To anybody currently working for, or recently having left EDS UK (and I'm in the latter category, hence the anonymity) this will come as no surprise at all. There has been a singular lack of work, particularly in the applications development arena, for nearly a year now. The company kept promising that new projects were in the pipeline but little concrete evidence of this has surfaced. I sat on my backside for six weeks before deciding to find myself a new job - before I became an overhead the company no longer wished to sustain.

I don't see things getting better in the short or medium term. The company has a less than glowing reputation with government (it has lost Customs and Excise and Ministry of Justice in the last four years, I expect Prisons to follow suit when it is up for rebid) and has been unable to make any significant traction in the commercial sector during the five years I was there. A few lawsuits have been knocking around though - Sky, Airtours... Only DHSS and MoD are doing 'well'.

However, EDS is really good at deciding that the answer to all their woes is to restructure. I was restructured five times in the last 12 months of my tenure, each time with a new line manager and my pay rise was 'lost' twice. The things that might have made a significant difference to quality of work and retaining expertise (the capability units) were formed with insufficient cash behind them and then disbanded after nine months of inactivity.

Head office management (Plano) doesn't seem to have a clue why things are the way they are, IMHO EDS in the UK is on a hiding to nowhere. Bad reputation, low morale and a complete misunderstanding of the issues by management means the company is in a catch-22 situation of its own making. Many older staff are loyal only because they are in the final salary pension scheme, but anyone who joined since 2003 is in a standard money purchase scheme and hence has a lower degree of loyalty to the company. Last one out turn off the lights please.

I can give them a few if they like;). But I'm not bitter.

reskilling = sacking

I suppose if the people being sacked are worse than useless...

While we're on the subject of layoffs, keep your eye on Dell - no, not the announced ones in Europe, the 'quietly out the door' ones in Texas.

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"undertaking the cuts to make sure we have the skills we need to drive the business forward".

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So, in EDS parlance, you ensure that your business has the requisite skills, by sacking staff? That guy was surely bonged up on something when he rattled that sound-bite off! He presumably read that from an corporate EDS "book of permitted stuff wot you can say."

What sort of bullshit is that?

Anyway, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I've been interviewed now twice by EDS when they were in Telford, and both times I told THEM "no thanks". Both times I could not actually get any sensible definition of a job description from them. If THEY don't know WHY they are hiring YOU, then that is a company that is badly out of control - nobody at the helm, as evidenced by their recent(ish) high profile IT disasters - Child Support Agency et al...

I got stuff like:

"Well, we're particularly interested in leveraging certain aspects your skill set with reference to projects that may be undertaken in the future, and moving further on we see certain skill synergies vis-a-vie our current global vision and directives that may indeed be to our mutual benefit."

And I'm like:

"Right... Cool... I can see why you'd want a VB and SQL bloke. Great." (everyone nods heads candidly)

EDS: The biggest bullshit and vapour vendor in the UK IT industry. Grown fat off of the back of UK government agencies and budgets. More spreadsheet jockeys, writing "upstream reports" than you can throw a stick at. It's not in their interests to produce tangible usable products. All that brings about is an end to the project in question. No, it's in their interests to delay, obfuscate, and talk about doing stuff, rather than actually "do the stuff", and submit as many VORs as possible... Keep as many bums on seats as you can... They're all chargeable. But for fuck's sake, don't write any code. At least, that works anyway. Write about writing code. No problem. But don't actually 'produce' anything.

No offence intended to the many talented coders and DB guru's etc that I KNOW are buried deep down within EDS, under the sixteen levels of managers, line managers, workpackage mangers, supervisors and 'career mentors' etc... I know you guys are in there, trying to get the job done. It's the management... Happens in all the 'big companies'. Who remembers IBM? "We're the greatest. We're the greatest. We're doing really well. God we're great... We're fucking ace we are. We are truly the best. Oh fuck... We're nearly broke...Shit."

To the first commenter, I worked for the consultancy arm which in my time fell under application development and can agree that at time work was a little light at times. I resigned to go freelance, something I don't regret but my voluntary redundancy application was declined, perhaps if I'd held on a little longer I'd have had it granted: most of my team were begging to be made redundant which was a strange experience.

Then they could recursively disapear up their own a***holes

I worked for EDS for over 8 years but it felt like a lifetime, I managed to throw myself a liferaft recently and jumped ship. I grew tired of fighting with management, and explaining why non-complete servers should not go live just because some CDE says so, and why "Cheapest Shoring" does not give the "Skilled Staff that can Buy and Sell UK staff".

EDS does have some very skilled staff on the ground, but when failed techies get promoted "out-of-trouble" to account managers, business managers, and client delivery managers, who then get "Power Crazed" and start telling the techies how to do the job, rather than listen to their experience, there's only one way the service can go and it has! :-(

EDS has a policy of promoting "Yes Men", and shunning the staff who advise of the potential problems as well as solutions. Good people can and WILL only carry bad management so far, before moral hits the best of them. When you hit rock bottom, get your pick-axe and start digging.

I've no regrets about leaving, except maybe I should have done it a few years earlier. I feel very sorry for the decent staff that are left as well on the ground mopping up the mess as well as the poor customers that EDS don't give a toss about. I wish they understood the phrase 'Don't bite the hand that feeds you!'