Lou Gerstner knows what shorthand skills are worth, and it apparently is not the $100,000 a year top secretaries at IBM headquarters used to make, at least according to the Wall Street Journal. Having pared his payroll of many office workers and clerks in the lower ranks of IBM Corp, Gerstner is now cutting the take of 120 executive secretaries whose base pay had been as high as $70,000 a year and whose income was supplemented by overtime that could boost their earnings by as much as 50%. Henceforth, annual base pay for most of Armonk’s top secretaries will be $45,000, although about 20 of the most exalted will make $50,000. The Journal also reported an explanation provided by IBM spokesfolk: the pay cuts are part of an ongoing IBM campaign to adjust its compensation levels toward the US norm, which, for executive secretaries, the newspaper pegged at $40,000 a year. Hardly anyone would be surprised to learn that some of the 120 secretaries that were told to take the same letters but smaller numbers interpret Gerstner’s action as an invitation to leave IBM. If this occurs, a key secondary effect of Gerstner’s economic sanctions would be the destruction of the Stenographers’ Stasi left over from the regimes of John Akers and his predecessors.

Lunch money

Critics of the manoeuvre said that the total savings to IBM would be insignificant, mere lunch money. But lunch money in Armonk isn’t insignificant at all. Ask Lisa Lobasso. The 37-year-old chef was, according to USA Today and the related Gannett News Service, lured away from Lou Gerstner’s erstwhile employer, RJR Nabisco, to run the executive dining rooms in Armonk for an annual salary of $87,500 plus a $30,000 sign-on bonus, plus maybe tips. Officially, Ms Lobasso’s title is Program Manager of Customer Dining Services, not Chief Cook and Bottle Washer. Also, officially, IBM does not want to talk about this addition to its headquarters staff. Ms Lobasso is not replacing a notable individual, according to inside sources; a catering company, not some other souperstar, had formerly served Big Blue’s bigwigs lunch. The catering company ousted in the coup de tarte might have been Marriott Management Services, which still runs the cafeteria that serves the 800 Armonk employees who don’t rate the ministrations (or min estrone) of La Lobasso. They probably eat their peas with a knife anyway, not for a lack of table manners but rather because of their need to be armed at all times. Incidentally, the Lobasso story surfaced because one Frank Lota crabbed about the hiring before more than 1,000 other shareholders at IBM’s annual meeting on April 25. It was the first time an investor ever complained because the price of IBM stock went up. From Infoperspective International, June 1995, published by Technology News Ltd, 110 Gloucester Avenue, London NW1 8JA, phone 0171 483 2681, fax 0171 483 4541. (C) 1995 Technology News Ltd.