Downsizing Options

[blackshine]

What are some questions a megacorp (Ares) would ask its employees to determine which wageslave they would like to get rid off?
They must cut at least one position (Corporate Security Guard) to remain competitive.
Think of the movie "Office Space" with the "efficiency experts".
Let's assume the megacorp is not omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

They don't need to ask questions anymore: They have more data than they would ever need.

[Aerospider]

Yeah, pretty much.
Just have to load up the performance analyst software to compare each individual's worth and future promise based on employee statistics, like punctuality and training exercise scores.

If you wanted to know what criteria the corp considered most salient in the matter, there are those two options for starters. Their immediate superiors would probably give them ratings on a monthly basis. Time in service could also be relevant as could age and metatype ('relevance' being a rather subjective quality).

[Professor Evil O...]

OK, here's an interesting question. A lot of those same Ares employees will have Ares SIN numbers and therefore be Ares citizens. What happens to them if they get "downsized"? Are they suddenly SINless and out on the street? Do they just get sent to another department/division, that would sort of defeat the point of downsizing? Sure, they could apply for citizenship somewhere, but what if they're low or unskilled workers, or the wrong meta/ethic type in places like the Tir?

[Caadium]

OK, here's an interesting question. A lot of those same Ares employees will have Ares SIN numbers and therefore be Ares citizens. What happens to them if they get "downsized"? Are they suddenly SINless and out on the street? Do they just get sent to another department/division, that would sort of defeat the point of downsizing? Sure, they could apply for citizenship somewhere, but what if they're low or unskilled workers, or the wrong meta/ethic type in places like the Tir?

Given the traditional mindset protrayed in SR megacorps I would say that yes, they are then out of all the priveledges, such as SIN, afforded by their former employer. In some ways, if someone is beholden to a company with no ties to a traditional government (UCAS citizen for example) its their fault for choosing to trust their megacorp to always be there for them.

Or, in simple terms, the unofficial official policy of a company like Ares (at least in any game I run) would simply be this:

"Not our problem."

However, remember that this type of thing would also affect their ability to recruit.

[Professor Evil O...]

Given the traditional mindset protrayed in SR megacorps I would say that yes, they are then out of all the priveledges, such as SIN, afforded by their former employer. In some ways, if someone is beholden to a company with no ties to a traditional government (UCAS citizen for example) its their fault for choosing to trust their megacorp to always be there for them.

Or, in simple terms, the unofficial official policy of a company like Ares (at least in any game I run) would simply be this:

"Not our problem."

However, remember that this type of thing would also affect their ability to recruit.

That's pretty much my feeling as well. I'm just curious to see other people's take on the situation. This answer is certainly good fodder for the old "bitter former employee of corp X" character background.

[LurkerOutThere]

Well i think the OP is asking questions presuming for whatever reason the employers would ask questions and not just rely on test data. There are a few reasons and ultimately their irrelevant to the question at hand.

SOme questions i would throw out.

"So what have you done for the company besides punch the clock and collect your pay."
"Whats your favorite product of ours?"
"Boxers or briefs?"

[ARCANE]

I always liked the:

"Describe a problem you encountered while working for us and what you did to resolve it?"

Nothing like an open ended behavior analysis question. Yay for amateur psychology!

[Critias]

Let's assume the megacorp is not omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent.

Are you saying they're not? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)

[blackshine]

"Describe a problem you encountered while working for us and what you did to resolve it?"

"So what have you done for the company besides punch the clock and collect your pay."
"Whats your favorite product of ours?"
"Boxers or briefs?"

These are the kind of questions I was looking for. I look forward to more imaginative and loaded questions that could agitate the NPC wage slave into quitting or going "postal". Thank you for your help and I will include them in my campaign as the runners will be the unbiased, third-party, "efficiency experts" the spineless Johnson wanted. Some employees that are going to get fired aren't going to go down without a fight, especially if the former employee is proficient in weapons as a corporate security guard.

[blackshine]

Are you saying they're not? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)

If the corporations had all of these attributes, the underworld would not exist, there would be no need for shadowrunners, and we would be playing a much different game. Applying these attributes: assuming the megacorp or any NPC's are omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent, is one huge mistake many GameMasters make.

[AngelisStorm]

But from the opposite direction, there is no way to know if they are or aren't any of those things. Just like if someone on the internet decides to stalk you. Is he (or she) some idiot wanna-be hacker, or did he create a false account, get a friend invite to your Facebook, and zoom in on that one picture of you, in your living room, which happened to have half your address showing.

Not knowing how all powerful and/or knowing someone is is the scary part.

[Critias]

If the corporations had all of these attributes, the underworld would not exist, there would be no need for shadowrunners, and we would be playing a much different game. Applying these attributes: assuming the megacorp or any NPC's are omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent, is one huge mistake many GameMasters make.

It was a joke. Y'know, reacting like your average lifelong wageslave would react, should someone badmouth their corp?

[cndblank]

You don't become sinless just because you lose your job.

Your Sin sticks with you and would revert to your country of origin.


I expect that Dual Citizenship between AAA Corp and countries is very common.

