In reply to Marcello Davis.

@Marcello, it will be a little hard for me to ask your leaders at any of the #AskAnything meetings. I'm no longer a member of the "family"after Chuck's first annual workforce reduction, limited restructuring, or whatever politically term HR wants to call it next time. I've heard on other forums that the leadership promised to answer the top voted questions but then failed to answer them at the next meeting, so I'm not sure that asking them would make a difference.

I truly felt like Cisco was a family back in '06 when I joined Cisco as a contractor. Like you, my manager was in another state and managed me remotely. Shortly after that manager converted me to an employee, he quit Cisco and my 'family' troubles began resulting in my leaving Cisco as part of the "workforce reduction" of '11. But another great manager gave me the opportunity to come back in '13, where I reported to two different managers under him between '13-'16.

But, somewhere between '11 & '13, that sense of 'family' had changed. And it continued to change, not for the better. I will cherish my time at Cisco, and I was once proud to call Cisco home. But looking at the ages of the people let go from my BU, it sure looks like it was age related, even though the official answer was that age had noting to do with it, that it was a matter of reducing costs.

What hurt the most was not getting let go, but the fact that contractors were being hired into my team after I left. So, obviously the work I was doing still needed to be done, or there was work that our team needed to do that I could have performed only I was deemed "too expensive" to keep. I know that I wasn't too expensive for my industry/job title as I made the same salary from '06-'11 and then the same salary from '13-'16 and I'm making even more at my new job. The other thing that hurt was that Cisco is giving the impression of replacing older workers with a younger, cheaper generation. While you need new blood and skills coming into the company, kicking out older workers is not the answer. If companies won't keep older workers employed at the wages they've promoted to, or earned via annual cost-of-living increases over time, then how can the government keep social security running? There's talk of raising the retirement age because our healthcare has advanced enough where people are living longer lives and can work longer, but not it companies like Cisco won't keep them in favor of younger, cheaper workers. If older folks don't make more than the younger generation, how will they put their kids through college to create the next generation of young workers?

Good luck to you and all the deserving hard working people still at Cisco. Don't let it turn into a wage factory. Sorry for my long rant, but "Cisco family" is a sensitive term for 5,500 of us this year.