Thread regarding Ford layoffs

This potentially won't be well received but it inspired me to reply to some things. It needs to be read by others in Michigan, particularly the people in this company or companies related. It is not revised at all and the video does a better job.

@11g The talent anecdote has to do with my time in freshman year 2019 spanning into summer that summer when I started full-time and resigned during Covid, this was not at Ford. The summer after Covid, I interned at Ford. I joined ford in 2022 and was there until 2024 as a GS5. Just to be very clear on any doubt you may have. It's really about how Ford treated me. Before resigning in covid, my boss told me directly after time that the pay cannot be increased. We didn't burn bridges from that, we stayed in touch. Ford treated me very inappropriately. It doesn't have to do with educating unless you mean the educating I was doing at Ford with the output and contributions that weren't equitably recognized under false-assumptions that were made to keep me delivering there.. Don't get it twisted. The year is 2025, I was at Ford in 2024. The vast majority of information about giftedness is oriented towards children and education, not information oriented towards adults. That's why I dedicated myself recently as a case-study, which isn't something I want to do right now, but I find it necessary after not only my experiences at Ford but also doing research on the overall landscape in Michigan which made telling the truth about things that happened here as something to not objectively treat me like another human with dignity. If you think rationally, all of the reasons I was mistreated because of Ford were due to cognitive biases and not giftedness. At the end of the day, I personally don't take any narcotics or substances and was never bullied or treated poorly by my peers that were my age. The workplace at Ford however, bigotry and intentional feigned ignorance to manipulate naive people like me. I would say being exploited and covering it up has nothing to do with me. They could have told me the truth, but instead they decided to lie and trap me, then falsified records as retaliation for calling them out. It was genuine mistreatment, not because I'm difficult to manage. Looking at the gifted brain is not a high priority because we have these great technologies being devoted to brain diseases which is understandable. While you say this might be about pathology and education, it had to do with my experience at Ford.

Any leaders that are viewing this inside Ford or out have a duty to learn these things and I know people are reading it. Micro-signs of being gifted could be being able to connect disparate thoughts in a creative way, having intense interests, sometimes moving from topic to topic to topic and the gifted person might feel like they can't settle down or stick to something if unaware, but in actuality they're following their curiosity and they've learned anything and everything they want to learn on a topic and it no longer holds interest, they move to another topic. If they don't understand it's a manifestation of their giftedness, they might think something is wrong them. You want to look for someone with diverse interests and unusual skill sets. Imagine is someone says people like to go fishing with them because they have are able to see where this is a school of fish in the ocean. If someone hears something like that, you might find that this person might have unusual pattern recognition.

@11c
I'm sorry to hear about your uncle. Lisa Erickson shared that there's the belief that the gifted brain has greater myelination and the myelin sheath protects the power of the electrical signal and if theres more sheath then the electric impulse can go further and people with that signal strength often link together things that others might not have associated, which also increases sensitivity. While this is speculative and research is under-represented, this potentially shows some reason for why gifted people could be sensitive to things. One may be psychomotor for example where they move or stand up and think, or even just pace around a hallway (I pace and think a lot, lol). When you say high-functioning, you may be referring to a certain side of the spectrum when it comes to something like aspergers which is a common misdiagnosis, and masking is common for high-functioning individuals with aspergers. Now that isn't to say that can't be gifted coupled with other things, but there is misdiagnosis and dual diagnosis that need to be done for that. To be clear, giftedness is not the same as autism or aspergers. No I am not autistic, nor do I have aspergers. Imagine a teacher bothered by a child because they call the teacher out for being wrong on something. That kid might end up being told they have ADHD or something else because that is easier to manage them and dismiss. It could be a cognitive bias from the teacher. Just like there might be a cognitive bias or an attempt to exploit cognitive bias by bad actors internally at Ford that may take advantage of a young new grad who tries to stand up for themself not only rationally, but logically. If a kid in school or an employee at work is hard to manage, it is easy to just say they are a problem... when they really could be the solution but that isn't always favored. Or they might be a problem only when it is inconvenient like when they ask for equal fairness for what they deliver (at work). There's a higher incidence of introversion among gifted people is almost reverse in a normal population. Clinicians only feel like they should know about being bipolar. Gifted people feel different, but might be tricked into thinking they're "off" when in reality they people with minds that want to think about larger issues, I mean, not for every gifted person... but it matters where you are on the far right side of the bell curve or not. I've never spoken about my accomplishments or achievements more than I have since mistreatment at Ford. I never even said the word gifted to anyone. People take offense to the term gifted because it sounds like you've been given a gift no one else has which makes people want to say everyone is gifted which isn't true. Not everyone is tall enough to require customized clothes or cars to fit in.

