Dell complaints

[pipo]

Today was my last day at Dell. I want to give a big F U to everyone I worked under, including my ignorant manager and her boy toy co-worker that idolizes her. I was on contract at Dell for three years. It was fine up to the point where I saw ESG collapsing in on itself and shrinking into oblivion. Yet they continued to bring on new people, except me. I had the experience and even had several interviews during each contract. I thought great, I may finally get a job. WRONG! It was a ploy. A ploy to keep me there on contract. Through a very close friend, it was told to me that I would not get hired on for reasons unknown. Maybe they didn't like my hair? In any case, I do not play these games!

The final nail in the coffin was being rejected for a position and seeing two people with no experience inside Dell being hired on. This was a hush-hush, eyes-closed process. Friends hiring friends. I was tired of this contract B.S. and that's why I left. What was really funny was HR contacted me my last day, wanting me to come in for an interview. Apparently they did this to cover themselves. I told them sorry but you are a day late and a dollar short! I do not play these games! Management needs a big overhaul in this group.

I start a new job tomorrow and am glad to say so long, farewell, aufedersein, goodbye!

[BobVonSteenburger]

Your work product sucks and you interviewed like shit. But it's "friends hiring friends" that are to blame, eh? Sorry you have to go back to work fixing your friends porn-laden virus zombies.
_________________
-BobVS

"I've worked at Dell since Feb 1998. Why does everybody who left always want to come back - for the same pay? Maybe because Work, in general, sucks and Dell ain't any differant than the rest."

[pipo]

I interviewed very well, thank you very much and I worked very well with the other employees. Perhaps your eyes were a little dreary when reading my passages above? All but one person, who was the hiring manager, said yes to me. He was the boy toy of another manager that did not want me hired on. Whatever she says, he obliges. They are tongue and cheek so to speak, lovers perhaps? The other employees know why I quit so abruptly. It is not just "friends hiring friends" as you say. It is being very unprofessional in the work place. Instead of hiring someone that has been working there for several years, they hire friends that had jobs elsewhere and never had any experience with the product. This is very unproductive. The time I worked with the new hires showed they knew little about the products, nor did they have any technical expertise. It is sad when new hires ask contractors simple technical questions. But they were not hired for their knowledge of computers or the product, only because they were "friends". The same can be said for many of the engineers. Their technical knowledge of computers in general is very limiting. Yet they get hired on for some odd reason. For instance, one interesting engineer did not even know what telnet was, yet he was a programmer for the remote access card. How can you not know this? There were many technicians and engineers like this at Dell. They simply did not have the technical knowledge nor any understanding of the inner working of computers. Yet they have managed to get hired on. This is where the problem lies with Dell.

Sorry you can't hold an intelligent conversation. If our roles were switched you would be the person complaining. I myself do not need a C2 or C3 position like yourself to brag and show off my ego to others. I would've been very happy with a lower position as long as I would be receiving benefits for my family. They come first over anything else in this world. But to work for as long as I did, and then have the opportunity taken from you by someone from outside that has never worked on contract at Dell? That is a discriminatory act.

My friends there at Dell in the department are in the same situation as what I was in. They have told me they will act soon upon the situation if things do not change in the coming weeks. They will notify the correct authorities of the discrimination and what is going on between the ranks. An employee that was on the hiring panel has also agreed to report the discrimination. I will be right there at their side supporting them too. Dell has lost many good people over the years by not allowing them to move up in ranks and for contractors, by not even hiring them. The days of treating people as a disposable resource will one day end, as a backlash will ensue.

[HellComputer]

..

[TestMaggot]

Pipo,

It sounds as though ESG has taken the toll on yet another poor person. I'm not sure I've ever known of a person that willingly left a job that felt like you do. If they had opened the door and kicked you out then maybe that could be understandable but you left for a better opportunity. So what if your manager's boy toy had given you the thumbs up and she hired you? Would you feel any differently? Would mis-treatment with benefits be any better? And have you thought about the fact that full-time people are no more secure in a job than contractors? MD may open the door one day and kick everyone out so then everyone is in the same boat. I think from what we've all read you are probably damn lucky and just don't know it yet.

But the hair, what on earth could make you think you didn't get a job because of your hair? Technies fill the halls with unkept hairdos, horrible BO, unkept clothes just to name a few and someone hired them. You mentioned your good friends but just remember co-workers never stick their neck out for anyone when their job is on the line. Unless of course it is your manager for her boy toy.

I think using any word relating to discrimination in a case like this may be a tough one. Texas is a right to work state in case you didn't know. That means you can walk out like you did and they can walk you out like they will others real soon. The net net (one of those stupid Dellisms) is that nobody owes anybody anything and as long as they paid you for your three long miserable years that's really all they owed you. How did you manage to be a contractor for three years? Don't they still have that stupid rule where contracts can't work continously?

What you can do is walk away sit back and relax and think that one day (maybe soon) you will get the last laugh when your manager and her boy toy are pounding the pavement in search of a new job. And just think this will be happening while they are paying for Cobra and you are enjoying your benefits.

