
    I found DEC to be overflowing with perqs...so much that it bothered me
    to the point where I thought they were throwing money away. I feared
    that all this would come back to haunt them. Sure enough here I am in
    my 14th year at DEC and I'm hearing people complain about the perqs
    going away.
    
    As far as I'm concerned take as many away as possible to save jobs and
    make the corporation profitable again. I'm wondering if the people who
    are complaining are those who have worked for one company...DEC.
    
    M

    .35
    
    M:
    
    I'm in my 13th year at DEC, and NO this is not my first job.  I've
    been working 31 of my 48 years!  Without the advantage of a college
    education I've had to work very hard to get ahead, I used to feel good
    about what I had accomplished.
    
    I don't think DEC *owes* me anything, I don't care about some of the
    perqs either, but I do care about decent pay and decent health in-
    surance.  I mentioned the IRS in another note because I was expecting
    to hear from them after I filed for 1991; I was wondering whether
    their computer would notice that I had made less money in 1991 than
    in '89 & '90!!
    
    I think what you are missing in some of the notes is the frustration
    some of us feel because we have been sacrificing, working extra hard to
    accomplish our goals (and keep our jobs); only to see much of what
    drove us slipping away.
    
    Maybe if we could see the higher-ups sharing in our sacrifices too,
    we'd stop grumbling about some of our losses.
    
    Karen
    

    I'm in my 10th year at Digital and it is very likely that I won't get
    to work on an 11th.  At the very least, I won't see it here as this
    place (BTO) will be closing early next year.  The frustration level
    over the past year has been sky-high and, for most of us at least, the
    uncertainty of what happens next is still there.

    It is very hard to be objective but still I think Mike's points in .35
    are valid.

    The first job I got out of college was with a small software house. 
    After about a year, we were all abruptly notified that the company had
    sold the product line and we were all out of a job.  I got something
    like a month's notice and no severance pay at all - you left on Friday
    and got paid for that week.  The only thing they gave (and this is odd)
    was a temporary salary increase (about 7%) so that we would have a
    better base to negotiate with for our next job!

    I later worked for a manufacturer that was attempting to start a new
    line of American-built copiers.  After 2� years, it failed and 50% of
    the plant were let go on a single day.  There was speculation and
    rumors about a big layoff for months but never any official
    confirmation of when and how many.  I literally heard about it for the
    first time in the newspaper the morning it happened.  I was one of the
    lucky few who didn't get hit but those who did got only 3 or 4 weeks
    pay in total as severance.

    I left a couple of months later when I was offered a job with Digital. 
    Although I took a pay cut of about 15%, it didn't really matter because
    I knew that if I had stayed at my old job, I would have hit the street
    as well.  I was amazed at what I found.  I had never seen a company
    with as many perqs and benefits before.  Although its been a long time
    and I've since become accustomed to all this, I haven't forgotten what
    it was like before.

    Like everyone else, I've been hit (and hit hard) with all the increases
    in medical, LTD, etc. as well as seeing salary increases get smaller and
    stretched out longer.

    But the reality is that, should I be asked to leave Digital, I may end
    up working for even less pay -- at least around here.

    In light of all this, I have a hard time understanding why things like
    turkeys, free or reduced admission to some museum, cuts in matching
    gifts, Canobie Lake, and so forth create as much emotion as they do.  I
    know it's frustrating to have something and then lose it but in
    difficult times shouldn't these be the first to go?

    I applaud those people who feel that life after Digital will restore at
    least some of these things.  Maybe I'll be one of the lucky ones.  But
    for now, all I'd like is a decent job, with decent pay, decent
    benefits, and some decent security.

    Larry

>    In light of all this, I have a hard time understanding why things like
>    turkeys, free or reduced admission to some museum, cuts in matching
>    gifts, Canobie Lake, and so forth create as much emotion as they do.

It's true that Canobie Lake and turkeys generate a lot of emotion, but
nobody in the museum note was upset at the cuts -- we were upset that
we weren't *told* about the cuts.