Traci sent an email out this morning, 145 more employees to be laid off.
65 replies (most recent on top)
How are y'all faring? I have been applying a lot - barely ever getting to a hiring manager. Do the betrayal feelings ever subside? I really wanted closure, and the fact none of my directors/manager even ever so much sent a goodbye note really gets me. Companies rise and fall. These people who I worked with - the shittiest of sh---y - they just lacked empathy, and were snakes all along. Incompetent, inexperienced, greedy leaders. Just making a quick buck in this cluster-f of things called Walgreens.
Can anyone share which departments and locations are affected? Have layoffs happened or still happening?
Feeling really lost and betrayed. This hit me out of nowhere. I think I was doing a decent job - I feel like I was pinpointed when they decided to bump off people. Most of my team worked remotely but there was faction who regularly "su-ked up" to the directors - all of them kept their jobs.
I started applying last week - its a really bad market. Disheartening to see so many people looking for jobs right now. I have mortgage payments to make, along with childcare costs. Will have to dig into my savings to stay afloat if it comes to that.
Feeling betrayed as the leaders gobbled up on resources all year last year. It was a hiring spree like no other in the AI lab teams. Every week 2 new people were onboarded almost all of 2023. And look what happened? You didn't have enough work for anyone. Neal comes in and he didn't need to be a genius to realize it was all a shi*show .
Incompetent & inexperienced first and second level leadership.
more are coming soon, beware. But you all will stay anyways. How sad.
Best decision I ever made was getting out of that toxic he-l hole.
Neal Sample, Hsiao Wang, ……….
All are the same because of WBA board!
Neal is free to do everything he likes because of Tim Wentworth!
Neal= circus clown
Hsiao= dictator
Two days later, I still can’t believe what Neal Sample did it. All companies are trying to use AI to improve customer experiences and to assist stores by reducing their manual work. One person said below he’s got “Wycoming brain. He is a lot d-mber than that. He is blind literally. Even with a pair of eyeglasses, the dude still can’t see what is happening in the industry. Blind yet the sc-mbag keeps writing on LinkedIn like he knows technology or AI. LinkedIn and events are all where he is spending time on. What a sc-mbag!!! For those who are staying for the time being, you should change the stupid town hall from “Hi Cristin, what’s up?” To “Hi Wycoming brain, can you see???”
Hsiao and Roz were ridiculously d-mb. I can't imagine how people like them have managed to rise through the ranks and to the upper echelons of corporate America.
This company has been a circus for a long some time.
Walgreens Is In A World Of Hurt... And It's Their Fault
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/walgreens-world-hurt-its-theyre-own-fault-brittain-ladd?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&utm_campaign=share_via
Our amazing leadership at Walgreens :
https://brittainladd.com/sheer-folly-the-inside-story-of-michaels-failed-it-transformation/
Neal Sample you are a looser! You are a circus clown.
Seems Vipin likes to say “hey Kristin, what’s up”. He is so stupid. He has a fake PhD, LOL
Neal Sample, was acting like he was in a circus, In the last IT townhall
Neal Sample, if you were fired twice, why did you come Walgreens?
Feel free to comment on one or more of the questions below:
- Which location cost less to
operate: Deerfield or the old post office location?
- What is the ratio of employees to consultants/temp employees/ contractors in the corporate offices? In Stores?
- Is the Boots Alliance portion of the business able to provide an infusion of cash to the US operations to help stabilize the US operations or are they also experiencing similar challenges?
- An earlier post mentioned HR layoffs. Given the continuing layoffs, wouldn’t corporate HR be busier than ever or was that portion outsourced too?
- Without naming names or badmouthing anyone, how could you positively contribute to helping turn the company around?
Thank you.
Approximately how many people left in the Deerfield Corporate Office?
Hey Kristen, what's up??!!
LOL at the idea that Ginger is competent. She watched as the company went down the drain and did nothing and then got paid a ton to do nothing but send her Ginger-grams every Friday.
Why do you care about this company? You should be happy to leave this crazy place. Everybody should leave soon. They don't even have money; we worked hard without being paid. There is no opportunity for work-related travel, only they can travel and live a luxurious life. We are their laborers who are not compensated.
