LA Times: "What non-Californians don't know about Carly Fiorina -- but should"

[SlipperySlope]

15. I was an HP employee during Carly's term

> She cut HP's payroll by 10,000 employees in 2000 while surrounding her glamorous self with clouds of image and strategy consultants.

It wasn't the fact that she orchestrated the cut. HP had never had layoffs. The history of the company, going back to Bill and Dave in 1938, had been one of a company that bent over backwards to protect the employees. In return, most HP employees had an unwavering faith and loyalty to the company. It was a very special place.

When Carly first came in many of us were excited. Here was an dynamic leader with fresh ideas who was going to reinvigorate the company. There was some grumbling about bringing in an outsider, but I think in general most of us wanted her to succeed. We believed in the company, the company believed in us, she was our new leader, and we were all in this together.

When Carly decided to start layoffs it was a shock to the company. HP didn't even know how to lay people off. We had to bring in outside consultants to explain how to do layoffs. Then Carly started talking about "reinventing the HP Way". For those who don't know, HP had a very strong and very deep corporate culture called the "HP Way". It wasn't simply some corporate bullshit that nobody believed in, it was a set of guiding principles that most of us used to guide our daily interactions in the company. It most assuredly wasn't some crap that had been slapped together by a bunch of consultants around the management style of the day, instead it was an organic culture that had developed over many decades. Carly saying she wanted to "reinvent the HP way" would be like Donald Trump saying he wanted to "rewrite the Constitution" - it did not go over well with the company loyal.

At some point it started to feel like the HP immune system was working to eject Carly. She was a foreign body that was doing harm to the company and it became more and more realized that everything she said was hot air, and that the best employees could do was work against her agenda, do the right thing, and hope to survive the waves of layoffs.

The day her resignation was announced, there were many "ding-dong the witch is dead" emails sent and posters hanging in hallways.

Screw her, everything about her, and everything she stands for. She single-handedly changed one of the greatest American companies that ever existed into yet another soulless corporation.

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