Being gifted is problematic because it has the connotation that someone else doesn't have something. So it's good for you to recognize that you can have all the materialistic things but still deal with things. Being gifted doesn't mean being immune to other things any other human being might have neurologically, but some things may be a misdiagnosis. There is an anecdote of some girl coming out as le----n, but being scared about coming out as gifted... whereas if you were a physical athlete, people don't give you your flowers. Many therapists and people say "oh I work with gifted people" or they say "my child is gifted" or "i am gifted', but that doesn't qualify them. Gifted individuals have entelechy which is the rage to learn. It's important to not pathologize overexcitabilities, there's a cultural resistence where it's seen as bragging, inflated, or grandiose. Giftedness is not a disability, atypical =/= abnormal.

A gifted person can get frustrated at the speed of other peoples work, often time they work better alone so group projects don't work well because they end up either doing a lot of the work or being quite dissatisfied with the work that other people in their team produce. That drive for perfectionism to be the best to fully exert their gifts and go after the things that interest them can look like anxiety because they're really amped up and intense. Another issue is having a strong moral and ethical sensibility which ties into emotional excitability. They become disturbed about unfairness they see around them when they see awful things happening around them which can be sort of like existential depression, for some people the pain is not being able to forget or when things are left unresolved, ambiguous loss. Looking solely at this, it is not a neurological condition or something that can be resolved through medication since it's not related a biochemical imbalance. It's also not true for everyone, it happens more to people on the right end of the bell curve, whereas the left side is towards a range of cognitive disability. The kinds of things you're taken with, passionate about, are very diverse.

One might think of these people as being "strange", but not necessarily. It's not a lonely life. For example, if you get two gifted people together and one of them likes baseball, one is going to like the history of baseball and the other might be interested in how that has affected America, but to a person who might misdiagnose them, they might just say these people have aspergers lol - which isn't likely. They might be labeled with a pathology not just as kids, but as adults... sometimes as a we-pon. If one reads about overexcitabilities and we brought this into education, it would become very clear how easy it is to misdiagnose others on this.I've seen times where I logically shared something that made someone else feel bad by accident even though it was to defend myself and they ended up trying to blanket me with horrible things and engage in a cycle of targeted abuse / harassment, and I'm speaking about a Ford employee that is currently there... but they aren't the only person that partakes in this sort of behavior. They all happened because of me trying to get accountability or justice for being exploited at Ford. Never would have happened otherwise. Because of Ford, people have called me a school sho-ter recently, another person called me schizo, another person called me manic, but they can't call me wrong for things on a logical and objective standpoint. When looking at exchanges or dialogue rationally, you end up seeing it all comes from a place of insecurity, but unfortunately not all people have incentive or rigor to read the full thing which causes context collapse and exacerbates misinformation on the path to a legitimate thing worth fighting for which is dignity.

Ford did me wrong in so many ways that are worth me getting accountability. They wronged me, and if you look into it, you'll see they caused so much loss not due to misunderstanding giftedness at all but just through equitable fairness objectively. They took advantage that I'm young and naive. That isn't about giftedness at all. What they did however is exploit my giftedness to the max while tricking me and humiliating me, while sabotaging truth to ostracize me from the broader michigan ecosystem here since they own lots of buildings in regards to entrepreneurship here... which they shouldn't after seeing who they really are but that is another topic. This can cause turmoil for any human, gifted or not.

