#culture

I’ve watched this place grind people down for years and it still feels the same. I don’t expect anything from here anymore, just a regular paycheck. It’s strange staying somewhere you can’t stand, but work is work. I’m keeping my head down until something better lines up.

I’ve been here long enough to see how everything revolves around the same tight circles. If you’re not in their little social crew, you’re stuck watching others get pushed ahead. It makes the whole place feel small and predictable. I’ve stopped expecting anything fair from the system.

In the words of one former CEO…Lessssss gooooooooo! Ayyyyyeeeeeee.

Working at this bank feels like watching a reality show with no script. Ideas fly around, half of them make no sense, and somehow projects still move forward like it’s all totally normal. I just sit there wondering when someone will notice how crazy things actually are.

What I don’t see is Nike ever reaching the heights of its old glory again. I actually used to enjoy working here. Now it just feels like any other random job that could vanish at any moment, and I wouldn't even care. You can’t be invested when leadership isn’t, and you can’t feel like part of a team when there’s no team left. We’ve become bland, and cutting people seems to be the only strategy they have to stay afloat.

I keep hearing folks whisper about layoffs like it’s something to hide, and I don’t get it. Most of us end up caught in one at some point and it’s got nothing to do with our worth. I’ve been through it myself and the silence only makes everything heavier. We shouldn’t act like losing a job is some kind of personal flaw.

It cracks me up how people talk about teamwork at TD like it’s some magical thing happening every day. Most of us are just patching holes and trying to keep things from falling apart while a few folks float from chat to chat. We stay because life outside the job is expensive, not because we want to be here. I've been here long enough to remember the time when that wasn't the case, but it certainly is now.

Used to be that if you got a job here, you were set. You could actually plan a future, take pride in the work. Now it’s all about cost cuts. They’ve traded loyalty for churn, and it shows.

Narcissism is the only explanation for sending weekly videos of yourself in a sleeveless workout shirt to the entire CX org. I'm guessing he thinks it makes him "cool" or impresses us that he's outside, but really it's hard for us to imagine having no self-cringe-radar. The cost of PC replacements in CX must be enormous, cause I want to smash my computer every Saturday when he sends the video over. Each Monday I just hope that my face is not locked into a permacringe stance because I don't want customers to have to feel my pain. Andy, please help CX because this is the most feckless leader I've encountered in my career.

Ooh still seems we have one:

https://www.verizon.com/about/our-company/code-conduct

Seems it’s just about half the length it used to be, and what we lived up to daily, which made us great.. up until our management disregarded it in their daily life’s…

Mass shareholder returns is driven by having happy customers…

Is there happy customers?
Can we do a poll on redit?

By coincidence but this weekend I discovered a movie on Tubi called “The Company Men”…gives good perspective about the corporate shenanigans many of us have been caught up in. Recommend giving it a watch.

The fanatical obsession with meeting next quarter's numbers to mollify Wall Street is diametrically opposed to being a strong innovation company. The linkage between end customers and CRL and Divisions was very strong for decades. It covered all businesses. Major advances in road sign and road paint to improve nighttime visibility was a classic win-win. Think how many lives have been saved. Just pulled my winter gloves out for the first real cold blast of early Winter and love seeing Thinsulate.

Desi may have been a so-so CEO and perhaps a good example of Peter Principle, but the innovation didn't die with him. The problem began with James McNerney. He's the one who decided the penny-wise pound-foolish strategy of starving CRL to pay for bigger dividends or buying back shares was a winning strategy. WS loved the guy. Employees not so. Other than a 20% boost in 3M share price the week he was announced in 2000, the share price didn't beat the SP500 by much for the rest of his failed tenure. Inge borrowing billions to buyback shares and scare off activist investors saved his and Mike's job but left the company starved of new blockbusters.

Like Field of Dreams (build it and he will come), for CRL is needs to be "invent it and customers will come" - BBs obsession with NPIs only breeds game-playing (how about a peach colored sticky note, any one?). When Desi pushed for 30% of sales from new products, he at least fully funded CRL. BB, nope!