The Corporate Citizenship is likely consider a convenience to allow Corporate Employees to freely move around Extraterritorial corporate sites.

The Corp will guarantee their employee's behavior and maybe pays a small visa fee or tax fee to the country.


Also not all corp sites are Extraterritorial.

And not all employees are Corporate Citizens. Plenty of employees are likely local citizens that work on Corp territory and then go home at the end of the day. I expect it would be fairly common among the lower ranks with Corporate Citizen ship being held out as a prize for being worthy to join the family.

That being said, I expect they would get rid of any non Corp Citizen employees before getting rid a Corp Citizen employee.

The corps fight hard to recruit the best and brightest and wouldn't want to negatively effect employee moral and their recruitment efforts.

They also have the whole cradle to grave corporate loyalty indoctrination going. Plus the spouse will often be a Corporate Employee too.

Now a demotion and or transfer is always possible.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Ok, adding some legal issues to the problem.
Let's say you are an UCAS citizen hired by Renraku and given corp citizen (dual citizenship). Let's say you are transferred to Japan and meets another Renraku employee who is also UCAS-Renraku citizen. You have a child in Renraku territory. Since the UCAS has the whole citizenship thing based on jus solis (people born inside UCAS territory is an UCAS citizen), their child will only have Renraku citizenship.
Now, this child is screwed, because if Renraku ever decide they don't want said child as employee, the child will have two options:
A- be arrested as illegal citizen in whatever place she is -OR-
B- become a shadowrunner -OR-
C- ask for asylum somewhere else.

Are there any holes on my argumentation or any suggestions?

[Penta]

Hole: I don't think it's stated that the UCAS only has jus solis citizenship. If they stole US law wholesale, then they have jus solis and jus sanguinus (citizenship from parents).

[PBTHHHHT]

My take on this, if we still have the influence of the 80's, particularly with Japanese Megacorporations, most of the time, there won't be as much layoffs since people who devote themselves to the corporation will be more or less taken care of by the corporation. The people who are outside of it are the ones who lose out in a corp intrigue, betray the corporation, or really, really screw up. This applies to the long term corporate citizens with lots of family roots, it doesn't pay for the corp to treat their corporate citizens badly. Now, contractors on the other hand...

[Ascalaphus]

It might differ, culturally. Japanacorps do like the sarariman ideology. Shiawase particularly has the whole family corp spiel going. Getting fired is rare, they'd probably prefer reassignment to an arctic mining camp. Sentiment in the corporation might be rather anti-downsizing, too.

S-K might be more western in outlook, preferring to just lay off low-level employees who no longer serve a purpose. Of course, in any corporation, no high-level employee is normally permitted to leave the service and live..

As for dual vs. mono-corp citizenship: I imagine corporations see advantages in monocitizens. No hassle if you want to legally execute them, or use them as test subjects. No funky income tax demands from the UCAS, either. The corporations sure do like their independence.

[cndblank]

Actually is only the child of a citizen who become citizens.

Just being born in a countries territory does not make you a citizen which is why there are so many sinless.

Now if some thing happens to the paperwork/records like a Crash, revolution, or hostile action....

Or there was some confusion or Identity theft....

Things could get interesting.



Also one who is well educated with a decent work record and reasonable state of health will have little trouble getting a citizenship some where.

For that matter, they are shipping UCAS scientists off to work in the wilds of Africa.

It is only the uneducated and useless drains on society that have trouble getting a SIN.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Hole: I don't think it's stated that the UCAS only has jus solis citizenship. If they stole US law wholesale, then they have jus solis and jus sanguinus (citizenship from parents).

I'm no lawyer myself, but Brazil has jus solis citizenship and I assumed that US was the same, since this is the standard for most new world countries.
For instance: if the child of a brazilian couple is born on Italy, and none of the parents are doing an official mission for the nation nor have italian citizenship the child born will have no country. At least this was the example given to me by my brother. I'm pretty sure that after some bureocracy the child could be eligible for some citizenship.
@cndblank: this is what jus sanguinus is for. The offspring of two american citizens will be american no matter where they are born.

[X-Kalibur]

I don't think it needs to be the offspring of two Americans citizens, does it? I thought only one was required? (Most probably the mother)

[Penta]

Only one, correct.

I could cite to law, but do I need to?

[X-Kalibur]

Only one, correct.

I could cite to law, but do I need to?

Wholly unnecessary. Just clearing the air, as it were.

[Creel]

It is only the uneducated and useless drains on society that have trouble getting a SIN.

Not at all, getting a SIN is easy if you really want one. firebomb a squad car.

[cndblank]

The US currently is jus solis citizenship.

As part of the Cyberpunk future, governments with crippling debt, privatized government functions left and right and revoked that law so that there was less drain on their budgets. And the Corporations do very little unless they are paid for it.


No SIN and there is no number for the school system to pug in and get paid so no education.

No Doc Wagon bracelet and no ambulance.

No Franklin Fire Department services and the Fire department shows up not to put out your fire but to prevent it from spreading to their customers homes.

Plus it is a great time for a membership drive. Enrollment always picks up. The more alarms the better!