IBM: A Management Beacon Shines Brightly
May 17, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
To be frank, I don’t know if the write up called “IBM Sued Again for Alleged Discrimination. This Time Against White Males” is on the money. I don’t really care. The item is absolutely delicious. For context, older employees were given an opportunity to train their replacements and then find their future elsewhere. I think someone told me that was “age discrimination.” True or not, a couple of interesting Web sites disappeared. These reported on the hilarious personnel management policies in place at Big Blue during the sweep of those with silver hair. Hey, as a dinobaby, I know getting older adds a cost burden to outfits who really care about their employees. Plus, old employees are not “fast,” like those whip smart 24 year olds with fancy degrees and zero common sense. I understood the desire to dump expensive employees and find cheaper, more flexible workers. Anyone can learn PL/I, but only the young can embrace the intricacies of Squarespace.
Old geezers and dinobabies have no place on a team of young, bright, low wage athletes. Thanks, ChatGPT. Good enough in one try. Microsoft Copilot crashed. Well, MSFT is busy with security and AI or is it AI and security. I don’t know, do you?
The cited article reports:
The complaint claims that in the pursuit of greater racial and gender diversity within the Linux distro maker, Red Hat axed senior director Allan Kingsley Wood, an employee of eight years. According to the suit, that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiative within Red Hat “necessitates prioritizing skin color and race as primary hiring factors,” and this, and not other factors, led to him being laid off. Basically, Wood claims he was unfairly let go for being a White man, rather for performance or the like, because Red Hat was focused on prioritizing in an unlawfully discriminatory fashion people of other races and genders to diversify its ranks.
The impact? The professional has an opportunity to explore the greenness on the side of the fence closer to the unemployment benefits claims office. The write up concludes this way:
It’s too early to tell how likely Wood is to succeed in his case. A 2020 lawsuit against Google on similar grounds didn’t even make it to court because the plaintiff withdrew. On the other hand, IBM has been settling age-discrimination claims left and right, so perhaps we’ll see that happen here. We’ve reached out to Red Hat and AFL for further comment on the impending court battle, and we’ll update if we hear back.
I will predict the future. The parties to this legal matter (assuming it is not settled among gentlemen) will not get back to the author of the news report. In my opinion, IBM remains a paragon of outstanding personnel management.
Stephen E Arnold, May 17, 2024
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