#culture

It seems that some people are using this forum to vent personal frustrations rather than to provide constructive feedback. Calling out individuals or departments in an attempt to damage reputations or careers is neither productive nor fair. If you have legitimate concerns about a leader or colleague, the appropriate channels are HR or Ethics & Compliance—not anonymous posts.

While I agree that some resources may not be performing at the level expected, it’s not accurate or fair to paint entire departments, such as IT, in a negative light. Many leaders are working under significant constraints—limited funding, strict policies, and the usual corporate red tape—that can make progress difficult. From my own interactions, I know at least one leader who is frequently criticized here genuinely cares about making improvements and increasing efficiency. It’s unfair for them to carry the blame alone.

That said, accountability is important at all levels. I’ve observed managers who don’t take their responsibilities seriously, ignore feedback, or fail to address concerns. This results in underperforming teams, outdated or conflicting policies, and unnecessary frustration. However, blaming leaders who are actively trying to make a difference only distracts from the real issues.

Before criticizing others, I encourage everyone to reflect on whether they themselves are meeting expectations and contributing fully. Constructive feedback and personal accountability will do far more to improve our workplace than anonymous negativity.

Sociopathy is Rewarded in Corporate Culture

The corporate world often values and rewards traits associated with sociopathy, such as ruthlessness, vision, and high focus on goals. Steve Jobs is often cited as a model of leadership where these qualities were admired. This focus on cutthroat tactics and maximizing quarterly profits means that when a toxic boss acts toxically, they may be rewarded, not reprimanded, for their "success."

The Toxic Paradox: Kiss Up, Kick Down

Toxic people have mastered the art of "kiss up, kick down":

Kiss Up: They expend all their effort su-king up to the boss and higher-ups, focusing on perception as the most important element of career success.

Kick Down: They sabotage co-workers, spread vicious gossip, withhold crucial information, or take credit for others' work.

Cognitive Dissonance: When higher-ups consider a toxic person their favorite, they will justify the person's poor performance to advance them. Management may even gaslight a good employee who raises concerns by shifting the blame onto them.

Toxic Work Environments are Enabled at the Top

Weak or ill-equipped leadership creates and enables the toxic environment:

Underinvestment in Training: Many companies underinvest in basic management or leadership training, leading to ineffective leaders.

Poor Modeling: When a toxic executive is at the top, their leadership style—characterized by unrealistic expectations, setting people up to fail, and openly berating people—trickles down and is modeled by other leaders, rapidly declining the work environment.

Insecure Leaders: Many people pursue leadership for validation, power, or to feel important, making them insecure leaders who may tolerate other toxic people.

Toxic people are the Bigger Problem (and Harder to Deal With)

In many cases, management knows a toxic person is a problem but doesn't fire them because they are the bigger liability.

The manager (e.g., "Ted") realizes the toxic person (e.g., "Carol") would "lose her sh-t, file complaints, and cause all sorts of headaches" if confronted. The manager may instead choose to reprimand the more agreeable, non-toxic employee who they know will try to "keep the peace."

1. Their Reputation Matters More Than Results

Ultimately, toxic people are experts at exploiting the idea that their reputation with the higher-ups matters way more than results. They become untouchable once they establish influence with executive leadership.

Most people try to either play dirty office politics or avoid them, but the third option is to learn how to play office politics using simple power moves to make yourself immune from their tactics. But how? Does any of this ring a bell for you?

All of us in-office employees have been standing around talking about this site. There are so many new users here this week, it's going to be the new employee water-cooler going forward.

Where do I begin? After reading all of these and talking to fellow employees who I have known for 20 years, I have lost faith that we are capable of being a company that cares about its employees and customers. I have been here long enough to know people in all departments so I have been talking to them to see if what is written here is true. Time after time they were able to show me proof of….well…everything. I cannot believe we have arrived here after all of the things we had gone through years ago. I thought we learned that doing things right and doing so by doing the right things for our employees and customers mattered. How can we keep secrets about mold and hackers instead of being honest and simply telling them what we are doing about it. Bad things happen. They do in every company but bad companies lie and try to manipulate the masses and their customers. Is that reallly who we want to be?

