Thread regarding FirstEnergy Corp. layoffs

@1w4 I have no doubt that after this.....I will be a target. I am sure that somehow this will flow into some changes toy PIRC Score. Good thing is that I have documentation and audio records.

@1fq 5% annual raises would be an improvement for most departments at FirstEnergy.

I'd tell you to talk to HR or a "Speak Up" rep, but we all know that those options are present solely to protect the company and satisfy employment law insurance. You would be immediately labeled a "problem" and targeted for indirect elimination. Tyranny reigns supreme.

Although Flex4U may be sticking around, it's going to be the last stronghold that remains from Sam Belcher and his work-life-balance era.

I have been on PTO since the 19th and am scheduled on PTO through the 5th. I am in Florida at Disney.

My Manager called me and told me that even though I was on PTO they needed all hands on deck. I simply told her no, that I am on approve PTO that has been approved for more than 11 months.

So then my Director calls me and we have another conversation.

I finally tell him I cannot come in. I am in Florida.

I get yet another phone call from my manager trying to yell at me again because, prior to my last day before PTO, she asked what I was doing and I told her "nothing", she told me it was unacceptable to lie about my whereabouts ahead of taking PTO. That it was a lie by omission. I told her that my PTO plans are none of her business and that even if I was in town, I would not be coming in until my scheduled and approved PTO was over.

For this company to think they can retract PTO while I am on it because the department is short staffed and an emergency issue came up, is unacceptable.

The complete change in culture since Tyranny arrived and further change since March layoffs is just unbearable.

I guess Tyranny's strategy of trimming staff by making staff RTO and making work miserable is going to work on me.

I'm not banking on STIP this year but I am going to use all my PTO up and once it's announced that we will/will not be getting STIP, I'm quitting once that hits my bank.

I cannot take the utter abuse and abymismal 5 percent raises year in and year out anymore.

LessFlex4All was never going away. The company paid to have Empower recoded (poorly) to account for it. It costs FE nothing to keep it, and it gives the Fuhrer and Goebbels something to blather on about as if it’s a Christmas gift.

@gj I agree with you and I hate BXT just as much as you do! But the — is a telltale sign of chat GPT. Ask it anything and it always uses that long dash. I had to copy it from your text because it doesn’t even appear on a standard keyboard. You can see in your first sentence, you edited it to add tyranny’s name, but you don’t have the long dash on your keyboard, so you used the short one. If you really wrote that yourself, they would all be short dashes.

In fact, I asked chat GPT to write a response to me calling you out for using it and it said the same thing you did. To focus on the substance instead of accusing you of using AI.

Chat GPT has its own distinct style of writing and anyone with experience can spot it a mile away. If you’re going to pass it off as your own, you need to actually paraphrase in your own prose. Not copy and paste directly from chat GPT. Better yet, just come up with your own ideas

@f4 Accusing someone of using ChatGPT because their writing is clear says more about the accuser than the writer. Good vocabulary, proper grammar, and coherent arguments didn’t suddenly appear with AI—they come from reading, practice, and education. If strong writing feels “artificial” to you, that’s not proof of automation; it’s proof of a skill gap. Disagree with my point if you want, but questioning my authorship instead of addressing the substance is a weak deflection.

@ab this was obviously written by chat GPT

Just now on the Portal, Flex4U to remain in 2026

@b8 I would add in, Id also like BXT to be fired. I cannot stand him. I saw him at the WAC and took everything in my should not to knock him out.

@ab The only way we can ever have a seat at the table is to unionize. If you sat down with the FE negotiators and said “we want everything to stay the same, we just want to work from home” then you would be working from home. BXT has no way to overcome a class conscious group of workers. The law is on our side

Branding a workplace policy as “Flex For You” or "Flex 4 U" or whatever Tyranny wants to call it - is not just unnecessary—it’s insulting. Flexibility is not a product, a perk, or a favor that needs a marketing campaign. It is a practical arrangement rooted in trust, autonomy, and respect for employees as adults capable of managing their work. When something as basic as where we perform our jobs needs a brand, it signals that the company is more interested in optics than in genuine respect.

If flexibility were truly “for us,” it wouldn’t need a slogan. It would simply exist as a default assumption: that employees are trusted to work effectively without being physically monitored.

The moment flexibility is branded, it stops being about empowerment and starts being about control—about managing perception rather than reality.

The forcing employees back into the office after promoting remote work—exposes the branding for what it was: a temporary narrative, not a commitment. “Flex For You” was never about flexibility. It was about compliance. Once leadership decided it wanted people back under direct supervision, it proves the flexibility was conditional, fragile, and never truly ours.

This shift also reveals a deeper lack of respect. Productivity, performance, and outcomes did not suddenly change. What changed was management’s comfort level with not being able to see employees working. That is not a business need—it is a control preference. When results are strong but presence is still demanded, the message is clear: trust is secondary to visibility.

Requiring physical attendance when remote work has already been proven effective communicates a fundamental belief that employees must be watched to be productive. That belief is incompatible with respect. Adults do not need slogans to motivate them; they need trust, clear goals, and the freedom to meet them in ways that align with their lives.

Ultimately, branding flexibility is a red flag. It turns a basic condition of modern work into a corporate talking point, one that can be quietly revoked the moment it becomes inconvenient. A company that truly respects its employees does not market autonomy—it practices it. And it does not take flexibility away while insisting the brand ever meant something in the first place.

“Flex For You” being branded is just proving that it was never about us at all.

Check out the RTO sharepoint page. They just added a 2026 flexible workplace guide under useful documents. Looks like flex4u is staying