Subscribe
Several Cisco System employees have notified us that the company will be shutting down for up to three weeks during the holidays. During the shut down employees will not receive any pay. The employees are looking for part time work to earn money to make it through this period. If your company is looking to do systems upgrades or need network admin tasks done, check Craigslist as Cisco employees will posting their services there.
The Cisco shut down has ramifications for the wider Silicon Valley economy as well. Cisco suppliers and partners will have to find alternate source for the excess capacity or shut down during this period shut. That means the infamous Cisco janitors will have no work for three weeks. Last year more than 75 vulnerable, low-wage janitors were laid off by Cisco’s during a similar shut down. Since then, the janitors and hundreds of Silicon Valley community supporters have launched a series of escalating mobilizations to urge the corporation to be a responsible corporate citizen and put the janitors back to work.
The janitors and their community supporters have vowed to continue to their actions to appeal to Cisco to put the well being of hardworking service workers ahead of corporate profits.
Channels: cisco, shut down
Share company news, product news, sector news, industry news and more... 
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Austen M., Chris Isaac. Chris Isaac said: Cisco Shut Down. Employees Seek Work On Craigslist http://ow.ly/1aqUFV [...]
Pingback by Tweets that mention Cisco Shut Down. Employees Seek Work On Craigslist -- Topsy.com — December 13, 2010 @ 12:49 PM
The article is very misleading and inaccurate- as expected. The janitors and the many other contract workers do not work directly for Cisco and have their own vacation policy. The shutdown is from Dec 23 to Jan 2 so includes 5 weekend days, and 3 paid holidays (paid for permanent employees). This is far from the three weeks sited in this article. Holiday shutdowns are common for many companies in the Valley so singling out Cisco is purely for hype. The article talks about janitors but says "many employees" are looking to Craigslist for work. I haven't seen any janitors taking on network admin tasks so clearly there is a confusion on job descriptions. Yet another journalist gone to the dark side.
Comment by Donna Rahsen — December 14, 2010 @ 11:11 AM
Hi Donna, the Cisco employees that told me about this are engineers not janitors. They said they had to take up to 3 weeks off due to the shut down. One Cisco employee specifically told me that he will not be paid for the 3 weeks. He said to make ends meet he will be looking for work on Craigslist. He also mentioned other employees at the company will also be taking to Cragislist to find work to make ends meet. They also told me that last year they had to take off 2 weeks during the shut down and this year it is 3 weeks.
Comment by WebGuild — December 14, 2010 @ 11:53 AM
They should offer to help LinkedIn get their datacenter un-hosed.
And help Gawker up its security…
Comment by thundt — December 14, 2010 @ 1:01 PM
I'm a full time employee. Full time employees of Cisco are being asked to take four days vacation. They can borrow from 2011 vacation. The days are December 23, 28,29, 30. The 24th, 27th and 31st are paid holidays. Contractors may have different vacation policies but Cisco employees are neither being shut down for three weeks or not being paid.
Comment by D. Kamph — December 14, 2010 @ 1:49 PM
Probably should have identified additional sourced or reached out to Cisco – I work there as well and we are asked to take 4 days off.
Comment by Erica — December 14, 2010 @ 3:03 PM
I am a full time employee at Cisco and I can confirm Donna and D. Kamph's comments. I can't confirm the claims made by contractors.
Comment by Richard — December 14, 2010 @ 4:06 PM
I did. I went to:
1) Corporate website http://www.cisco.com/web/siteassets/contacts/inde...
2) IR website http://investor.cisco.com/contacts.cfm,
3) Site map http://investor.cisco.com/www-us.computershare.co...
There was no contact information nor form to fillout. Finally I called the switchboard and was put through to IR or corporate relations, where I got voice mail. The only page I saw with a form was the products page and this was not product related http://www.cisco.com/web/siteassets/contacts/inte...
Comment by WebGuild — December 14, 2010 @ 4:06 PM
I worked for Cisco for over ten years. Most Cisco employees work part time and collect full time paychecks. some of the laziest, most bureaucratic bunch of useless, over paid people in Silicon Valley (Yes, i was one of them). Going to work at Cisco was like a well paid vacation. People showed up to work at 10 and left at 3. "Working from Home" was a common excuse for not showing up to work. It's a great gig if you can get it at Cisco.
Ex-Cisco
Comment by J. Shah — December 14, 2010 @ 7:06 PM