I have also gotten to know many leaders here and that includes the new security VP. Isn’t it clear that he doesn’t have the ethical and moral compass to lead one of the positions that require ethics the most. And I am not even bringing up the lack of experience. And you wonder why he isn’t getting things done fast enough and rather throws shade and excuses on others? Do not those articles and what he has already spoken about to many of us even trigger that he is not the right fit for our beloved company, or any other Fortune 500? He is already causing problems with his rethoric and loose lips and I know many of you talk about how you don’t like or trust him. A couple of you have done it when I am around. What else is left? There are over 3000 employees on one of the posts that are screaming for help as one poster so eloquently mentioned on her post. One section below has over 70 thousand hits. That seems to be more than any other company in layoffs.com so take a bow at the damage you are causing to our company name. Especially since you all know customers read these and so will the decision makers who will select the leadership once we merge. Yes we know about that too. His very existence has already caused division and spread rumors that are all turning out to be true and hurts US Foods deeply. For Pete’s sake ELT, do what you know is right. There was a time we knew what great looked like and made the difficult choices easily. Give our coworkers a voice again to report situations that may be dangerous or wrong. The fact that they aren’t able to do that should give you pause and at least 3 and a half thousand employees already have spoken up. Actually, my friends in HR said their own leaders up to the top know the verdict is already out. For Pete sake, put the needs of the employees first.

And these decisions to lie or deceive. Who are we kidding here. Have you forgotten how clear you used to see poor leaders trying to minimize harm and doing so by lying rather than confronting the issues. Be bold and ethical. When all of you weren’t in your current executive positions, do you remember how you felt when things were kept in silent and evasive or hidden actions would happen from your leaders or executives you really wanted to believe in? Do you really want to treat us as blind id--ts? We see and know it all because we are a large yet small company with friends in every department. The IT exec needs to tell the truth of what happened and how you are addressing it and care enough about our employees to tell them enough about the breach to let them know they should not be fearful. Let them know all is well and that all you are doing to try to prevent another attack. The password leaks are scary and we don’t know what that means. Some of us do because we have friends in IT security who tell us but most employees don’t. We understand it is difficult to prevent a hack and won’t lose faith when it happens. Some of the most secure and powerful companies and governments have been hacked. It is not surprising or scary but your lack of honesty and treating us like id--ts is. That same thing goes for the mold and the violence and threat incidents. Do I need to really tell our leaders that transparency brings trust and that harsh consequences for those types of bad employees, create safer work places?

I lie awake at night next to my husband wondering when we will have leaders remember who they were when they were rising and who once said “I will be different when I have that job. I will lead my teams with dignity and honesty”. When and how did that change? But it’s not too late to listen to your heart and us employees and simply do what’s right and take the actions you need to take. We may be merging in the future and who do you think those holding the most stocks and power will want to retain as the new company’s leaders. The executives from one company that dont even get the trust or respect from their employees? Those that lie and deceive rather than speak up boldly and address how problems will be overcome? Those that make bigger profits the right way and with compassion for your employees? Is how you are acting the way you want to teach your children to be?

Please be who I know most of you to be and start to lead and take the necessary moves you need to make. I have seen the comments of lies, cheating to hire some employees, inequality in hiring for positions, taking people who had a proven poor past and were caught lying in articles and admitted to lying, handling work place violence poorly, badly managed safery incidents, etc etc etc. Read these articles and rather than do damage control and trying to find out who the 4000 employees are that are revealing everything, why not just fix the problems themselves . It is a noble idea and actions of true leaders. Your employees are reaching to you for help. Led them and win their trust and respect us again. It is all we are asking for from our executives and friends for which we cheered for to climb that ladder because we believed in them and a vision of true leadership. Be who we all hoped and believed you would be.

