Passenger Trains > More Amtrak Management Fired

Twenty-five Amtrak management employees in Washington and Philadelphia were fired last Thursday,
May 26.

Most were in Information Technology, some in Human Capital and Legal.

This wasn't the regular Amtrak re-organization where employees were given notice that their
jobs were being eliminated, and encouraged to apply for open vacancies, but it was a quick,
sudden move, complete with Amtrak Police on standby.

The same day, Boardman left town on his transcontinental junket.

 

25 people fired,  assume 15-20 wrongful termination lawsuits

in my last company, we were required to rank our subordinates in terms of competence and ability to assume command. Best to worse.  You notified the employee where they stood. Why I placed them at #7, and what they could do to improve that.  You knew where you stood, and who was ahead of you.

In government agencies and enterprises like Amtrak or DC WMATA, jobs are close to guaranteed. Nobody ever gets fired. Regardless of incompetence. You just get shifted around. Especially of you have a sponsor or godfather/godmother.



 

Offshoring I-T to India ? Who's doing their work ?

I don't go for ranking employees together of different job descriptions. Who is to say this lawyer is better than that programmer. It is a GE Jack Welsh technique. Goldman Sachs also does it. Much has been written about ranking everyone along a bell shaped curve and firing the lowest 5 or 10% every year. Once you get rid of the dead wood after 1 or 2 cycles of this, the dead wood is gone, yet a good employees are at the bottom. You are at the bottom because of politics, favoritism, or the slightest transgression on your part. At that point , it is bad for morale and leads to mediocrity.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/16 16:33 by joemvcnj.

Plenty of good employees are in the mix. So are better employees.

keeping lower performing employees is not a recipe for any kind of good customer service.

I'm not a fan of the belief that everybody deserves a medal for waking up in the morning, and all our employees are exceptional.

 

Why don't government employees have the same standards as those in the private sector. They should be "at will" employees meaning they can be canned at any time for just about any reason....To quote someone running for President (the one not under FBI investigation) "You're Fired!"

How do Government employees relate to this thread?  I thought Amtrak was only Government in ine mixed-ownership.
​It's not GS rated employees, but a private company, no?

Obviously they crossed the line somewhere to have police escort them out of the building.  Some things are no tolerance, like looking at kiddy porn at work, killing someone, domestic problems that are criminal in nature, doing or dealing drugs at work.  Stuff like that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/16 17:25 by jfrank39.

The presence of Amtrak Police is only a precaution.  In one of Amtrak's RIFs, I was let go in 1981 (I think).   Anyway along with about 100 persons that day at 400 North Capitol (Amtrak HDQ then), we were individually called in by our supervisor first thing in the morning.  We were read the letter about reduction in force.  Our job/position had been eliminated.  We were relieved of our company credit cards, computer sign-ins, and any other valuable company property.  Then we went and cleaned out our desk - they provided a card board box.    Then we were escorted out the front door onto the plaza in front of 400 N. Capitol.   I was standing on the plaza with many other of the 100 persons.  Some were crying; some laughing; some stunned. 

​I got my job back ten days later as a consultant, but that is another story.........

jfrank39 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Obviously they crossed the line somewhere to have
> police escort them out of the building.  Some
> things are no tolerance, like looking at kiddy
> porn at work, killing someone, domestic problems
> that are criminal in nature, doing or dealing
> drugs at work.  Stuff like that.

It does not mean they crossed any line. "At will" employees can be let go for any reason, or even no reason at all. The security escort is, sadly, SOP. The idea is to prevent last second sabotage by an angry ex-employee, which could be a major issue with IT people. 

Amtrak is a government enterprise. The Feds appoint the board, subject the place to inspector General oversight, and require congressional oversight.

And they aren't subject to local fuel taxes and have federal government license plates.

Close enough for government work.

Posted from Android

jfrank39 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Obviously they crossed the line somewhere to have
> police escort them out of the building.  Some
> things are no tolerance, like looking at kiddy
> porn at work, killing someone, domestic problems
> that are criminal in nature, doing or dealing
> drugs at work.  Stuff like that.

Some employers always have security or police available while terminating employees, especially during a mass cleaning.

You know I get real tired of the stupid spinmeister crap that Gene spews out for the sensationalism.  The people let go on Thursday were not "management" but clerks and support personnel that got their jobs riffed.   A few knew it was coming. ( I personally know two of them)  The IT folks got their jobs moved to contractors working in the new IT control center in Atlanta.  There was nobody escorted out by police.

prr60 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> jfrank39 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Obviously they crossed the line somewhere to
> have
> > police escort them out of the building.  Some
> > things are no tolerance, like looking at kiddy
> > porn at work, killing someone, domestic
> problems
> > that are criminal in nature, doing or dealing
> > drugs at work.  Stuff like that.
>
> It does not mean they crossed any line. "At will"
> employees can be let go for any reason, or even no
> reason at all. The security escort is, sadly, SOP.
> The idea is to prevent last second sabotage by an
> angry ex-employee, which could be a major issue
> with IT people.

For organizations like Amtrak where senior management's unfamiliarity and incompetence of the subject is an issue (IT in this case), this should be SOP, since management might not be able handle sabotage caused by the more savvy employee. When I was in IT, "security escort" was unnoticeable at best, and subtle at worst, since management was typically IT-savvy, and knew how to handle potential RIF problems.

Of course, post above by MW4man says this is all exaggeration, so who knows...

Companies can be crazy with the RIF process. I put in for retirement, the company refused.

Three months later I was laid off, with six months severance pay. But I had to stay for 90 days. The boss told me not to bother coming in...

