#culture

Two talented people are gone from the team, but the clueless, passive-aggressive manager survived. Lucky us.

I wonder how he feels now that FT took CS back and will likely take everything else back. I remember that he was preaching this as a huge opportunity and saying that it will be great. Well...

1. They hate their wives
2. Work is their identity
3. They hate their families
4. They love to gossip
5. Control

Found this on Twitter, and it looks really appropriate. Those are truly the only reasons I can think of why somebody would be so staunchly against WFH, and it's incredibly sad.

Strap in. Turbulance ahead

funny how hard they would push them and now they've been quiet about it for almost a full year

WOW !!!

error codes on every link, using multiple browsers to load things, password change failure, support tickets unanswered, HR unresponsive, expenses rejected / declined. what the fu-k is going on here. the monday morning bog down is so brutal EVERY week

Not excited about Zayo. Its really a mismanaged company overall. At least Crown had somewhat of an idea. But Zayo has no clue. We have good people from Fibertech still on board. Zayo just needs to let us take charge. But who knows, knowing Zayo, they will lay us all off.

https://howtocenterdiv.com/beyond-the-div/nobody-pushed-back

Every major architectural disaster has the same structure underneath: there's a technical, visible problem, someone — usually more than one person — can see it, but pushing back costs something, so the decision passes under the name of "alignment" and eventually the system breaks.

TLDR: Most architectural disasters aren't a knowledge problem. The engineers knew. Speaking up just wasn't worth it.

Prediction: An executive posts from the World Cup. “The energy here is unreal — this is why in-person matters.” Forty-eight hours later, a calendar invite lands on a teammate’s screen. HR. No agenda. The post has 347 likes and counting.

Offering renewals discounts on an early PO from customers that gets booked in the current FY but not invoiced till it’s actually due next FY is wiping revenue out for the sake of a couple of months.

It’s done so renewals managers get their bonuses whilst flushing money out of the wider company.

Raised it got told to crack on and follow the management line.

No wonder OT is sinking, nothing is joined up, the rats steal the cheese whilst it’s there.

Please stop doing layoff. We are only 80k employees which is very less then your competitor. Still you continue doing layoff . Not even a single employee is happy over here. Please make your existing employee happy.

With the published “denied” rumors around Citi acquisition of Truist, should I consider joining TFC in a new role or stay put at my current company?

Can't wait to get to work tomorrow. Such a fulfilling job where I feel valued. It is great knowing my work is part of the future plan and I am contributing to the overall success of VZ. I'm so excited that I won't be able to sleep tonight. Set the Foundation!!! Love your company!

The shills or trolls (doesn't matter which) who keep posting the "we're growing! everything is awesome! the people we laid off deserved it!" BS are just trying to bait us. If we stop engaging with them, maybe they'll get bored and go away. The best way to push back is to downvote and move on.

Just numbers. That's it. Everything is about cuts, and we're the ones cut. Easy savings for leadership to boost the stock and their bonuses. So stop investing. Stop the extra hours. Stop expecting anything. And for God's sake, don't give this place a single thing more than what they're paying for.

I do good work for me. Not for the company. They don’t care whether I try or not. There is no reward coming my way. Odds are I will be let go eventually and nobody in management will lose any sleep over it. But I also know myself. If I spent eight to ten hours a day just skating by, working only for a paycheck, I would lose my mind. So I do the job well because I have to live with myself afterward. What I cannot figure out is how some people coast so easily. That would drive me insane.

Think about the people you work with. Every one of them has a distinct mind, a unique set of experiences, a whole library of skills they built over years. That is an enormous amount of potential sitting in one place. A smart company would see that as gold. Instead, most corporations treat employees like identical spare parts. Interchangeable. Disposable. If that is not a sign that the economy has lost its sense of what actually matters, I honestly do not know what is.

1) Current leadership appears to believe staffing levels expanded too aggressively during prior growth periods. Recent layoffs and return-to-office initiatives are being framed around AI and efficiency concerns, although many employees do not view the reductions as directly connected to AI adoption.

2) A broader organizational issue remains unresolved despite restructuring efforts. Cost reduction initiatives continue to focus primarily on headcount reduction, particularly among contractors and remote employees, because those areas are easier to target operationally.

3) The challenge with this approach is that it may not address underlying performance issues. During the pandemic, the company significantly expanded access to national talent pools through remote hiring. If productivity metrics such as revenue per employee are declining despite broader access to highly qualified technical talent, the more important question may be why the organization has struggled to convert that talent into stronger business outcomes. Cost cutting can improve short-term financial optics, but it does not necessarily resolve structural execution problems.