Who is really running things there? Why has neither HR or ethics and compliance team taken any action?

100% of the people I spoke to hate the new in office. It’s to get us to quit with zero severance. If you hate this policy then quit all your ERNs, don’t do any volunteer work or company wide events. Clock in, job, clock out. Don’t show for town halls. Let’s aim for zero participation and see if HR can push back on these ridiculous measures.

It’s been made clear that some of the pending and recent “promotions” have more to do with loyalty than skill, especially in areas like Data Management and Product. RED FLAG with layoffs coming, because people who question the approach often end up on the wrong lists (look at that orgs perimeter list alone). Best advice: DOCUMENT your work, keep your head down, and be ready in case decisions are made to protect someone’s inner circle instead of the SMEs or high performers, sadly in that org it’s clear your work or having any skills don’t matter.
*** Be prepared to prove it, save everything!

How do the 17,000 technology employees grow the company's bottom line?

Which has a better work environment?

https://www.reddit.com/r/developersIndia/s/IRDuqwVf86

It'd be weird to be quiet about this.

I’ve endured subtle and not-so-subtle racism in my years at HCSC. Microaggressions. Being talked over. Dismissed. Having to defend my competence, explain my presence, constantly prove myself. I got myself in grippy socks a couple of times due to the stress.

I reported things. I followed the “right channels.” I tried to hold people accountable, not because I wanted to be a revolutionary, but because I thought the company cared and I thought it would/could get better.

And now, as layoffs roll out, I find myself wondering: what was all that for? I fought to stay in a place that never really cared about me. Now I see people being walked out with no warning. And I could be next.

HCSC talks about values, but culture lives in how people treat each other, and how leadership responds when they don't. For many of us, the silence has BEEN loud.

I personally felt he demonstrated why our company is ranked # 567 out of 600 Companies for Employee Culture.
He said nothing new but did double down that in spite of reading the survey comments, nothing is going to change.
Let me repeat that… Nothing is going to change.
He symbolizes what is wrong with our once great company.
Bravado yet doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

You would think if you were getting a $20+ million dollar compensation package to eventually fire most of Discover, that you’d have the courage to do it in person. Classy move Dan.

Doesn’t seem like the culture at Capone would be worthwhile to stay around for anyways. A culture powered by PIPs and toxic management sounds like it a top place to avoid, not one you should be interested in working at.

Every one pats each other on the back and then pretends like any of this matters. While the whole world is a sh*t show

Anyone notice in 1400 the sign saying "Inspiring the next generation of scientists, engineers and problem solvers" and think like everything else our leaders are tone deaf? Do they mean inspiring the next generation of Indian Engineers?

Heard that on Cisco beat. Just gross

I swear if one more ex-CVS Health exec starts working here, we should start doing flu shots in the course materials area.

Tell us you're filling the company with c-suite buddies instead of investing in the stores without telling us.

Who is voting for this cr-p?

Layoffs have begun here. Good luck everyone. The culture at TI is going to ki-l the company.

I feel bullied by my leadership to take this survey. I don’t want to take it and risk being on the outs due to all the hard truths I’d give, but now our sr leadership is asking us to post an indication if we took it or not on a group team chat clearly so they can see if we have or not. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Anonymous is a joke! What would you do? I’m sadly tempted to lie and put middle of the road answers and call it a day.

PSA for oracle emps needing motivation prior to bootstrapping their way out
‐--------------
The "Oracle Doormat Principle" is a term used by former employees of Oracle Corporation to describe a psychological state where individuals, despite experiencing mistreatment, low self-esteem, or a toxic work environment, remain loyal to the company. This phenomenon is likened to "Stockholm Syndrome," where employees become emotionally attached to an organization that has abused them, often due to prolonged exposure and the internalization of the company's culture as a "family".
The principle suggests that the longer one stays at Oracle, the harder it becomes to consider leaving, regardless of the negative conditions, because of the deep-seated emotional investment and fear of change.

