Oh, I'm very familiar with IBM. Interviewed with them back in the 60s... Two nephews and a niece worked for them in San Jose for a time... I also worked side by side with a few field engineers in the 80s, 90s... We installed a lot of IBM gear in little special applications, so I had a lot of their tech manuals, drawings at hand...
The interviewer had a problem when I asked, simply asked about labor issues, unions, just didn't want to deal with any of it.. I had a job, if it were tempting, I wold have considered jumping ship, but later working with their field engineers, I found they were treated badly, the guy was living in his car, they were so cheap, tight, wouldn't get the guy a room!
Nieces, nephews ran into other gaming situations where they were, bailed for other options, the one with the computer science degree tossed it all to become a linguist, packed his family off to Papua new Guinea for the next 30 years..
We thought WeCo was tough to lose your job, well, deep layoffs happen at all levels, many, many games played...
We are dinosaurs, nobody even talks of defined pension plans ,and so many are living hand to mouth, no savings, a lot of folks I worked with were there, but pension, SS, benefits that continue, bridge the gap, they get by... Few had investments of any kind... many didn't have working wives, left them pretty vulnerable... Many of 'em gone, or at least out of sight, nobody sees the, and they fade away... Might hear about it years later...
All we can do is help out kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, cousins make it into the current job market... College for those that can... Trade or other training for others...
Persistence!
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