4) Recent operational and strategic missteps suggest that many issues originate at higher management layers rather than within technical teams themselves. Even after workforce reductions, competitive challenges are likely to remain if leadership and organizational alignment issues are not addressed. Managing distributed teams effectively requires different operating models, and return-to-office mandates alone may not solve coordination or productivity concerns.

5) A stricter return-to-office policy may also reduce access to specialized talent that competitors continue to recruit nationally. “But Amazon is doing RTO also” is a failure of leadership to understand their competitor - Amazon has headquarters in every tech capital
of America. RTO does not affect their access to this pool of talent. An alternative strategy could have been deeper investment in fully remote corporate operations alongside stronger management accountability, clearer execution priorities, and improved organizational communication. Employees generally respond more positively to leadership engagement that produces measurable business outcomes rather than highly polished internal presentations with limited operational impact.

6) Many employees joined the company because it was perceived as having a stable culture and experienced workforce. However, there appears to be growing disconnect between leadership and technical staff. Compensation structures and long-term incentives that may have retained prior generations of employees do not necessarily create the same loyalty among newer talent pools. Leadership may benefit from evaluating how effectively the organization supports, retains, and empowers the employees responsible for maintaining and building critical systems. After this abject failure of management, it will take years to earn any trust at all.

Why is pretty much everyone on this forum so obsessed with the Tenure numbers? This is a genuine question. I worked for several large multinational corporations and I've never see this as pronounced as here at EM...

The soft layoffs in innovative medicine continue, and many of us are starting to question the criteria behind who is being let go. Employees who consistently come into the office three days a week, contribute meaningfully, and do their jobs well are being impacted, while others who rarely show up and contribute little seem to remain untouched.

It’s difficult not to notice how political the environment appears to have become. At times, it feels as though if someone in leadership doesn’t personally favor you, your position may already be at risk. That perception alone is concerning. It keeps repeating and everyone sees it.

I simply wish professionalism, maturity, and fairness carried more weight in these decisions. People should not feel that their livelihood is tied to office politics, personal insecurities, or whether they are personally liked by leadership.

Let’s be honest — some of these leaders are simply not qualified for the roles they hold. Titles and positions do not automatically make someone an effective leader. True leadership requires competence, accountability, emotional intelligence, fairness, and the ability to develop and support strong teams. Unfortunately, many employees are witnessing the opposite.

Too often, decisions appear to be driven by favoritism, office politics, personal comfort, or insecurity rather than actual performance and contribution. Strong employees who bring value, experience, and consistency are being pushed out, while individuals with the right relationships or visibility continue to advance despite limited impact. That creates frustration, distrust, and a toxic work culture.

What’s even more concerning is that many organizations claim to value innovation, collaboration, and talent retention, yet they continue to lose some of their most capable people because leadership lacks the maturity or confidence to manage high-performing individuals effectively. Great leaders build strong teams around them. Insecure leaders often view strong talent as competition.

At some point, innovative medicine has to ask themselves why morale is declining, why turnover is increasing, and why employees no longer trust leadership. The issue is not always the workforce. Sometimes the issue is the people making the decisions

I joined last year, I am kind of surprised the there is so much pride associates have to stick around in company for 20-25-20-25-30-35-40 years!

In my first 6 months, when I met somebody or when they were introduced, there was no mention of their achievements, work or success or role .. it was always .. achievement is "she/he has been here for 10-15-20-25-20-25-30-35-40 years" lot of them are in the same role or team for at least 10 years!

Time to clean the rot and remove these parasites now. bp deserves new people (internal and external) to ascend and take bp to a new level. Meg will not have the luxury of time…similar to Woodside there are cracks in the edifice and challenges midterm…cheerleading because trading got a massive gain while the average gains by trading the last 20 years is a paltry 4% ROC

It's always amusing seeing Fran suddenly go quiet on LinkedIn when layoffs are announced, laying low, before she can return to posting about how people driven her company is

Even for iconic brands, the cracks eventually show.

Over the past year, Milady, a company that helped shape beauty education for nearly a century, has undergone a dramatic restructuring that many employees say signals the slow dismantling of the brand they once knew.

First, the Product organization was absorbed into the larger Cengage structure. Then Marketing followed. And immediately after the close of the fiscal year, the next blow landed: the Account Management team was eliminated.

Not restructured. Eliminated.

Employees were reportedly told they could “reapply” for newly created roles, a move that many viewed as deeply disrespectful after years of service and relationship-building. Instead of accepting the uncertainty, many chose to walk away entirely.

And honestly? Good for them.