The issue is the crab in the barrel mentality and far worse mistreatment for some people that are gifted. Gifted people can also look manic, some have a reduced need for sleep, but it's just how their brain is wired. It's part of the neuroatypicality. For example, my thoughts when having an exchange with another Ford employee were not grandiose, nor were they wrong... especially during the hiring process... everything I predicted and documented before hand came true, it happens not because you're a fortune teller, but because you see patterns sometimes and just know. People forget that because of stereotype threats, like how they want gifted people to be quiet about it and not talk about it. Or we are told to be humble. Or we aren't old enough yet, despite accolades and accomplishments. Cognitive bias through the roof. We are told that it should show from what you accomplish rather than talking about it. Yet that dog doesn't always bite, intentionally. Even among people who make their life about being around giftedness, are telling those that are gifted not to talk about it which keeps people in the closet in a way. So what ends up happening is that you get taken advantage of by others who don't want to empower you, but control you. Making people feel bad about not just their abilities, but their excitement about things they accomplished... like things I accomplished at Ford. Now in the same sense, this doesn't just happen to gifted people alone, but it's more intense for them. If you're a gifted person of color and the only gifted person of color among the people you know, you're going to have a very different experience than someone who is more mainstream. Being gifted is an invisible minority in itself and it unfortunately comes with its own challenges. It may not be the only thing that makes you an invisible minority, it could be just one of many other things. Unfortunately.

@11c JF, Chris isn’t your uncle. We all see it. This is my troll site, not yours.

@10x I doubt you are a recent intern, this is really about how we tend to pathologize people too quickly. Thanks for sharing. Education seems to be a common theme here, the common theme in it all is not to judge without understanding.

@10x Super gifted people can be a bit strange. My uncle had a sky-high IQ, but he carried it with a kind of intensity that made life harder. He was super sensitive to some things, overactive in others, and he knew he was “off”.
To cope, he leaned on prescription narcotics and alcohol. It wasn’t about partying — it was about masking. The substances helped him appear more normal, more balanced, to people who wouldn’t have understood otherwise. On the outside, he was successful, high-functioning, and made a lot of money. On the inside, the vices were the only way he knew to keep pace.
In the end, those same vices caught up with him. It’s a sad paradox I’ve seen in others too: the brighter the mind, the darker the shadow it has to wrestle with.

@10v Wait, just to make it very clear, I was trying to juxtapose the difference between how they treated talent vs. how ford treats talent. Boss from freshman year was not weird at all, just a normal guy with optimism and a passion for learning more himself.

He naturally understood how to deal with the stuff Lisa Erickson discusses here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt9KI1g4nsE

I can see how what I said could be misinterpreted and I deeply regret wording it that way. That's why I often try to write in extended form out of fear things get taken out of context. I'm glad you asked, even if you were potentially trolling (not sure).

@zx Some people phish and lure, stripping ones right to fish and leaving them with words to write about it. If you question if someone has a strong action bias, focus on trying to understand what ones goal is. Another example is to remove a subject outside of an environment to compare if they are like this in general. If you can't do that and observe the subject, a good qualifier is to study their track record and past for consistency over time in different situations and contexts. Lisa Erickson talks about this similarly in the YouTube video above regarding ADHD misdiagnosis in gifted kids when judged by teachers. She described the test of seeing if the same behavior or conditions occur while the child is at home or not.

So some people write, others fish!

@f0 Reading this makes me think about how often dignity gets overlooked. Buried bodies don’t just stay buried, they shape how people carry themselves. If someone feels boxed in or oppressed, we’d want to understand what might actually help instead of adding more weight. That’s the kind of conversation workplaces rarely make space for.

@aq beep boop instructions unclear: made it impossible for them exit and made it a nightmare for them, INSTEAD of for Ford.

@f7 I thought that first internship went well! As a freshman, I was paid higher than the other interns which made me feel well respected for the expertise I brought to the table. Instead of sitting with the other interns, I actually sat in my bosses office at the conference table with my laptop and was ready for live-fire whenever. It was awesome synergy and I felt appreciated and valued.

@f6 That's nice, part of my program gives me time off on Friday to focus on my own self development and other things that matter to my life. For over a year straight, I didn't use it a SINGLE time. Not even once! In fact, I stayed later on Friday. I'm sure my tech anchor, supervisor, project manager, skip-level, and software architect really take notice of all the hard work I put in.