The sad thing is in the business world these days it is not what you know it is who you know or how or if you play the game.

[systek]

Pipo,

why complain??? i left just like you did...i left, i didnt come back. I wasn't ESCORTED out or kicked out...i LEFT. be proud of that! you served your time,you got paid for it. that will never change no matter where you work. the one thing you should realize is to not sell yourself short. not one day passes that i am not looking for another opportunity or better job than i currently have. 2007 looks like a good year for the tech industry so get yourself a better job, consult, but for god's sake dont bitch about what dell didnt give you

[hotrodlincoln]

[hotrodlincoln]

[systek]

the L2 that interviewed me at Dell wore cut up jeans, black tshirt and long pony tail. In contrast I was wearing slacks, shirt and tie, but no jacket...he sure made me feel stupid but i got the job...no red badge for me at dell...ever

[Starman97]

My interview was funny, when I went in I really didnt want the job.
They asked me if I used linux, told them yeah, but thought it was worse than Windows so I got a Mac and run OSX. <blink> yeah, Apple really does it right. Had one guy who really drank the blue koolade, I think he freebased it,
was all about how he was proud to work 80hr weeks and working for Dell was a priviledge. I damn near laughed at him. Told him, I dont do weekends and I dont do more than 10hr days. Exempt, yes, engineers really get treated like crap, but it's part of the job, nearly every place pulls that on exempts.
Been there, done that, burned out, not again. If you cant deal with that,
then maybe I'm not the right person. Figured it was a good practice interview and I didn't want to piss off the headhunter by blowing them off when they might find someplace I really wanted to work.

Damned if they didnt make me an offer...
Sure there's BS, but in some ways it beats sitting around on the PC slacking all day.

[Ex-Regulatory]

Did you notice that all of the signs stating that Dell was going to hire 500 engineers have come down since KR was fired (oops...I meant resigned). Feel sorry for those engineers that did get hired, due to "light-touch" research and development (meaning Chinese made and tested with a Dell badge applied). In the end, Dell only does "validation engineering", meaning the engineers find issues with the ODM crap and feeds the information to Uncle Chang's Computer Part and McDonald's Happy Meal Toy factory. Even then Uncle Chang makes the necessary changes just to get a supplier contract, then cost reduces the parts once he starts to deliver to Dell. An engineer at Dell is about the same as an overpaid technician at IBM or HP. The only innovation done at Dell is new ways to CYA, sell cheap Chinese/Taiwanese crap, manipulate testing and manipulate the stock price.

[systek]

what's funny about the last two comments is that ya'll work at dell and sound surprised....

[nifties]

My last day is tomorrow.

What a pile, oh my god.
_________________
BLARG!

[Starman97]

Dell's a mega multi national corp, same BS, different place.
You want to survive, be like a duck and let it roll off your back.
I dont internalize it, I dont take it personally.
You find a good place and hang till it goes bad, then bail.

If they start pushing me for 12 days + weekends, it's not going to happen,
what are they going to do if I dont? Take away my bonus? heh
I'm in to learn more and add to my skillset, good for me, good for Dell.
If they dont pay market rate, I leave to somewhere that does.
They know it will happen, I know it will. There's no pot of gold at the
end of the rainbow anymore, you cant get people to kill themselves
for just a salary. If Mike thinks he's going to come back and start flogging
people like they did in the 90's , he wont last the year, the institutional
stock holders will have his head like they did Rollins'. The economy's doing
fairly well, there are jobs, this isn't 2001-3 when no matter how bad they treated you, you hung in there because no one else was hiring. It's not the Dotcom bubble either, but if they push too hard, they will lose senior technical staff and all the light touch crap wont save them. Lenovo can make a cheaper PC than Dell can buy one from China.

I have heard that some systems are sold at cost, and the only profit is in the service contract. 1st call cuts profit in half, 2nd call and it's a breakeven. They start selling crap, it will bite them. The battery thing hurt, and a bit before that they had a batch of bad caps on motherboards.
From the top comes the edict to cut cycle time and slash testing budget.
Risky stuff, in this biz, it only takes a few spectacular failures to turn your name into mud, unless you're Apple. They dont have customers, they have fanatics. Read the Apple boards for cust service horror stories, but when it works, the Customer Experience hooks them like crack and they keep buying.
Treat the job like it was a contract, keep the customer happy and keep enough cash liquid for when the contract ends to live on for at least 6 months to a year. There are no guarantees, on both sides.

[Harry_Wookie]

Let me tell you my story. The industry has changed a great deal. With 23 years of experience under my belt (and beer belly too), this sort of thing has been occurring for quite some time. I had the pleasure of working with some great people and not so great people in EST last year. I was laid off earlier that year and came on at Dell as a contractor. One day out of the blue we are told it is our last day and escorted out. Here came Eloy with no sound explanation and no notice! Talk about shocking and down right disheartening to all of us!!!!!!!

Let me give all of you newtimers some advice. If they don't hire you within your first year that means they never will. Do yourself a favor and don't let them bait and chain you there with their tactics.