Just happy I somehow made it to the right age/experience to get pension and retiree medical support (although BB is sc--wing people over to be "competitive"). I see no future left with this place. Just pump it full of painkiller and break it off into pieces and hope the divisions don't end up with a Bryan Hanson 40 million dollar man doing what he's doing to wreck SOLV.

Perfectly said, @z9+1k9bbemrv.

What happened to the talent at this firm? Was I hallucinating or was life at the firm better before?

I’m starting to think I was gaslighting myself to think my coworkers were competent professionals. They’re neither competent, nor professionals anymore.

Remember all of my comrades, we are all just a number in corporate Verizon.
That number is number 2

The useless and id--ts are still stuck around look very suspicious and nervous at this place while the talents are still pushed out secretly.

https://studyfinds.org/saying-um-more-frequently-may-signal-cognitive-decline/

VZ Fam.. you should watch Season 1 Episode 1 of the Office to cheer yourself up. Its relatable lol

I was hired about two years ago so I only know the cultural under this CEO and CEO leadership. Honest question for those who have been here for a decade or so - how does this culture compare to prior CEOs and leadership team? Better? worse? If different, then how?

Why do we have a US leadership and Indian leadership in IT.
Possibility to trim the fat..

As chairman of Frontier.. does John Stratton come back?

Maybe Mike Lanman and George Fischer weren’t also so bad; compared to what we had the last decade?

Remember when the 10 points of the Credo were stuck on every wall, printed and stuck on every desk.

He is getting his Pals the pay...

There's entire chains that remain on the foundry side absolutely disconnected from any actual engineering or manufacturing beyond the occasional random h1bs or DEI hires reaching out with obscure nonsensical requests. It's clear that these people don't know what's going on, often can't speak English , and contribute nothing to the foundries, and yet it's these tumors that remain while oblivious Middle management cuts the people actually doing things for the floor...

Are we ready to give our best 20% effort?

As f5 continues to sink we can turn this around. Go back to hiring people not on how they look but on what skills and vision they bring to the table. How John McAdam did it.

Every time the org chart gets shuffled, employees don’t feel “aligned”; they feel like another layoff wave is coming. That kind of background anxiety eventually becomes its own full-time job.

The constant context switching is just as costly.
Teams barely settle into new priorities, new leaders, or new workflows before everything resets again. It’s impossible to build momentum when you’re always reintroducing yourself and relearning the mission of the month.

At some point, leadership has to realize that stability is a competitive advantage. You can’t demand world-class creativity and execution from people who are bracing for impact every quarter.

What the company actually needs isn’t another reorg ; it’s a resilient long-term plan, consistent direction, and a culture where people feel safe enough to do their best work. That’s how you “win,” whether it’s now or later.

Seeing my fellow Verizon team mates stressed about potential layoffs is hard. Seeing LinkedIn influencers rush in to ‘add value’ just to boost their own metrics? Infuriating. They act like they’re offering wisdom, but really they’re just feeding on the anxiety like opportunistic sharks. It’s deplorable.

Are leaders gonna encourage their teams to work from home Thursday…just to enable the people who are impacted to save face? Not have to get “that” call right in the middle of all their co-workers?

I was today years old when I learned there is such a thing as a layoff merch industry, and it's thriving. What the he-l? Why are people selling layoff shirts, jerseys, cups, and whatnot, and more importantly, why are people buying it? Somebody make it make sense, please.

Hi, Verizon employee here. I have heard that many former Verizon employees went to T-Mo. If you are one of them, can you provide some insight into the similarities and differences? Not asking for specifics, just generalizations. Curious about how different we all are. I am former ATT and found both ATT and VZ to be pretty similar

If they follow up the layoffs with a 5-day RTO I think they'll have a riot on their hands. There's only so much people can take, and I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being the straw that breaks the camel's back and we see massive quitting, which is probably the goal, along with massive walkouts. If cops can have the blue flu, we can have something similar as well.

At least on my team. Tells you all you need to know about this company and what are its priorities.

That once we shed 15k people, things will suddenly turn around, we'll become more profitable, the stock's going to skyrocket, and all that jazz? Because we've had layoffs before, and all they ever did was leave the people who stayed with even more work. That's it. Oh, and the people at the top got fat bonuses. Which explains a lot.