Back in my previous job, my boss would say "firstname" "never takes a day off" "lastname". I really didn't know much about boundaries, just trusting the head honchos like before. I don't think many vacation days either.

You gotta do what you gotta do! My role for example, people think that we come in not knowing much and are here to learn. That's why it doesn't affect the supervisors budget. I wanted to let them know that I don't have any sort of learning on the job to do and instead I had teaching to do on the job. I'm sure they really appreciate that. The job is supposed to be lax and really favored towards work-life balance, but I wanted to show them I was a big boy! In fact, before my ford internship, I had an internship where I was full-time! I was working 40 hours a week! You just gotta put in the work and at some point, they'll take notice and recognize that you're not only skilled, but delivering output and not abusing trust that is provided to you when given the opportunity.

@b9

Do you find time for fitness? I like to go at night since i get off really late into the evenings. At least until I get from a call from my coworker because my manager gave them my number as a proxy.

Sometimes, I have to sacrifice days to make sure I get in on time for those badge swipes.

Looking forward to making physical health great again, will have to give up that "hobby" for now.

At least I get all my work done, and beyond what is expected or required from my normal job duties, especially with a fast turnover. Nobody has complaints, that's why I get those calls even while i'm picking up or eating lunch. I do anything and everything I can to make sure Ford succeeds. I take pride in the fact that I'm productive and great at multitasking. I don't even need Jira. I'm just on go mode. Wish I could also be at the gym or incorporate other aspects of my life that aren't related to work without interruptions though. Oh well.

also Post ID: @ay+1k68e10q2 this sounds like some threat, lol. hope it isn't. scary.

@cn
I can unfortunately relate. I experienced all of this as well.

@ez When someone walks with dignity and isn’t being actively oppressed, they have the space to contribute, create, and support others.

They can become or stay who they really are/were. Capable. Powerful. Creative. Dangerous in the best way.

But when environments punish initiative, starve people of recognition, or we-ponize survival, they reduce people into the outcome pessimists want to see. They turn potential into "proof" that their worst assumptions were right all along.

Squandered talent is real. Time is real.

And prolonged withholding of dignity is a cruel game no one should have to play. Once something is thrown, it's thrown. Damage can't always be irreversible. Ripple effects. This is backed by plenty of research and lived experience.

@cn I hear you. After experiencing Ford, I see things in a new light. Before Ford, I would side with you immediately. Yes, those "slackers" might be victims too, but they don’t look like it. I'm going to speak on an assumption that they're on the chopping block, so don't think I'm not siding with people that do it for fun because they are insulated and untouchable.

Some managers may intentionally punish employees by giving them meaningless, humiliating, or impossible tasks... or worse, by ignoring them completely, cutting off communication and depriving them of work. This is a known tactic in toxic workplaces to demoralize or push people out without formally firing them. Think about timing, lets say you build some sort of technology, own a big feature solo, and worked on R&D that was promising and in progress. Think of being "offered" something (a promotion, a raise, a new opportunity) and staying loyal, only to have it quietly revoked or indefinitely delayed until you deliver anything and everything they don't want to reward you for... and once you're in too deep (financially or emotionally), you're stuck... trapped.

The company might paint a picture of the worker as "lazy" or "abusing time" while having created the conditions that force employees to find other ways to survive (e.g., securing capital when wages are withheld to survive, reading, zoning out until you're unblocked). They get your effort and loyalty, but you get nothing but confusion and demoralization when you push too hard and make yourself a target. Now imagine going that HR is targeting you with the cooperation of your LL6 and LL5, and you go to Speak Up and they intentionally say that you can't report this ever again either. It's like a fox guarding the h-nhouse to honest work and previously made promises.

Retention without commitment, and by keeping you in limbo, they control your behavior. You’re stuck waiting and trying to prove you’re “worthy”, which benefits them. If you’re competent, driven, and starting to ask for fairness, firing or demoting someone without cause creates risk. Instead, they demoralize the person enough to make them quit voluntarily. They try to exhaust you. Imagine them stripping your dignity and emasculating for winning the game they made. It's like a casino refusing to pay out and dragging you down a battle where the costs are higher.

