I am not an HP employee and never have been, but I do remember a time when working at HP was said to be a privilege in itself.
The original founders, Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard, must really have been some swell guys to work for.
Mr. Wargo : although your words were said ironically, you have undoubtedly stated the bitter truth of these times :
the Human Resources department does not deal with Humans, it deals with Resources.

I feel the need to share my experience I had working at HP with all the rest of the victims here. I remember back to a Carly visit to our R&D center. She arrived in a black limousine. She was dressed in black as were the body guards surrounding her. I remember the creepy feeling I had from this. It was like seeing Satan herself. The music from the movie the Omen went through my head as I watched her march into the building. Did she really believe that she needed body guards to protect her from the building full of nerds? She thought we would attack her or something? Somehow she must have known deep down that she was evil and need body guards to protect her from her own employees. I wonder if she knew about the standing ovation complete with cheers and clapping that she received when the announcement was broadcast through the buildings that she was fired. Little did we know that her replacement was every bit as evil and would treat HP employees with every bit as much contempt as her. All I know is that all of the suffering that Carly and Hurd applied to HP's dedicated and devoted employees will some day come back to them two fold. Whether their own conscience catches up with them or not, I am certain that this kind of backstabbing cruelty and broken families will not go uncorrected. When it come time for judgment day, I would not want to be in either one of their shoes.

Good luck and thanks to all of Hurd's victims that I had the honor of working with.

I have no words to express the full extent of inequity that hangs all over this company.

And congratulations to Mr. Hurd for his most unethical performance screwing thousands of employees. He really knows how to take full advantage of economic crisis.

Finding a new job isn't easy these days - so I'll have to watch Hurd doing his evil dance a little longer.

Foolish people, don't you yet realize that employees are not actually considered part of the "company" per se? Only management, because of their uniqueness, are worthy of being actually considered part of the "company." Regular employees are essentially contract people in the eyes of those that actually matter, i.e., management. So until you are invited to become one of the insiders, you are an outsider, hence your compensation is of little note. Just be happy, you little grub, you should be paying for the privilege of working here!

After all, engineering and technical people are a dime a dozen, and any one of them is a useless as any other, but good managers, why, they are a rare and valuable resource and must be respected and compensated richly.

(Said with tongue firmly planted in cheek)

Being worked for Compaq/HP for 6 years and laid off at 2006 before Christmas. I have to agree on the previous posters. As I have said so many times when I was working in HP. I am sure a company will save more money by outsourcing the CEOs and top managers. On top of that, people's moral will go sky high and productive will grow.

HP are a disgusting company. They get rid of staff "to cut costs"; Make the "cheapest" people redundant; Ensure that existing staff get no pay rises for a number of years; Yet here we have Mark Hurd taking home $30m. How many staff would that pay in a year?

I used to work for HP, half the department I worked for were made redundant in July 2006, the other half wo thought they were "safe" were axed late last year. The reasoning "to cut costs"

I agree with the previous Victim. HP is by far the most unethical company I have had to work for. It is disgusting that with recession a single person in the company could be making that amount of money, while most other employees (that actually DO something) have been left with no salary increase for the past 4 years.
Criminals.

At least someone at HP did well.

Most of the engineers that I know at HP are looking for work after they were replaced with someone from Bangalore. After three years of ongoing layoffs, there are few left and moral is very low. Good job Hurd!