Thread regarding Nike Inc. layoffs

Built by Grinders. Undone by Whiners

Pretty wild that employees at a company built by Shoe Dogs, people who literally sold shoes out of car trunks and lived the grind, are now running to an anonymous forum to complain. Nike became the top brand because it was built by people who pushed through the hard stuff, not posted about it. There Is No Finish Line, remember? If you can’t bring that energy, handle your issues privately or find a company that matches your speed...

Oh wait, you’re still at Nike because you secretly love the swoosh, the market won’t pay you more, or your job’s easier than you pretend.


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| 3061 views | | 24 replies (last December 16) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+1kc5s0v6e

24 replies (most recent on top)

@w9 where do we start? Let’s start with the initials! GO!

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Post ID: @10x+1kc5s0v6e

@dx why don’t we just all start exposing them! I bet it’s more than we can count!

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Post ID: @w9+1kc5s0v6e

Nike is soulless. There is no common goal or objective for the company. Just a bunch of individuals all crawling over to climb the greasy pole. One of the posts below is 100% correct - you could operate the business with 1/3 of the people. 50% of the VPs, Snr Directors, Directors are not needed. All they do is move information from A-B whilst crushing other “teammates” in the process. A soulless company generating a soulless environment. For a company that obsesses “leadership” there is barely even one leader left in the Berm. God help anyone who actually tries to lead, they’ll be crushed and out before they know it.

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Post ID: @jy+1kc5s0v6e

@OP you must be new here. There are lots of folks from tech here. That org does nothing and is a bolt on not related to the grind but the whine. No one one in tech is grinding. I'm not and I really would otherwise. There is no point. So I don't whine, I just go easy on the ride.

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Post ID: @js+1kc5s0v6e

You know @OP, there's more to life than the Nike mythology you believe in. There's real art and beauty in the world which is much better than Nike advertisements or the stories they tell about Nike's founders. Maybe you should go read a really meaningful book, or watch a great film, go to a museum, listen to music. Expand your horizons.

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Post ID: @hg+1kc5s0v6e

@dr
hmm, the 'harvard grads'
don't they attend some institution where 60-80% of the population gets an A
they should be called the d-mbvard grads

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Post ID: @ew+1kc5s0v6e

@cm
did their work get shipped to india?

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Post ID: @ev+1kc5s0v6e

what if we do stock buybacks and lay off some more folks
that should increase the share price

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Post ID: @et+1kc5s0v6e

And sadly still employed at Nike. TH with his fedora the poster child! Read the depositions. What a disgrace to all women employed at Nike and not protected!

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Post ID: @dx+1kc5s0v6e

Built by grinders for sure. Whiners for sure. But this isn’t the Nike that the OGs built. It’s something else, contorted and twisted by McKinsey and BCG, the soul (sole) of Nike feels like a faint light now. Sure, rebuild it, grind it out, but it’s myopic to think it will ever be what it was. Too much damage. The Harvard grads tried to take over the machine built by ducks and drove it into the mud. You know it, and we all know it.

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Post ID: @dr+1kc5s0v6e

Cheers to all the VP’s “grindin” their young female HRBP’s at their offsites. #resilient

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Post ID: @d0+1kc5s0v6e

Let’s have a call out to the real grinders. Folks in the contract manufacturing facilities and the supply chain that supports them. Tens of thousands working shoulder to shoulder. In “good times”, six days a week 10 to 12 hours a day. Work from home, networking, lunch plus work out not options.

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Post ID: @cz+1kc5s0v6e

@bv 100% agree; I’ve been working 2 clicks above my band level for 2+ years now. Quietly promoted, so if I do not excel at my current rate. I’ve brought this up 3 or more times, and each time it conveniently forgotten about. My family life is suffering because I work a lot of hours/can detach, so I’m drained. I speculate the OP hasn’t been at Nike long enough to understand the political currents and how they have changed from the early days of PK.

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Post ID: @cy+1kc5s0v6e

@cm

The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates.

The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him, and that it becomes a power on its own confronting him.

  • Labor is, first of all, a means to satisfy a need. But it is also the nature of man; it is his distinctive being; it is, therefore, his life activity. For man, free conscious activity, that which makes him a ‘species-being,’ is his life.