That's psychological coercion that prevents someone from leaving voluntarily, especially when one keeps trusting. If a supervisor is altering your deliverables or documentation to make it look like you failed, misrepresenting your performance in official records, withholding key info so you fail, then blaming you... that is fraud and retaliation. Now imagine trying to contest it with evidence and being denied and told you can't report ongoing retaliation internally ever again. Ford strips meaningful freedom under the guise of self-destruction (reputation, finances, career). You do work under manipulation, false promises, and retaliation while others just see it as "technically free to resign". Meanwhile, any move you make is framed as wrong and they starve you of optics intentionally to make it seem like you're just disgruntled when reality is you're being systematically isolated.

I'm describing real tactics that are extreme and may seem conspiratorial, but these are a real cause. I am describing beyond symptoms. It happens case-by-case, but I've seen this play out and that's why I'm saying that there might be more than we think at times. Perhaps the intention is to get you to feel those things about them.

• Some employees are targeted, manipulated, or set up to fail.

• Some employees are taking advantage of the system and doing the bare minimum.

Some people absolutely are coasting because they’re insulated or know they won’t be fired. It's worse when people from the outside look at it always like a narrative of helplessness, it frames people that are really targeted and trapped in Ford as people role-playing like they're some pawns without agency while management is some secret cabal of malevolent masterminds. Unfortunately, there ARE people that are genuinely not working and aren't being targeted which makes it hard to notice people who are truly stuck in a toxic setup and humiliated, unable to find help. Not everyone staring at a blank page is a victim of corporate sabotage, but the point is that some really are. Some people really are slacking or having multiple jobs while on company time because they’re insulated. In big companies, you can’t tell which is which just by looking. Some “checked out” people are surviving an abusive setup; some are just coasting; some are in between. Without evidence and holistic context, you can’t assume either narrative. You don't owe every disengaged employee the assumption of victimhood, sometimes the simplest explanation (someone’s just doing the bare minimum) seems like a correct heuristic, but think about cases when it is not. Point is that not every checked-out employee is a victim of a covert campaign and the burden of proof isn't on you, but it is a good reminder to understand that personal agency is nuanced. This sin't always easy when you're simply observing behavior at face value.

The issue is when real organizational dysfunction is used as an umbrella to reinterpret potential victims as apparent slackers, which conveniently removes accountability from bad actors. It frames it as disengagement or choice rather than survival, but for some here it is better to know first before we blanket everyone staring at a screen as a slacker. Situations are nuanced, of course this isn't an automatic moral shield, but some are demoralized victims of bad managers coupled with unfair processes and failed internal mechanisms to prevent what happens here. It's worse when there are people who are disengaged and gaming the system, or those who really do have second jobs, they make illegal retaliation and fraud at this company easy to dismiss horrible things that are definitely happening, rather than a "possibility".

You don’t have to buy into the whole “victim narrative” for every case, but at the same time, dismissing all of these behaviors as pure laziness might miss some real problems that exist beneath the surface. Sorry for the great wall of text, had to make sure it was nuanced enough past a simple observation. I'm not excusing behaviors by attributing them to bigger systematic problems like bad managers, toxic culture, manipulation... rather than individual choice or laziness. I'm just saying Lil Baby said it's bigger than black and white.

@OP. Even hobbies will not save you from the burnout at Ford. People need goals in their lives. Men need to be useful, and management here don't allow it.

We spend 40 hours plus a week following stupid orders from above, and trying to prove to managers we work hard. We know the company lost its way, we know there is no plan from the C-suite, we know we are wasting time instead of addressing the issues, and above all, we know there is no future in this company.

So many people wants to leave this company and they can't because of the job market. They feel trapped, angry with RTO, dreading layoffs. Working at Ford is not fun or nice anymore.

Personally, I think I am burned out. I dread the work days. When my work day is done I feel exhausted, drained, with no will to do any personal stuff. I detached myself from my coworkers, avoiding personal subjects. I feel old (I am), but also useless. I get bouts of depression. I procrastinate my work and personal chores.

