Unfortunately, I reported to a computer businessperson VP without a medical or science background, who did not seem to comprehend my concerns. (Why such a person would control such resources is a matter for another time.)
My position was then deemed "redundant" by this person, and I was laid off in the first round of Merck mass layoffs - ever - in 2003. 4,400 people were let go. (The VP was then laid off about a year after that.) Many other layoffs followed, and this new announcement is just a continuation.
I now note with sadness (and trepidation - I still live in a Merck town) this new announcement:
Merck to Cut up to 13,000 [that is, 13,000 more - ed.] jobs by 2015
They will accelerate layoffs "in the United States" since they "cannot meet their goals just by eliminating vacant jobs." This will involve sales, marketing, etc. and will start by October.
There is great truth in the simple adages, told to me by an old-time jeweler/numismatist years ago in his shop, that:
- "If you want to make a sale, you have to have the merchandise"
- "You can't do business from an empty wagon."
It also helps to have leadership with appropriate domain-specific expertise.
Hat tip: Pharmagossip.blogspot.com
-- SS
Addendum:
I thought the problems with bizarre eRecruiting solicitations that I wrote about in my Feb. 2008 post "If pharma cannot get its basic IT right, what about the hard stuff?" were over.
However, just yesterday I received an automated solicitation from this company regarding something related to import/export, an apparent profound mismatch to my background. It makes me wonder if the people with a sufficient understanding of computational linguistics who could fix the parser in the eRecruiting system were all laid off.
As I mentioned in the earlier post, mismatched outbounds probably correspond to internal blindness to inbounds (i.e., in properly parsing resumes). I wrote:
Could a poorly-tuned or malfunctioning eRecruiting parser, which probably works in both directions (i.e., alerts not just outside candidates but also people internal to Merck of incoming resumes it identifies as "interesting") adversely affect the "apparently available" talent pool across many disciplines?
-- SS
Oct.5, 2011 addendum:
One wonders how companies that frequently announce layoffs expect any work out of survivors:
Stress 'is top cause of workplace sickness' and is so widespread it's dubbed the 'Black Death of the 21st century'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2045309/Stress-Top-cause-workplace-sickness-dubbed-Black-Death-21st-century.html
-- SS