What’s happening isn’t just corporate streamlining. It’s another example of a legacy company losing the very people, culture, and institutional knowledge that made it successful in the first place. The pursuit of operational efficiency and consolidation has slowly hollowed out once-thriving business units, replacing identity and loyalty with spreadsheets and restructuring plans.

No one is safe anymore!!

Look, we know you're monitoring this website. Shoot, it wouldn't be at all surprising if one of your VPs spent half the day refreshing this... or if you paid someone a Store Director's salary to do the same.

So, seriously, just between us: what's your plan?

We all have families, obligations... pets. We're doing our best to support our campuses, support our teams and continue our lives while you keep doing your best to make those things impossible.

So, again...what's your plan?

Asking for a friend.

He wanted to layoff local staff and use offshore. You could hear him regularly screaming at staff in his office or throwing temper tantrums that would put a 3 year old to shame. His bosses knew of his behavior but kept him at dst for 50+ years. A pitiful place to work

The smiling man is going to hold town halls in his vest and act like it's a great thing we're going bankrupt and then repeat the mantra "Focus on executing the WIN strategy." The same mantra he has used for every quarter of negative results. The same mantra used when we were told there would be no bonuses.

The fact of the matter is, revenue has declined for 4+ years and the executives have shown they are without any ideas to stop it. Project ATHENS was supposed to "stabilize" revenue whatever the he-l that means - but I can't imagine it meant it would just consistently go down.

The "Age of Possibility" was supposed to bring in new customers. Revenue dropped double digits.

The WIN strategy that has brought us millions of new customers? Revenue has declined EVEN MORE.

New people are being given keys to the shop after the bankruptcy. Don't expect the executives at Silver Point Capital to walk around and shake everyone's hand and talk about how excited they are to work with us. They will be about slashing every single line-item that doesn't make sense. Expect fulfillment to materially change - at least one ware house will close. Bookmark this.

The hedge funds aren't here to run a shopping channel indefinitely - they are here to make back their money by any means necessary. They aren't thinking long term. They are thinking 3 to 5 years.

Don't expect bonuses next year. You were kind of silly for expecting them this year. In addition, expect higher benefit costs at open enrollment

Rawlinson and company will stay as figure heads. They will give an air of stability that is needed - but they aren't in charge once the Summer is over.
You can start being real or you can continue to believe the nonsense spewed in the town halls that are as cheesy as the TV we produce.

QVC will be around indefinitely - but expect another big layoff. This time it won't just be office jobs. Customer service will be replaced by AI (As much as possible) and fulfillment will be modernized, "right sized" (you know what that means) and replaced by robots (as much as possible).

Friends Ignoring and ghosting to those impacted by layoff is a life long tradition and a feature in Cisco. First timers are in shock.

How did my HGO OD not get impacted. He does not live in the operation. He is out of touch. He states everyone that does not agree with him or do what he says should be fired. Maybe he is should be fired. It is his way or the highway. He does not play well with others. My RM says he needs to go. My SE gets little support from SEM and SSEM. JA, look at the HGO numbers. New leadership is needed in HGO.

Like AI, Crypto, or whatever fad tech is in style to talk about.

Mine is the ultimate micromanager, always hovering, always clueless. They prove every day they don't understand our work. But promote someone from the team? Heaven forbid.

I'm starting to think that's just a myth the old-timers keep repeating. You couldn't convince me people ever enjoyed working here.

It's a mixed bag in my team. There are a couple who contribute fairly. I've stopped checking their work because they've proven reliable and knowledgeable. The rest just create more work for me. Everything they do needs to be reviewed and often redone. I can't shake the feeling that many of them aren't as invested in keeping their jobs. Which is counterintuitive, but still.

People keep telling me that should be enough. We've just accepted that we have to take the uncertainty, the disrespect, the constant stress, all so we can pay the bills. But that's not actually enough. We spend most of our waking lives at work, often doing overtime, and there's no meaning to any of it beyond the money. Is it any wonder people are burnt out and hate their jobs?

Corporations are not necessarily pulling the plug on AI, but the initial, unbridled "gold rush" has definitely hit a wall of operational reality. The corporate approach has shifted from a frantic race to adopt any AI tool to a much more cautious, calculated, and sometimes frustrated effort to find actual business value.

The current landscape reveals why companies are reconsidering their initial "rush" strategy, pivoting toward a more structured approach:

1. The Productivity-to-ROI Disconnect

During the initial hype, the assumption was that massive individual productivity gains (like writing code or drafting copy five times faster) would automatically translate to corporate profitability. It hasn't. Recent data, including a 2026 enterprise study by Writer, shows that nearly half (48%) of C-suite executives now call their AI adoption a massive disappointment, and only about 29% are seeing a significant return on investment (ROI). Companies are realizing that adding expensive AI tools on top of messy, inefficient legacy processes just creates faster chaos, not better outcomes.