I have never felt this way before. I blame my job at Ford, and myself, for allowing it to happen. Instead of actively looking for another job now, which is to add more stress to my life, I decided to wait for the soon to come lay off. After all, my team has been hit again and again in the last few years with reductions and outsourcing.

It has been "liberating" to stop worrying about Ford and my job. When I realized that no matter what I do, I'll still be in the chopping block, then there is no need to worry, nor to perform. There is still some concerns in the back of my mind, but is way less now. I am also trying new things outside work, focusing myself in having good times with my family. When I get laid off, I am planning a couple of months vacation to heal. Probably we'll travel some, and I'll take care of the pending projects at home.

In the meantime, my mantra is now "do a little every day". I won't feel bad for being unable to do all my chores, and responsibilities. Just work on my list, little by little, until I get stronger. I have yet to start doing my hobbies again. I just don't feel "happy enough" to enjoy them.

I don't find this off-topic as I thought I was getting depressed. I realized that it was related to work as I find I'm not depressed with my hobbies. I hope the Company offers a buy-out as I am ready to be free.

I knew people at Ford who were trading stock market 5h each day. One old guy was looking at blank page for 3h each day, another guy was checking non-work related textbooks , i worked hard with FNV4 and got canned for my endevours paying attenton 100% only to work to deliver. I am not there and other people are still there. Fair ?

@bb no sh-t? That brings back memories

Yes, I do

@ba The old Sears location at the Fairlane Town Center, good practice site. Ford Employee onboarding proving grounds.

@b9 are you more of a SEAR's or KMART type of dead mall guy?

@OP My hobbies include, creating Jira tickets, spending time perusing FEDE and cooking fish at home purposely in the microwave to prepare myself for the work week. When time allows, I also like driving around the local dead mall parking lot pretending there are no parking spots and taking a Teams meeting on my phone because of the lack of parking and fact that I'm not at my desk at 8:00AM for another worthless unproductive meeting.

Watch for vehicle sales number, vehicle subprime loans and new house constructions.
This is when you know someone is on the hook. Hopefully, Jesus will be merciful to those who laid me off. Amin.

@ap Just a troll, prepare yourself and make the exit a nightmare for them.

@ah Who you talkin' to?

This site is fun to read and actually pretty educational. I got laid off at Ford after years of working in some of the toughest areas, but landed a better job not long after. I still check in here because honestly, the people who made those decisions had no idea what they were doing, and total mo--ns, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually pushes the company downhill. I know the value of the work I did and the experience I built, and I don’t just forget that.

You are at layoff website so obviously you are soon to be one in the list forget hobby search job

@a6 lucky! I’m working toward one of those roles

@a5 You're right they were, I tried to make it clear it was-- should've said it in one comment but thoughts came up after. Each hobby, even spending time with family, or working on my existing projects that have existed and were running since childhood (servers/communities/etc) were scrutinized here, even making music after work for fun was subjected to being a problem here... they took my studio equipment as equipment for having a second job and spread rumors. It was a-s. I won't comment on this thread unless i'm responding about mine if it helps.

Ford Racing!

I have a slight inkling that the 4 comments here are all the same person.

Anyway, I like fishing, working on my car, and time with family.

Multiple hobbies were we-ponized by people at Ford. They don't like you having hobbies. Research Fordlandia.

I like to send death threats to people who were forced into labor and anonymously send them messages across an array of platforms to silence them for telling the truth. My friends and I love to laugh at people that were victims at Ford. It gives me satisfaction knowing that young adults without protection are stuck in an abuse cycle instead of having a safe life where they can protect themselves against machines that wronged them. It's their fault they don't let it go. They could just move on or let it go... and then we would too

Stuff I did at work was my hobby since i was 10 before it was work. That made people very bothered. Never share your hobbies to people at Ford, don't let them see what your personal life is like. Keep stuff compartmentalized and do not think twice about your privacy. Be smart. It is like a game for some people here to try and hurt you through them

I got persecuted at work for my hobbies, they got paranoid and so they tried to interrupt the time I had after work doing that. Multiple things they got in the way of...