Check the stores. More layoffs are probably coming. Better start looking now.
7 months? He just got here in October as a contractor and wasn’t even named cio until November. I was vibing with these comments until I noticed a pattern of bad grammar and misspelling. Seems like 1-2 people have lost their mind on this site
After 7 months, Neal Sample has done nothing. He wants to save money by firing the smartest people. He recently brought a new VP report to him, what about the cost? We never needed that VP, instead of firing people. He is full of bs. If you look at his face, you can see how full of bs he is, if you listen to him, you can realize how full of bs he talks. So disgusting
Someone needs to clean the Walgreens by kicking off Neal! He is dangerous for the future of the organization.
All these WBA executives go to stores and events ONLY so they can put on their linkedin. I wish they spend the time doing some actual work. Tracey Brown is one of them.
I know it’s hard for those who have been here for a while but if you are <=5 years into your career and working here, you need to leave. It doesn’t make sense and it’s clear this place won’t help your career.
Walgreens board should be changed
Walgreens is bankrupt, everyone should leave there. Neal and his new team will make it difficult.
It’s sad to see so many talented people leave. The direction against AI isn’t fitting current trend. Anyone know what’s the severance package offered
Next round if firing will come soon
Neal Sample is a great actor! Every two weeks, he and his crew have a show called "Hey Cristin, what's up?" They think they are funny, poor IT team
Tracey Brown and Bala Visalatha are the ones who should be fired, not random people who weren't able to produce results due to poor leadership and absence of direction. Both of these individuals are totally incompletent yet so arrogant. Disgrace of WBA. These senseless diversity games must stop before the 100+ year old company is bankrupt.
I was part of a data science team that built an AI tool to help Walgreens patients. The business loved it, and I hope they continue using it because we worked very hard on it. However, with the new directions of the CIO, who is against AI, I hope they don't discard or abandon the tool. Walgreens patients could greatly benefit from it. Despite the layoffs, I am still proud to be able to work on this amazing tool that helps patients. I wish good luck to the rest of the team.
We never understood what exactly Bala Visalatha is doing. Instead of firing 145 people, they could fire him.
What if AMAZON buys WBA?
I would advise everyone to reconsider applying for jobs at Walgreens. The company culture is poor, there are financial difficulties, lack of respect, and it is not a safe place to work. I had a horrible experience in Tracy's team.
I won't go as far as calling Neal out, but today's layoff of the AI team is on Hsiao and Sheida. Hsiao made sure the "AI Lab" was shrouded in secrecy by design. Other departments don't know exactly what that team is doing. Honestly, building our own ChatGPT on our own data center is a ridiculous idea for a Retail/Healthcare company going through the challenges Walgreens is. The AI team suffered from poor internal marketing and leadership...all this was before Neal took over.
I was part of the data science team, but I was laid off today. It was a dream team with exceptional AI leadership. I had successfully passed a difficult interview last year, and everyone on the team was incredibly talented. However, it was not appropriate for them to target the data science team. We all worked diligently, and I am still trying to process what happened today. I cannot speak to my past experiences at Walgreens, but what I do know is that the AI Lab team could have greatly contributed to the current situation there. Unfortunately, the new CIO lacks a good understanding of AI.
WBA better straighten up its objectives before they hire people next time. Employees are talents that built companies and not a ball of cricket field
Seeing the news of more layoffs after finally making the decision to leave the company is heartbreaking. For anyone living in fear (like others have mentioned) I was there 2 months back constantly looking over my shoulder despite stellar performance reviews. Do yourself a favor and at least start to look- you are worth more than a company that would cut you in an instant without blinking an eye
Processed some offboardings today, and from IT area it was really only data science teams that got hit. Which I’d think we’d still need, but maybe those were just the AI focused lads. If true that’s a decent scaleback if it’s correcting some of the previous AI hype the old CIO fell for.
the TA team lost some of their best talent but kept people who haven’t gotten more than 2 hires this year
the ONLY criteria was how long someone has been on the team…not a good way to keep good people around