1. Strategy "For Show" vs. Reality

There is a growing, uncomfortable realization in boardrooms that early AI roadmaps were built more for investors and public relations than for actual internal execution. In fact, three-quarters of executives admit their company's AI strategy has been "more for show" than actual operational guidance. Leaders are hitting severe bottlenecks when trying to scale experimental pilot programs into production-ready enterprise workflows.

1. Culture Clashes and the "Two-Tiered" Workplace

The rush to implement AI has triggered significant internal friction.

The "AI Elite" vs. Non-Adopters:

Management is aggressively rewarding power users while planning to phase out employees who resist the technology.

Trust Deficits:

According to Cox Business research, nearly 50% of employees hide how much they rely on AI at work due to a lack of clear corporate policies, paired with a lingering fear (around 47%) that the technology will eventually eliminate their jobs.

Loss of Top Talent:

Gartner warned that companies focusing strictly on cutting payroll rather than training their people to use autonomous tools risk losing their best specialized AI talent to competitors.

1. Severe Security Gaps ("Shadow AI")

When corporate IT departments didn't move fast enough to provide official AI tools, employees took matters into their own hands. This explosion of "shadow AI"—workers dropping proprietary code, sensitive financial spreadsheets, or customer data into unapproved, public LLMs—has terrified risk officers. Two-thirds of executives believe their companies have already suffered data breaches or compliance risks due to these unmanaged tools, forcing a hard pause to establish strict governance frameworks.

The Shift to "Agentic" and People-Centric Models

Instead of backing away from AI entirely—corporate spending remains incredibly high—organizations are drastically rewriting their execution playbooks. The "rush" is being replaced by two specific trends:

Moving to Agentic Workflows:

Companies are moving away from simple prompt-and-response chatbots and focusing on specialized "AI agents" built to handle specific, cross-functional business workflows with centralized IT guardrails.

The 80/20 Rule:

Forward-thinking organizations are abandoning the idea of total human replacement. Instead, they are structuring roles around an 80/20 model:

80% of roles are "human-led, AI-augmented" (the Ironman approach, where human judgment is non-negotiable), and 20% are "AI-led, human-supervised" (for high-volume, low-risk, repetitive tasks).

Ultimately, corporate America is learning that while adopting AI technology takes weeks, successfully restructuring a workforce to actually benefit from it takes years. The current pause isn't a retreat; it's a strategic realignment.

_

Work just does not happen anymore. Every morning brings a new set of priorities and by afternoon they have changed again. Projects get announced and then abandoned before anyone finishes the first task. People vanish from the org chart overnight with no explanation. Managers are drowning. I have stopped trying to achieve anything meaningful. Now I just float and hope nothing sinks me. Most of my coworkers seem to be doing the same.

I keep seeing some certain white dudes who never rose above Sr. Director at Nike (or anywhere!) promote themselves on LinkedIn as having been a Vice-President. Nothing says executive presence like a title from the imagination department. Anyone else see this out there??? WTF???

Why does C suite not get any punishment for tanking the stock price? All they know how to do is cut headcount and make objectively bad decisions.

We’re going to spend 2B on building this Plano Campus for no fu---n reason. Wow!! Why do we not have any money?? Guess we’ll have to make employee cuts ! We’re going to spend billions on RTO, wow, why do we not have any money? Time to cull the cattle again! We’re going to buy TWD, we’re going to give tmobile 4 billion dollars, we’re going to buy directv! Oh, I’m actually stupid?? Let’s go cut more cattle and give myself a raise for my hard work.

The layoffs in June are going to be nuclear. PoliSci Legg’s d-mb as fu-k AI push has the whole company on Microsoft’s leash, and co pilot is getting 6x more expensive starting in June. It is an abhorrent failure. He has successfully capped top performer’s usage, and given too much usage to pea brains that ask AI what the weather is today. The cost and mismanagement will be insurmountable, so layoffs of at least 10% will happen.

And all the while, the guy making 30 mil for je-king off in his office and saying “Fiber” all day is perfectly safe, somehow. The stock is down 17% in 10 years, what does he even do? Why do these guys have jobs? They contribute nothing to society but leach from the money made by employees.

It's been so helpful when managers explain processes in this debacle. It's a risk for them to do so, but it is much appreciated. The struggle here is real, your perspective is invaluable.