IBM? Dig deeper

Hi, I’m an employee of HP, and I can understand why they did well in your survey. They’re a fine company and treats customers & employees with respect. But I used to work for IBM and for the life of me I can’t understand why they even made your list. I knew managers there who needed to be jailed, forget about fired. IBM works hard to keep a clean image – dig deeper and you’ll see what they’re really like. IBM likes to do things which are morally wrong but (barely) legal when it saves them money. That’s their business, but you shouldn’t be labelling them “ethical”. Examples: *) They skipped paying $1.6 BILLION in taxes when they discovered a loophole in the taxcode. Right after they did this the IRS jumped to close it. Who makes up for the lost tax revenue? You and me. Don’t take my word for it, read this. *) To promote their image, they have SCCAP (Special Care for Children Assistance Plan) to help kids problems. Sounds good, right? It does to the 99% of employees that don’t apply. I was in the 1% that did apply, and never got a cent after filling out paperwork and asking 5 doctors to do the same. My favorite response was when I asked them to help pay for my son’s AFO leg brace, the response was “no because he had a stroke”. That’s right, a stroke is a medical problem so SCCAP couldn’t help pay for his leg brace. *) I had a co-worker laid off after 10 years at the same job. IBM paid her 4 weeks severance, much below the industry norm, because they could. IBM bought the company after 8 of those years so they reset her seniority. They’ve played similar games with pension plans, check with employees.*) Have you heard of IBM‘s clean-desk policy? IBM secures the buildings with locked doors and security guards, but employees must not leave documents on their desks overnight. Why? Because even IBM knows they hire some thieves but it’s cheaper to lock down documents than find the employees that are crooks.As I said, all of this is legal. Just not ethical. Image source: images.businessweek.com

Message received by Covalence | Country: USA | Company: IBM, Hewlett-Packard | Source: The author wishes to remain anonymous; his identity is known by Covalence editorial team.