Project 2025, the lengthy document spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation to lay out plans for the “conservative president” they expect to be elected this year, would gut the civil service by reclassifying many policy and technical expert positions so that they could be fired without cause, giving the president the power to fire them at will, something that Trump did by executive order a few weeks before the 2020 election but which President Biden immediately rescinded when he took office, again protecting government employees from being fired for political reasons. (pp.43-44 and following)
For the first time since 1912, IBM (International Business Machines) does not have a physical footprint in Endicott, New York.
Broome County is the birthplace of IBM, which formed in Endicott as the Computer-Tabulating-Recording Company in 1911. It changed its name to International Business Machines in 1924.
For many decades, under the leadership of legendary CEOs Thomas J. Watson, Sr. and Jr., Endicott maintained a special place within the international corporation, employing thousands of people with several blocks of buildings downtown. They were a huge presence in the community, donating to charitable organizations, organizing volunteer activities, and providing recreation and education for their employees and their families. There were generations of people who worked for the company, which had an ethos of respect and care for their employees and the greater community. Even during the Great Depression of the 1930s, IBM did not lay off workers. The loyalty IBM showed to its workers was returned and there were many families who had multiple members across generations who were IBM employees. Even when IBM headquarters moved elsewhere, Endicott was honored as the birthplace of the company. There was even a company museum on site.
When my spouse B joined IBM in 1989, many of the IBM traditions were still in place but that was about to change. IBM had for decades chosen CEOs from within the company but in 1993 hired Louis Gerstner who massively changed the corporate culture, with layoffs and the attitude that employees were expenses to be cut rather than the expertise that allowed IBM to have products to sell. In 2002, IBM sold the Endicott campus, renting back some space from the new owners, which eventually was whittled down to one, nondescript building.
In March 2020, due to the COVID pandemic, IBM closed access to the building and many months of working from home began. This relaxed somewhat over time and this January, employees began working three days/week in the office and the other two from home. B and his team all came in on the same three days to facilitate collaboration. They also enjoyed lunches together, often taking walks afterward, as they had pre-pandemic.
This spring, though, IBM announced their decision not to renew the lease on the building and not to seek another physical site, ending 112 years in Endicott. The employees remaining, many of whom have over thirty years of experience, will go back to working from home until they retire.
Yesterday, August 31, 2023, was the last day.
B and his team were there working, left their now-empty offices, and turned in their keys.
It’s sad for us and for the community to lose what had been such an integral part of life here, although it has been a long, slow, painful bleed. Some of the old IBM buildings have been renovated and are in use but a number of them are now condemned and awaiting demolition. The good news is that Endicott is being re-cast as a renewable technology/battery hub. There are plans for a gigafactory to make batteries for EVs and such as part of the Triple Cities Innovation Corridor, for which Endicott is the advanced manufacturing hub.
The irony is, of course, that IBM was doing advanced manufacturing on the site for decades and now won’t be onsite for this new era.
One of the buildings that I hope will remain as a monument is the North Street Clocktower building, which is emblazoned on the cake at the beginning of this post. It contains the motto THINK carved into the stone.
I’ve spent the bulk of my time over the last (more than I care to tally) years taking care of various generations of my family, which has involved a lot of interfacing with medical, educational, financial, insurance, religious, and other institutions. Since mid-December, I’ve been mired in dealing with issues around Paco’s health and his move from his independent living apartment into the assisted living unit of his senior community via a hospital stay and a stint in the rehab/skilled nursing unit. There has been an avalanche of problems with medical and caregiving issues, as well as the seemingly more mundane issues of changing addresses, getting mail forwarded, etc.
The intensity of it all has reminded me of lessons I once knew about dealing with institutions, but had managed to forget until they were in front of me, again and often. A caveat on the following list: some institutions or, perhaps more precisely, some individuals within the institution do manage to react both competently and compassionately to individuals in difficult circumstances, but this is more the exception than the rule in my experience.
Institutions are set up to deal with things that fit a certain pattern. If your situation is different in some way, they don’t adjust well – or at all.
Institutions care more about their rules, dogmas, and self-perpetuation than they do about you. This holds true, sadly, even for medical, caregiving, and religious institutions.
Institutions are slow to react to changing circumstances. An example: insisting that you have a special form notarized in order to process an address change, even though you are already sending them a durable power of attorney and a death certificate proving that you have legal authority to do so, when, during a pandemic, this adds personal risk to their client and the notary.
When an employee of the institution makes a mistake, the person can follow those instructions to the letter, but the consequences of the mistake will redound to the person or their loved one. The institution will not make allowances for their employee’s mistake and make things right, even though you were acting in good faith and doing what you were told to do.
Lots of balls get dropped. You can been assured that thing X will take place tomorrow, only to find out the next week that it hasn’t – and that no one remembers that it was supposed to have taken place.
It’s very difficult to get accurate information through when it needs to be relayed through multiple people. I can’t tell you how many times the answer to my question has no bearing on the question I actually asked.
People hear what they want to rather than what you actually say. This is a corollary of point 1.
Institutions don’t want to accept responsibility for their decisions, policies, and errors. They will blame you or the computer or something other than themselves. In New York State, they often blame Governor Cuomo.
Institutions are defensive. A neutral re-telling of facts can be taken by an official as an accusation. This is a corollary of point 7.
Institutions think they know more than you do. Sometimes, this is true. However, it is not true that they can understand someone as well after fifteen minutes of interaction as you do after knowing the person for years/decades.
Having to do everything at a distance makes it harder. While some things are best handled electronically or in writing, others are easiest to take care of in person. One particularly gut-wrenching aspect of our current situation is that we can’t see Paco in person, so we can’t keep on top of what parts of his care plan aren’t being consistently followed. When I do see him and see that he hasn’t shaved for several days, it’s very disconcerting, knowing that someone is supposed to be helping him with that daily and that he isn’t able to articulate that to me or the staff himself. See points 4,5, 8, and 9.
I wish I could say that my relearned lessons made things easier or less upsetting, but they haven’t. I’m tired and frustrated and dreading the next set of problems/tasks awaiting me this week added to the unresolved things from last week.
I’m opting to use the Just Jot It January prompt today, which is “balance.”
A large company in our area used to promote the concept of work/life balance.
They don’t anymore.
Now it is work/life “integration.”
This seems to mean that the employee is supposed to squeeze the rest of their non-work life and responsibilities into gaps in their work life. It also means that work can lay claim to what used to be personal/family time, such as evenings, weekends, and vacation, expecting monitoring of work email and helping to address problems over the phone.
I don’t think this is good for the employees, their families, or the business. It’s easy for workers to burn out and that is not good for anybody.
Joanne Corey 