Greedy AI investment with un realistic expectations burned out IT team. IT teams started digging hole for all store and core employees, ended up digging too many. Now it's time to burry them all including the one who dug it in the first place.
Irony is, Now everyone is asking AI will they be on the list.

The past few years at Clover have exposed the full extent of failure in engineering and product leadership. Decisions are reckless, priorities constantly flip, and nothing ever gets executed properly. Every new “initiative” collapses into chaos because the people in charge can’t think ahead, can’t follow through, and seem completely out of touch with reality. Teams are left to pick up the pieces while leadership pretends everything is fine.

The lack of accountability is absurd, the same mistakes keep repeating, yet nothing changes. If real progress is ever going to happen, serious action needs to be taken at the top. Clover leadership needs a hard reset, and the company can’t afford to keep operating with this level of repeated mismanagement

So the goal here is to take longer and use an application that jumps through 9 different screens that serve no purpose. Bouncing little ba--s and a screen that just freezes. So what kind of kick backs did someone get paid for us to buy this worthless application ? Last time this happened - AT&T Wireless bought Siebel .............and then what happened ? Bub bye.

Seriously, the guy just cuts heads- couldn’t literally anyone do that? So what exactly makes someone a great leader? Apparently here it’s leading us to lots of debt, pi----g off most employees, forcing overcrowded buildings, having the arrogance to say this is best even though employee surveys says differently, constantly refer to other companies like Amazon that we are following- so really we lead in nothing, and of course the complicit board-made of of other people that knew best and pi---d off their own employees.

The current implementation of internal account indicators—often referred to as "banners" or "flags" for priority opportunities—is fundamentally distorting our approach to customer engagement and compromising the integrity of our sales data.

The core issue is that management directives are prioritizing the achievement of a high banner "close rate" metric over serving the complete needs of the customer.

Metric Manipulation Over Sales Integrity:
The mandate to achieve a positive close rate on these specific accounts results in behavior that is detrimental to both the customer and the business's long-term health:

Avoidance of Service:
Employees are being instructed to actively avoid accessing accounts with a high-priority banner if the customer's immediate need is not a confirmed purchase (e.g., they need a simple phone activation, a non-committal upgrade quote, or troubleshooting). This is a direct abandonment of the core principle that customers are the lifeblood of our operation.

Skewed Performance Data:
This avoidance strategy does not reflect an increase in sales; it merely creates an artificially inflated "close rate." If an account with a high-value opportunity is never opened, the company still fails to capture the potential revenue. The resulting data gives a misleading picture of our sales effectiveness, suggesting we are performing better on these opportunities than we actually are. This is not salesmanship; it is data manipulation.

Unrealistic Expectations and Pressure:
The immense pressure placed on front-line staff stems directly from unrealistic expectations set by executive leadership, who demand near-perfect closure on every flagged opportunity.

This lack of realism ignores the fundamental reality of the sales process, which inherently includes customer deliberation, declines, and service-only interactions.

Furthermore, this intense focus and pressure are applied despite the fact that successfully closing a high-priority banner sale does not typically result in increased commission or compensation compared to a standard transaction. This disconnect forces employees to endure significant stress without adequate incentive.

The Call for Change!!
The mandate to avoid customers based on a potential sales banner is a betrayal of the stated core values of the organization, particularly integrity. True success is measured by serving every customer need honestly and driving organic sales, not by fabricating positive performance metrics through systemic avoidance and data manipulation. This practice must be immediately reviewed and reformed to align our operational goals with genuine customer care and ethical sales practices.

Even the plumbing gods hate RTO. El Segundo office closed today due to no running water. Hopefully the rain expected this weekend will make for a nice long, slow repair process. Doubt it but it would be nice. Great to be to work without distractions and a pointless commute even if it’s only for a day or two.

I have a hard time to believe that.

Corporate America, including Wells Fargo has been nothing but a source of wealth for the CEOs and executives. They don’t give a cr-p about any of the worker bees who make their salaries and bonuses possible go rake go rough a house go build something do something meaningful with your life because the corporate life will do nothing but drag you down and lower your morale