Posted from Android

I've been on both sides of mass firings/layoffs/<whatever> they want to call them that year.  As a contract computer consultant for most of my career, usually contractors were all cleaned out before any real layoffs start when business declines.  I was unexpectedly given 2-day notice of contract ending at both Ford Motor Company and Chrysler when I was living in Detroit in the fall of 1974 (I was working at Ford by day and Chrysler by night, no less!).  I 'survived' a couple of contractor wipeouts at 3 Fortune 500 companies I was on contract to in the following years (high priority projects).  So, when the day came that employees were being escorted off the premises, they'd be called into the managers office one at a time, and, concurrently, the IT security people disabled their userid on the computers, to prevent any disgruntled employee sabotage.  The security guard and a cardboard box waiting for them at their desk is standard modus operandi for the past 15 years, at least.   

As mentioned by others, some companies simply do mass IT layoffs every couple of years and figure they can get some new, young talent for less money later on.  What they lose is the corporate knowledge of -why- certain programs do what they do, -how- they do it, and -how- is it tied into the rest of the systems there.  I was at one company when management decided they no longer needed a particular system of programs and after 'study' by those who had little knowledge of the system that had been running for over 20 years, shut it down one night.  Surprise, surprise, surprise!  The 'dead' system was a critical 'feed' to 3 of their most important systems!  They scrambled to restart it and then tried to figure it all out.  My project was done a couple months later, so I never saw how that turned out.  Unfortunately, the reality these days is that none of the programmers of the 'heritage' mainframe computer systems are still working.  So, the new kids on the block make some level of effort to understand how each system works and usually get lost in the process.  It's like walking into the space station with only some college level courses under your belt and trying to figure out how it works!  The days of mainframe assembler and even PC assembler programming is in the distant past.  But the nuts and bolts at that level still remain as the basis for a lot of what is still running today!   

It is very common for no notice to be given as to who gets fired or laid off this is done to protect things so the person who is let go cannot do any damage to files or computers. At the time they are called in all pass words and access to anything is cut off and changed to protect the business.
Happens every day and even with govenment employees they are terimiated for cause and down sizing.

Our Mastercard was thru MBNA and B of A bought them out some years back-- when that happened we had several instances of our online payments delivered late-- when we went to straighten it out the BOf A people admitted that there was a lot of corporate sabotage on the part of the MBNA people who messed things up for the card users to harass the BofA people. 
C

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

joemvcnj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Offshoring I-T

No, we're often "on-shored."
Nobody wants to pay Tech people benefits (e.g. sick days, paid vacation time, health insurance). You're given the option to become a "staffer" with a firm (Xerox staffing, IBM staffing, etc.) where you are hourly -but not allowed to work more than 40hrs/wk.
Typically you're a 1099 but, as far as the company is concerned, you're no longer headcount and they're getting what they need out of you.
My old parent company did it to the entire department (hundreds of people), so why should a railroad be any different?

andersonb109 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why don't government employees have the same
> standards as those in the private sector. They
> should be "at will" employees meaning they can be
> canned at any time for just about any reason....To
> quote someone running for President (the one not
> under FBI investigation) "You're Fired!"

Oh, the "one not under investigation".....you must mean the one who is a fraud and is facing multiple lawsuits.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/16 05:12 by ATSF3751.

BRAtkinson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've been on both sides of mass firings/layoffs/
> they want to call them that year.  As a contract
> computer consultant for most of my career, usually
> contractors were all cleaned out before any real
> layoffs start when business declines.  I was
> unexpectedly given 2-day notice of contract ending
> at both Ford Motor Company and Chrysler when I was
> living in Detroit in the fall of 1974 (I was
> working at Ford by day and Chrysler by night, no
> less!).  I 'survived' a couple of contractor
> wipeouts at 3 Fortune 500 companies I was on
> contract to in the following years (high priority
> projects).  So, when the day came that employees
> were being escorted off the premises, they'd be
> called into the managers office one at a time,
> and, concurrently, the IT security people disabled
> their userid on the computers, to prevent any
> disgruntled employee sabotage.  The security
> guard and a cardboard box waiting for them at
> their desk is standard modus operandi for the past
> 15 years, at least.   
>
> As mentioned by others, some companies simply do
> mass IT layoffs every couple of years and figure
> they can get some new, young talent for less money
> later on.  What they lose is the corporate
> knowledge of -why- certain programs do what they
> do, -how- they do it, and -how- is it tied into
> the rest of the systems there.  I was at one
> company when management decided they no longer
> needed a particular system of programs and after
> 'study' by those who had little knowledge of the
> system that had been running for over 20 years,
> shut it down one night.  Surprise, surprise,
> surprise!  The 'dead' system was a critical
> 'feed' to 3 of their most important systems! 
> They scrambled to restart it and then tried to
> figure it all out.  My project was done a couple
> months later, so I never saw how that turned
> out.  Unfortunately, the reality these days is
> that none of the programmers of the 'heritage'
> mainframe computer systems are still working. 
> So, the new kids on the block make some level of
> effort to understand how each system works and
> usually get lost in the process.  It's like
> walking into the space station with only some
> college level courses under your belt and trying
> to figure out how it works!  The days of
> mainframe assembler and even PC assembler
> programming is in the distant past.  But the nuts
> and bolts at that level still remain as the basis
> for a lot of what is still running today!   

I know exactly what you mean....Been programming for 37 years....The young ones do not understand detail.   Management in IT has been getting worse and worse.  I am lucky I have less than 3 years left before retirement....I tell young programmers just starting in the business....Go in the service, get veteran status, take a state police exam.