Training

Today I listened as a coworker told someone else about a different job that she would be taking, one in a different part of our gihugic company. The primary -- in fact, the sole -- attraction of this job was that she would be able to work from home, which would mean saving about two hours a day in commute time -- a valuable consideration. I heard her say that she had been searching for some other job within the company for a year and a half, and her conclusion was that when they said they would make alternative jobs open, ones for which you could apply, they neglected to mention that all of those jobs -- not many, not most, but all -- would require you to have at least medium skills in multiple areas, and above average or excellent skills in at least two or three. Absolutely no one was interested in doing any training.

This is hardly new. At the other big computer company where I worked, that decades ago prided itself on training its own people from the ground up (which practice started when they found they couldn't hire anyone with the skills they wanted at the salaries they wanted to pay), it has been true for at least ten years that they don't do training. They did, for a while, have a training system where a class would be given in a central location (which was almost always at the corporate headquarters complex); you could dial into it via a television network. Then they started charging for use of the network, and so managers who had to keep an eye on their budget started sending fewer people... at which point the people who were responsible for the television network said well, since we're not earning as much as expected, we want to shut the network down. After a great outcry, and much spreadsheet finagling, they kept it, but in a diminished state.

All of which got me to thinking: if no one wants to train the basic skills, what do the companies do who require those skills? Surely, others have contemplated this. And the only thing I can think of is: they migrate to newer technology as quickly as they can -- not because its better, but because its supportable. And if you happen to be a company known throughout the world for building those massive computers and their associated operating systems, which requires those skills in order to be able to continue running those systems? Well, you might imagine such a company would have a vested interest in keeping its staff well-trained, and, given the inherent unsexiness of the older technology, perhaps well-compensated, too. Because, otherwise, your company might start to wind down, at least in those old-techology sectors. Sectors which provide a large part of your eroding profit base, right?

What was our stock at, again?