#morale

Layoffs are around the corner. I am feeling so bad.

Hehehe an entire team is about to put in their notice because of the way this company is being run

Columbia College recently eliminated three staff positions. Its staff union claims the college violated its contract. The union states it received no advance notice of these layoffs. These reductions occur amid ongoing financial strain and declining enrollment. The college is now discussing the situation with the union.

https://columbiachronicle.com/campus/we-cannot-survive-on-a-skeleton-crew-columbia-staff-union-says-sudden-layoffs-hurt-morale-student-services/

15 hour days and weekends. No breaks. Leadership does not care.

It’s the last train to Clarksville people.
Long past time to exit stage left.

I've worked in some difficult environments before, but nothing has prepared me for what this place has become. It feels less like a company and more like a dystopian novel where nobody's safe and nothing makes sense.

There was a time when people wanted to work here. When we were proud to say where we did our jobs. That time has passed, and I don't think it's coming back.

Managers don't care about their teams, they just assign work at the last minute and nitpick every little thing. Employee engagement is basically nonexistent, and we've got layers of middle managers who contribute nothing. The disconnect between our teams in different regions is huge, and nobody seems interested in fixing it. They send out surveys asking for feedback, but nothing ever changes, and the town halls are just performative. Then there are layoffs. I don't know a single person who's actually happy working here. Some people are comfortable, sure, but happy? No.

It's genuinely amazing how so many incompetent managers have gathered in one place and figured out how to drain the life out of thousands of talented people. One bad decision after another, and they keep insisting they're turning things around.

I've made a lot of decisions in my life that I'm not proud of, but starting my career here is easily the worst one. I wish I could go back and tell my younger self to look anywhere else.

I can't remember the last time I was able to just sit down and do my job without thinking about performance rankings or future opportunities or whatever new process they've invented this month. Leadership seems obsessed with things that don't matter, and the constant distraction means nothing important ever gets done. It's counterproductive and it's ki-ling the little morale we've got left.

I notice like 70% of the state side people on my team are having to spend multi day writing what they do and what they accomplished after getting a yr end IM rating. The odd thing is often the mgr doesnt even tell you the requirements for the month till week 3. The quality of the mgmt here now is horrible. They dont even pay people who've been around well, its like 1% or less cola and inflation is like 8-10%. The mgmt is straight up rude and completely ungrateful and unhelpful on just about every front.

I feel nauseous.

currently in office experiencing our culture sitting next to someone who got RIF’d while they spend all day on zoom with other RIF’d teammates discussing next steps

I always go into the office expecting the worst but this is a new low

This place is a total dead end. I know I'm working toward nothing. I can't get invested or make myself care. My team is good, and they're the only reason I do my part. But it's getting harder by the day.

I know all the negatives, but I can't think of a single positive.

"With this, we are making changes today that will result in the reduction of our overall workforce in Q4 by fewer than 4,000 jobs, representing less than 5 percent of our total employee base."

Basically, he's saying it's just 4k jobs, no biggie. He doesn't give a damn that so many families are about to lose their livelihood. It's less than 5 percent, so it's all good. Just a small nuisance, nothing else.

I have no idea how we're supposed to get anything done.

Fewer than 10 of our team were cut (US team, not going to DOX myself). The remaining department are breathing a sigh of relief right now.

If you were in a war zone, how would you feel about having your division head with you in a fox hole? I would have been happy to have certain previous division heads with me. Not my current one. Would anyone want to be with their current divsion head in a fox hole during a war?

Has anyone went to HR over mistreatment from a superior and had a good outcome? This individual seems to take great pleasure in belittling and putting me down. They only do this to me and when there are no witnesses. This is not a daily occurrence, but has occurred more than it should. On the days that they are not being completely disrespectful they are cordial but still treat me differently than others. This seems to be the norm here with people in "power positions", but we should not have to tolerate it. With everyone being asked to do more with less and morale at an all time low, this is an unnecessary stress added to an already stressful work environment.

Two of the biggest bootlickers and hardest workers in the office just got the 1-1. Years of dedication without any promotions rewarded with getting laid off like a dog. This is what you get for going above and beyond at Cisco :)

Amid the whole RTO mess and morale being as low as I can remember, we are named one of the best companies for culture in the country. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. We're 19th, in case you were wondering.

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

We are trendy. We have constant LRs. You can argue that we invented this, we do it every quarter, used to be every year. Companies increasingly treat small to medium sized layoffs as a signal of disciplined management... Using targeted headcount reductions to reassure investors and support the stock price. So, we've been making money even before layoffs. Now we are making "EXTRA" money. Whatever. Sick.

Any idea if they will promote this soon?? I’m putting bare minimum effort and I don’t feel like putting that sh-t anymore.

Looks like the Ford family just handed out a few more years of free money, proving that "d-mb" is a relative term when you've got $19 billion to burn. Sure, he was an arrogant id--t who took a job he definitely didn't qualify for, but let's be real: that's on the genius who thought hiring him was a good idea. At this point, the only one actually leaving is the rest of us.

I've watched teammates ki-l themselves with extra hours and extra work, only to blame themselves when they got cut, convinced they just weren't good enough. Meanwhile, the office politics crowd sails through every round doing nothing. If that's not you, at least stop giving this place more than it deserves.

What’s the magic word these days, strategy?

Because I have to ask, what actually makes a company great?

Is it the awards? The software? The return to office mandates? The endless systems and process changes that somehow make everything more complicated but never better?

Is it leadership that rebrands failure as transformation, then asks employees to trust the next pivot?

Is it accountability, or just accountability for everyone below a certain level?

Maybe greatness now means HR has enough time to monitor salaried employees’ attendance but not enough influence to protect institutional knowledge, experience, or morale.