Commodity fetishism… is therefore the practical result of alienated labor; its presupposition is the loss of self and, hence, the loss of the world, and, in general, the loss of truth. forces workers into competition with each other, so other workers are seen not as fellow humans but as competitors or enemies. Workers compete for jobs within a company, companies compete with each other, and nations compete in the global economy.

The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home

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Post ID: @cx+1kc5s0v6e

@bk

Seems like the movie "Office Space" nailed it:

"Now if I work my a-s off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime, so where's the motivation?"

That was in 1999. Just think how much worse and demoralizing the employee experience has gotten since?

Where's the motivation indeed.

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Post ID: @cm+1kc5s0v6e

@c0

that is what happens when you overcomplicate an extremely simple business model to maximize executive compensation

Nike designs "ideas"
creates product based on these ideas
tells a story based on the ideas and product
outsource production oversees to manufacture the product
use the story to sell the product to consumers and partners

you can run nike with 1/3 of current headcount with good management.

It is a pyramid scheme where the consulting class and "leaders" attempt to create endless headcount to justify their pay and eat from ebit. They know they wont last a single day in any S&P 500 by just presenting empty keynotes.

Of course there wont be any career progression for you the working poor since you are meaningless headcount that only exists to justify your executives "great" work and compensation

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Post ID: @cg+1kc5s0v6e

Shut up dalit

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Post ID: @cd+1kc5s0v6e

Get off my lawn!!!

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Post ID: @c4+1kc5s0v6e

There is a predominant poor culture and I don’t know where it’s coming from because in all the other American companies I worked for in the past this does not happen. I think it has to do with a majority of people coming from cultures where it’s ok to steal peoples ideas and take credit for them and it’s ok to treat people disrespectfully and step all over them and it’s ok to be a narcissist with no empathy and claim power. And I think in order to survive most of the people in this company are adopting this bad behavior as well, or they don’t know any better. This is the root of the problem at Nike: disrespect, narcissism, not awarding people what they deserve and stealing ideas and taking credit for them, nepotism and favoritism. Those are not American culture working values. In a good market, Nike had a lot of turnover because a lot of American people saw through this and left. I can’t wait to find another job and work in a much healthier and fairer work environment.

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Post ID: @c0+1kc5s0v6e

I don’t mind working really hard, which I do every day. But I do mind if others take credit for my work and my ideas and if I am being treated like garbage on daily basis. I do mind if I don’t get rewarded correctly for my hard work. I also mind if I do the work of 2,3 levels above and some people at those levels do nothing but take credit for my work and also treat me like garbage in return. No one should silence you ever, hence why I post. And no one should disrespect you. I have a lot of respect for myself and I love myself enough to know what I deserve. If I knew how badly this company treats people I would have never accepted a job here several years back. Now I’m stuck here. I’ve been trying to leave but the market is bad.

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Post ID: @bv+1kc5s0v6e

@OP

What a shallow take.

Those that "lived the grind" years and years ago directly benefitted from Nike's success.

Try and think if anything has changed since. Try and think if there is any real reason to do more than the bare minimum in today's world.

Or, continue your intellectually lazy approach and whine about the whiners. 🤷‍♀️

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Post ID: @bk+1kc5s0v6e

It's a different company now, back then you could speak up, you could get angry, get motivated, make real stuff, make a real difference.

now...gone...lost...

if you complain....well, you're on the HR list for the next layoff.

hence this active forum, more active then all other companies, why, because the swoosh has no bounds, no respect for their employees, everyone knows it.

it's too bad, it's a bad cycle fueled by accelerating market share loss, cycles into layoffs, cycles into worse and worse culture

can it be saved? can it be stopped?

maybe....but a much smaller swoosh to get profitable again....more cuts, more products gone.....

leaving is a good option, because those c-suites are sitting around a table right now and plotting this, saying this, doing this

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Post ID: @ay+1kc5s0v6e

@OP
sigh, can you just let nike disappear quietly
we don't need to see your death throes

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Post ID: @af+1kc5s0v6e

Just Post It!

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Post ID: @a1+1kc5s0v6e

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