Wow, I can't believe it's already been 20 years since I started working as an intern at IBM. A lot has changed since then. A made a post about working here after a decade, so you can read that here if you haven't already.
My mentor who helped hire me, Sonny Williams, has retired. He had an amazing career at IBM, all in the Performance team, over 40+ years... He was probably one of the most well-known people at IBM when he was here and was responsible for so much of the company's products' success. I always hoped the day would come that he would retire and I would still be at the company to congratulate and thank him for everything he did for me. I honestly would not be the person at IBM I've become without his guidance and advice. Sonny had a funny mannerism about himself where he would say the funniest (yet very clever) sayings in regards to the business and life in general. Everytime he said something memorable, I wrote it down in a notepad on my computer, with plans to eventually put them on a poster when he retired. I had years to accumulate so many of his quotes, and when he finally retired I asked colleages and his family to send me photos so I could make a retirement collage for him. Congratulations Sonny to a wonderful career!
In addition to Sonny leaving IBM, my team in Tucson has changed a lot. Only a small number of colleagues who were around 10 years ago are still working at IBM. The Storage Performance team in Tucson mostly dissolved, although some of them are working on Spectrum Scale on the "Real Fast" team. The last decade I've mostly worked on FlashSystem, which is a solid-state storage product I've grown to love over the years. There was a brief period where I moved to developmental software projects like MetaOcean and Machine City, but unfortunately neither of those ever came to fruition. At least there was always a home for me in FlashSystem.
However, as the Performance team in Tucson began to dissolve, most of the FlashSystem work was being developed in Hursley, U.K., so I eventually got transferred to that team. Nowadays, I work a very odd schedule, which involves me working late at night to sync up with the Hursley team and late afternoons to attend to anything in the U.S. that requires my attention. But to be honest, this schedule fits my lifestyle. In the first decade of IBM, I was always known to come in late and leave late, arriving to the office as late as noon on some days and working late at night from home to fulfill my job responsibilities. Now I am about 95% remote and only go into the office to work on the systems in my lab when they require attention.
Covid hit the world in 2020 and the site at IBM was forced to shutdown for half a year. A lot of people lost jobs during that timeframe and everyone was remote. It's 2023 now and the world is finally past that pandemic (although it still exists, it's just not killing people like it first did), and as a result they have pushed to get people back into the workplace. However, I still feel like the site is not as populated as it used to be. In fact, there'll be days I go into the office where I'll hardly see anyone in my building.
The culture at IBM was something I used to love. I'd look forward to all my coworker friends I'd see on a weekly basis and the company would hold on-site events to increase employee morale. While I can still walk around the buildings and see a lot of familiar faces, the culture here has definitely changed since I first started here. There's no more cafeteria on site where people would have a lunch break and mingle for a bit. The perks of working have decreased over the years. There's no more sports leagues (that I know of) and the years of gaming with coworkers is a memory of the past. A decade ago I would have said IBM Tucson was one of the greatest companies to work for, but if you ask me now, I'd say it's good for some and not so good for others.
Don't get me wrong though. I've had a wonderful career at IBM and personally I would love to retire with them. We'll see if I eventually get that opportunity. I have a six-figure salary in a city with a low-cost of living, and for the past decade I've lived a very financially comfortable life. I never think that I'm spending too much money to enjoy the lifestyle I want to live. My lone debt is to my home mortgage, which will actually be paid off in about 5 years. My retirement funds are growing well, although I'm still about halfway to the point I'll eventually want to be when I reach the age of 59.5. I've had a very flexible schedule, I usually work less than 40 hours a week, and I can comfortably work from home on a regular basis. To be honest, I've had a very stressfree career and IBM is the reason for that.
So while a lot of things have definitely changed here over the past decade, there's still a lot of reasons to stay with this company. There'd have to be a really good offer or some life-changing event for me to change jobs at this point in my life. I want to thank IBM for everything they've given to me after 20 years, and here's hoping I can make it another 20!
Also, there's one last thing that changed. The sign outside the lobby was painted a different color. :D