And maybe AI really is the perfect corporate employee. It never pushes back, never says “this does not make sense,” and never reminds leadership that people actually matter.

But what is the strategy here? Not the slogan. Not the slide deck. The actual strategy.

Because from where a lot of employees sit, it does not look like a strategy. It looks like churn. New systems, new processes, new messaging, new priorities, every few months, while the people who know how the business actually works are treated like interchangeable parts.

A company is not great because it says it is. It is great when leadership knows where it is going, tells the truth about where it is, and respects the people who built the place before asking them to believe in the next transformation. Endless transformation isn't "transformation" it's chaos that drives poor quality, subpar results and unhappy employees.

Onshore collapses, offshoring expands. We get the scraps while leadership counts the profits.

It feels like a lot of people are carrying quiet exhaustion right now.
The layoffs.

The uncertainty.

The pressure to “be grateful.
”
The full-time RTO mandates after building lives around flexibility.

The feeling that everyone is pretending things are normal when they clearly aren’t.
If you’re struggling mentally, emotionally, or physically from all of this, you are not alone.
A lot of us are waking up anxious, doomscrolling before work, feeling guilty for not being productive enough, or trying to hold it together while watching teammates disappear overnight. It’s heavy. And pretending it isn’t only makes people feel more isolated.

A few reminders for anyone having a hard time:

• Your worth is not tied to your badge access, productivity score, or performance review.
• Fear is an exhausting long-term motivator. Rest is not weakness.
• Staying connected to people matters more right now than acting “fine.”
• Small routines help: sleep, water, walks, sunlight, boundaries, logging off when you can.
• If work is consuming your identity, try to reclaim one small thing that belongs only to you.
  Most importantly: check on the quiet people too. Sometimes the people saying the least are carrying the most.
  This is a dark season for a lot of workers right now. But I hope we can at least make it lighter for each other by being human again.

Crime-ridden Pittsburgh strikes again. This time a 19 yr old shot and ki-led less than 500 feet from headquarters. [https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/pittsburgh-man-shot-market-square-police-investigation/] And just like clockwork Bill and the execs are silent regarding employee safety in and around the buildings. Not surprised considering how they treated the RTO announcement. Just set it and forget it. Not to mention they are also incredibly silent about the cost of RTO. Remember folks RTO has nothing to do about collaboration and innovation, no, no, no, RTO is purely demanded to keep real estate numbers up. Don’t you get it folks. We are a disposable pawn used as leverage to keep over extended real estate purchases meaningful. I’m so thrilled to spend $5/gallon $38 parking, to commute 75 minutes to a highly distracting open office and take calls with people all across the nation and fake smile like I enjoy being here. Our team output is dropping like a rock. Lead dev left to go to a competitor. Team morale is slowing losing the battle. Our wallets are screaming. Our raises are comical (if you get a raise). Compensation is 15 years behind. I’m looking at stopping my 401K contributions just to afford the cost of living. What really pi---s us off is everything we did in office last week was no different from what we did while remote. But remember the real estate investments. If you ever wanted to see a real life example of shooting yourself in the foot, look no further. We are watching it play out and we have all summer ahead of us. Don’t forget the real estate investments and the CEO’s 30% comp increase. I hope this drop in production doesn’t hurt me and my team’s end of year reviews.

Expect 39% more riffs those who survived are the best (in the west).

Here's an Interesting article that parallels what is happening in our industry today.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/mark-zuckerberg-is-realizing-that-when-you-treat-your-workers-like-human-garbage-they-might-not-like-you-anymore/ar-AA2369ab?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=6a04bce8f6f34192a3919b59b944e2ea&cvpid=5ea63c8bb12642a98ff3e9b42593777f&ei=36

Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is apparently shocked to discover that when you treat employees like garbage, they stop applauding your “vision.” After years of layoffs, culture rewrites, and “efficiency” crusades, Meta is now learning the obvious: workers don’t develop warm feelings toward leaders who treat them like cost centers with pulse rates.

And the irony? Everything described in that article reads like a template for what BNY employees complain about daily on this forum. The same themes echo: performative culture, leadership detachment, endless “transformation,” and a workforce managed like an inconvenient expense. Employees at both companies describe the same pattern — praise the mission, cut the people, then act confused when morale collapses.

The punchline is simple: whether it’s Silicon Valley or Wall Street, executives keep discovering the same truth. If you treat workers like garbage, they eventually notice — and they talk about it.

Oracle's recent layoffs, affecting thousands, feel jarring despite the company's 22 percent revenue increase. This strong reaction is rooted in psychological dissonance, not the scale or timing of the cuts. Companies frequently use a "we are family" metaphor to build workplace cohesion. Such layoffs then violate this implied trust, leading to a sense of institutional betrayal. The more companies emphasize a family-like culture, the greater the emotional impact of job losses.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/curiosity-code/202604/the-hidden-psychology-of-oracles-layoffs

Nothing about this place will shock me anymore. Expect a live able wage.

I’ve been shocked by the amount of disdain directed at long-time T. Rowe associates on this board, especially toward IT staff. It’s hard to tell whether this comes from just a few loud voices with axes to grind or a broader sentiment. My experience up until the past year or so has been with nothing but great, hardworking, kind people.
It’s concerning to think that some of the people I work with may hold these same toxic views about their own coworkers. While I can see why management might have incentives to move jobs, I don’t understand why other associates — who aren’t protected from future layoffs — would voice such contempt. It makes me wonder if their presence here is more about stirring trouble than supporting those who are impacted. Perhaps to expedite the exodus by creating conditions where more people depart on their own?

I wake up every day scared that today's the day. I can't concentrate. My work is slipping. Is anyone else feeling this, or is it just me?