I didn't realize how ridiculous the number of hours I worked per week was until Sapience. I averaged 50+ hours all year, plus commute time. Over the past few months, I was averaging 70+ hours (plus commute time) due to the job I was hired for plus additional pet projects.
When I saw how dangerous these numbers were to my health, I pulled back to focus on my main job responsibilities and got back down to 43-50 hours over the last few weeks (plus commute time).
Based on experience and conversations with people in the 'know,' the company got rid of Sapience because it was bogging down our system(?). But since when does Fiserv care about such things? I ask this because I question whether bogging down the system was the true and/or only reason for getting rid of Sapience? 🧐🤔
How many people were showing egregious numbers of work hours? What kind of case would these numbers build if everyone saw how overworked they were in black and white and rally together to take action?
How much of getting rid of Sapience was legal and/or PR and/or recruiting preemptive/preventative maneuvering?
Now, we're back to square one where we still have the in-office mandate, but no data to tell the story of our office work hours plus actual hours doing the work, which often extend way beyond office hours into weekends and holidays.
Sapience was a threat. It offered too much visibility. Too many came to realize that we're overworked and have zero work-life balance.
The pathetic "flexibility" spin in yesterday's company-wide email did nothing but p!SS me off and confirmed that it's time to leave Fiserv. The insult to our intelligence is too great, and proof of the company's stiff-neckedness, even at the expense of their workforce is incurable.
Then when I read the threads on this site where people interpreted what they read in the company-wide email as reporting to office 5 days per week, but put in at least 6 hours per day and make up the rest of time at offsite-- which was a perfectly reasonable interpretation-- their intelligence get insulted.
WTF was the "flexibility" in the subject line for when there's no actual flexibility???
Has this company tasked its department heads to try to make people whose line of questioning exposed the possibility that the strategy was poorly thought out and communicated feel they're somehow intellectually inept with the whole 'reading comprehension skills' I'm seeing in here?
Anyhoo, this post is long enough. Today marks an important day for me. This whole situation has made me more resolute than I've ever been to leave Fiserv.
Good luck to the interns and other new hires. You'll be forged in fire at Fiserv. Don't let it turn you bitter or unmotivated. Draw strength from your experience. Be shrewd. Be ruthless, but not cruel or unkind. Look up the nuances of all these terms.