Critics argue that this behavior stems from low self-worth and a paralysis to act in one's own best interest, leading employees to accept pay cuts, benefit reductions, lies, and abusive management without protest, often responding with passive acceptance like "Thank you sir, may I have another!".
This behavior is seen as detrimental to personal career growth and well-being, with some advising that if a work environment is bad, it never gets better and one should leave as soon as possible.

Worth a repost: may help Cerner, noobs, etc

https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jgIF8AJ

Nothing drives me up the wall like the phrase “Ask your supervisor”.

LITERALLY every senior manager, every email from exec, HR, colleagues, company intranet just tells you to Ask your supervisor if you have career ambitions, have family problems, have questions about the company strategy, company CO2 and NOx emissions, oh and while ur at it you can also ask your supervisor what next quarters dividends are gonna be right ???

That’s all.

Post it everywhere..

https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0923/1534732-return-to-the-office-mandates-emoployer-employee-control-power-productivity-innovation/

Narcissistic behavior? Surely not

When I worked in ECMO, I noticed that every single manager and team lead had a photo of their family for their computer wallpaper. Isn't that weird? What's that all about? Do they get a memo saying something along the lines of, "Now that you're a manager...", or do they just tribalistically recognize the "family values" hokum? Seriously makes Wells Fargo seem like a cult. Is it this way at all large corporations?

As an early career professional, this layoff showed me something new. Where I normally get treated like dirt by my seniors and most M’s, I’m noticing alot of ego deaths. M’s who thought they were on top or top ICs, tenured employees - they are all coming down off of their high horses because of fear that they are next.

What has this taught me? No matter how high I climb in my career, I will ALWAYS treat people with respect. Care. Appreciation for what they do. I will not act my title or my degree, but like a decent human being.

I wish this same reality check on those who need to internalize it.

#499!
https://www.forbes.com/lists/employers-culture/

So much for the "employer of choice" part of the Drive to '25.

Who's getting fired for this disgraceful showing?

That tells you everything you need to know about this company. The only thing worse would be if they were %600

Go to Glassdoor and sort the reviews by most popular, and voila! Ostriches with their heads in the sand!

This company, like all healthcare companies, DOES NOT CARE ABOUT YOU! Their ONLY concern is how much money they can rake in! They are not here to serve their members, just their shareholders so Gail can make her $20 million +!

How do you fix this?

https://www.forbes.com/lists/employers-culture/

Wow - I came back here to see if there was any real "news" I should be aware of, since there is no transparency at all from management, and I must say, I don't know who is luckier, the people who lost their jobs or those still here. At lease the departed are free from this cesspool of infighting and toxicity. Speechless. No wonder this company is going down the tubes.

When we worked from home, people cared more. We gave work extra attention, checked in after hours, and delivered our best because we had the energy to. With 5-day RTO, that’s gone. Now it’s just “do your 8, get out, forget about work.” The commute wears everyone down, the scramble for unassigned seats is ridiculous, and by the time you settle in, you’re already drained.

This idea that RTO “fosters collaboration” is a complete fantasy. There hasn’t been a single in-person meeting. None. Everyone is still on Teams calls with headphones in, just now doing it in a noisy, call-center style cube farm. The only collaboration happening in the office is people bonding over how much they hate leadership and this pointless RTO policy.

It’s not one-size-fits-all. Forcing everyone into the same miserable setup doesn’t make the company stronger, it just burns people out and lowers the quality of work. Productivity, morale, and loyalty are all tanking. But sure, let’s keep pretending warm chairs equal results.

Didn’t even hear about it anywhere in the office, had to find out about it midway

Rumors were circulating that the layoff rumors were to keep people on their toes and to make them work harder… that will only last for so long, we’re tired now. Productivity in my department is at an all time low. Entry level people are playing politics games, when they shouldn’t even be exposed to that. My whole department is such a sh-t show now and it’s getting to a point where there’s no turning back.