Thread regarding SAS Institute layoffs

If your manager is a good and fair manager then give him/her a chance and have a conversation. If your manager is not good and fair and does not even pull his/her own weight then you need to leave. Don't be afraid to change your circumstances. There is life and often better life outside and after SAS. You must try to look for other jobs. Don't give up if you get a job rejection at first. Keep looking. Good luck to you.

You can certainly talk to your manager but realize that sometimes direct conversations still don't change anything. Managers can and do take revenge and dump even more work on you if you have a direct discussion and they don't like to hear it or admit the problem. I worked 55 hours regularly and then working 65-70 hours for months to keep the team above the water. The more I worked, the more work got dumped on me while some of the team members just coasted and the manager allowed it. That was when I voted with my feet and walked. If SAS does not appreciate your hard work, go somewhere else, otherwise they will take you for granted. You'll get more money elsewhere if you're talented and a hard worker. Not all managers are fair. Managers are always going to have their favorites and play favorites if you happen to have a bad manager. If you have good marketable skills, just start looking for jobs asap and take actions to leave. It will be the greatest thing you'll do for yourself.

OP: I feel your pain. Worked at SAS over 25 years. My final years there were in management. Was there during the great years and also experienced the downhill slide from greatness to merely goodness. Saw too many instances of workload imbalance. Outside of my team, I saw more work piled on worker bees while slackers were allowed and actually rewarded for coasting. Infuriating. In most cases HR was a hindrance instead of a helper. Same for management above me. That left me with limited options of what I could do(or be allowed to do) to make work life at SAS more enriching for my direct reports. Those options became fewer as time marched on. Realize that when/if you talk to your manager about your concerns. I suspect their hands are more tightly tied now than when I was there. A troubling and unsustainable trajectory...

Age allowed me to su-k it up for a few more years then retire. That may or may not apply to you.

Had I been younger, i would not have stayed to endure the painful experience of SAS' greatness spiraling downward to just "good". I would be left and worked independently for myself. Providing SAS services that customers still desperately wanted yet SAS was unwilling to continue providing. The money(back then) would have been almost 3X my salary. To repeat what I said earlier, this may or may not apply to you.

My advice for you is to stop giving them 50+ hours a week. Do 35 honest hours. Adopt a "meeting expectations" mindset rather than "exceeding expectations". Make up for the time that got stolen from you and your family. While that may never be an attainable goal, there is self gratification of exerting the effort.

Time is the most precious gift that you can ever give. So give it to those who value you instead of those who just use you. Good luck.

Direct adult conversation can drive change. But it’s risky. I’ve seen SAS managers take it as a threat, and retaliate against subordinates.

I found SAS worse than other companies in this regard. Such behavior is tolerated, and HR is not empowered to stop it.

SAS managers are a really mixed bag. If you trust your manager, have the conversation; it’s the professional thing to do. But make sure you completely trust that relationship.

If the OP is having a regular 1:1 with their manager AND their manager’s manager has “correct” awareness about the dynamics of their area, then management already knows what’s going on. The question is do they have any agency/power to change OP’s situation. The truth is, very few employees in my long experience at SAS are in a position to influence their management up-chain such that significant changes occur. Like the OP, I worked more 50 hour weeks than I can remember for substandard pay (given what was being delivered) because I kept learning over and over that “I had to be the change”

Signed,

@1mlz+1qgyyQes

@1mlz+1qgyyQes I’m not the person you asked the question of but yes seriously.

Passive aggressive bullsh-t isn’t ever going to drive change. Direct adult conversations can at times. I’ve seen it go both ways.

But it is no different than other big companies in that respect.

“ The correct way ”

True, and if not addressed then it must not be important in the overall big picture.

@1vhy+1qgyyQes

Seriously?

Do you actually work for SAS? For how long?

The correct way to handle this situation is to argue upwards. Inform and convince your management with clear and compelling arguments regarding the situation in your group. If your position is strong then your management will rectify the situation or take the issues to their management for handling. If you do not, then you are not really doing your job, are you? How can things change if your management remains ignorant?

Be brave, look for jobs, apply, be prepared to take a pay cut if necessary. I did, took a 30k paycut and 4 years later are getting paid 100k more than I did at SAS and actually feel like my work is making a difference. Best career move ever but after 15 years at SAS, it's a move I should have done 10 years earlier than I did.
Good luck.

I did the same for many years, worked 50 hour weeks to make my team productive. We consistently delivered, but SAS did not appreciate it. I finally left, with many others, during the pandemic stimulus.

The job market is tougher now. Startups, unless they’re AI, can’t get funding. But the best will still get hired.

Most companies get their hiring budgets in the first quarter. Make your move in the next few months.

If it doesn’t work out, hunker down and wait for a better economy. You’ll still be glad you tried. The putt you never take never goes in the hole.

The problem solves itself:
Vote with your feet, and quit.