Nokia Siemens Networks in 'synergy-related headcount restructuring'

We're absolutely delighted to announce that Nokia Siemens Networks is in the final stage of its 'synergy-related headcount restructuring' in which a total of 9,000 workers are culled to the sound of whalesong. Yup, this must rate as one of the greatest euphemisms ever for showing employees the door, and just to demonstrate how …

[Jacqui]

anti news feed analyser tactic

I have used a few commercial grade "feed analysers" and like spam, companies vary the language used to try and beat how the tools will react to thier news.

Applying s/sacked/foo-related headcount adjustment actually affects how some of the systems report the consequences of the ifnormation but some see through the guff and correctly reduce the value of the share price.

Jacqui

[James]

Bet they won't win ...

.. the "Investors In People" Awards this year then.

It also won't win the "Plain English" award either.

Synergy .. dinergy .. meglamaniergy .. it all means the sacking of many people and the further pressures on the nations economies with these unemployed people.

I really think bullshitters like "Simon Beresford-Wylie" should be made to eat their words (carved on a hefty slab of granite).

Whilst all this is going on I wonder how much of a salary reduction Mr Beresford-Wylie and fellow directors and upper managers are taking - synergistically speaking, of course.

[Chris Miller]

Masters of Bullshit Articulation

Synergy (noun - from the Greek syn-ergo, συνεργός, 'working together') the working together of two things to produce an effect greater than the sum of their individual effects.

How can sacking employees be said to be 'synergy-related', unless the ones that are gone are somehow going to continue working for nothing? What's wrong with an honest approach of: "Sorry, but times are tough, and some of you are going to have to leave or the business will not survive"?

[Destroy All Monsters]

Muah

Sounds like GlaDOS. Has she taken over the boardroom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully they canned the N810 OS bunch

I will be very happy if the bunch of clueless wankers that wrote the N810 OS2008 "Diablo" crap are now eating out of trash cans. They took a great product and saddled it with a crash-happy OS with a broken GUI and bug-riddled APIs. The code for the built-in GPS takes 10 minutes to find the satellites. It's so bad I had to go back to OS2007. I hope every damn one of them dies slowly and horribly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, synergy-related is quite popular

see http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/308492/Whalesong-related_headcount_restructuring

[Chris Miller]

@N810 flame

Nokia (Siemens) Networks make base stations and other network kit - nothing to do with the folks (clueless or otherwise) that write the software for Nokia handsets.

[Kevin Pollock]

Snappy German translation

OK, there HAS to be a single German word for synergy-related headcount reduction. I don't speak German so I fiddled with Babel Fish for few seconds.

It's the word "related" I seem to be having a problem with. Any German scholars out there who can help?

Best I can do so far is Synergieverbundenangestellterbeseitigung. It seems altogether too "hasty" as the Ents would say.

[Pev]

The clue is in the name...

It's Nokia Siemens *Networks* - sadly the twats that did the N810 are probably onto cocking up the next big thing as they work for Nokia Mobile Phone. The phone people actively shun the networks people and visa versa. The network people only like the old Bokia 6150 anyways as it was the last Nokia GSM phone that actually worked reliably.

Anyone with any history with Bokia knew that the writing was on the wall as soon as the merger with Siemens was announced anyway. Bokia has a long standing history of selling out the parts of the organisation that were about to go tits-up. It's standard operating procedure now... and Simon Wiley-Coyote has been talking about synergy since the very first fscking day.

[Andus McCoatover]

Yep, I was one.

Thanks to Wylie Mybestfriend's-Simon's decision to snuggle up to the Krauts, I got shunted out last year, after 12 years service. Mercifully, I was in the first round, so got a decent payout. Well, I thought £40K was great, but the taxman thought he'd died and gone to heaven - 52% shaved off the top - Finland, natch. And, no dole for 14 months as a result. Still, 18 months doing fuc*k all is nice (which is how I can write this drivel at midday on a Thursday, from the pub).

Don't think those in the later 2 rounds were as lucky, however. Also, many of those ex-colleagues I've met are, like me, over 50. Wonder if that was a criteria?

Don't knock Bosko Novak, though - in a jokey correspondence with me, he seemed like a decent bloke. Just has a shit job at the moment.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's OK to be sceptical...

but the fact is the reductions have not been a bloodbath. I am one of the former NSN employees in that figure. I was outsourced last year and sure I feel bummed but I kept my employment and salary. Most of the reductions have been "soft" - outsourced, moved internally or folks left on their own accord. Lots left simply because of the merger - working for Nokia meant something. NSN has none of the appeal. In Finland only a couple dozen were actually laid off if you are to believe news sources.

Re. Synergies yes it's corporate speak but it does have a meaning. Two companies merging means overlapping functions can be cut. So James and Chris, in your haste to spout you failed to realize the cuts were due to the merger and hence planned about two years back, not due to the recent downturn. I was culled in the first wave and everyone knew more "announcements" were due.

Re. N810 please note it's a Nokia product nothing to do with NSN.

[Glenn Charles]

synergy

Think I'll try a glass of that...

<burp>

--Glenn

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Kevin Pollock

How about "Unternehmenszusammenschlusspersonalverringerung" ?

That literally translates as "enterprise merger (related) workforce reduction"

It has to be made up entirely of nouns, so that explains your trouble putting a verb in there.

And btw, I would strongly advise not to use words like "Beseitigung" (= disposal) in connection with human beings, that's so last century...