#culture

I am so tired of the bully culture.

After a layoff event people used to take breather and relax, not with this latest one. Feels like hunger games have already started. It must be about the hiring in ENGINE and Buenos Aires.

Say what you want about the guy but he was an effective leader and his team operates at the highest level. Why let him go? Makes no sense.

Here so long as teammates complete their jobs consistently, repeatedly, and transparently, accuracy doesn’t matter

So as long as everyone repeatedly gets it wrong, it’s okay. That’s why there have been a million teammate replacements, a million department restructures, and a million reasons why the stock can’t grow during market rallies.

If you’re reading this or coming to this blog. You care, but why care more than leadership?

So what’s everyone doing this weekend to soften the tension?

I drove 4 hours for a car show and really tested the abilities of my 72 Triumph TR6 on the highway. Guess what? We aren’t dead yet.

Maybe some warhammering Sunday night after I get back.

What about yall? Don’t drink too heavily.

Been going around that she is very upset that her saying that we should ignore the presence reports got out on the interwebs. I guess her freeeloader remark didn’t land well.

Funny, none of these people were all that upset when the company scr_wed with the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people with the RTO layoffs and relocations. Just business. Now they’re aghast when dirty laundry is aired in public.

If you don’t want leaks just treat people with decency and respect. It’s not all that hard

We had planned some diversity-related activities for our group this coming week, but I was informed that we won’t be moving forward, at least not in any official capacity. If we do proceed, it will not be sponsored, and we’ve been explicitly asked not to post about it on social media, as it could be perceived as potentially harmful.

I had understood that while we were scaling back the public promotion of our diversity initiatives, the activities themselves would continue internally. However, it now appears that funding is being pulled and we’re being discouraged from sharing anything externally.

It’s disappointing, to say the least. It feels like we’re stepping back from something that mattered, perhaps out of caution given the current political climate.

Indians occupied most of top management positions. Root cause of Intel’s failure.

Good luck to Nvidia, to be converted to India. It is not far from corruption.

It took me a while to find a decent alternative. It’s not better than Dell when it comes to pay and benefits, but the relief is incredible. My manager is actually competent, communicates like a normal human, and most importantly, runs the team efficiently. I haven’t had to stay late once, and there’s no layoff drama hanging over us (yet). Look for something new for the sake of your sanity. The job market is tough, but there are always options.

Fidelity is really piling on the workload for people in advisory services. In the IMC space the workload is doubling & of course without any substantial pay upgrades to match.

What I am witnessing is a major culture shift where Fidelity is embracing the Wells Fargo culture of sales at the cost of employee burnout and turnover which I would not be surprised to start seeing more unethical behaviors while the standards of care is being preached. I personally feel there should be those that go out and gather the assets and there are those that maintain and retain the assets. When companies start forcing everyone to be in a high pressure sales role then you can kiss standards of care & company loyalty out the window.

they use big words for anything, but when it comes to actually do something which would help like using right tools for the job -- nope, not northstar or you have to fill 10 different forms each with 5+ folks to approve and 10+ questions with links more links and ... you just give up.

Seriously it feels like its some sitcom about state owned company where you have to "know" somebody or pay someone to actually be able to work.

My daily work is constant fight with people who bring 0 value and just create problems causing anyone with good will to quit ASAP..

Sadly 90% of devs does not have clue how real tools look like, 9% probably know, but they give up and sooner or later they quit.

1% is stupid enough like me are trying to work normally, but its just too frustrating... so I either turn into 9% zombies or quit when I can get same money elsewhere.

So many dissatisfied employees comment here.
Why don’t they leave F5?
Can’t find another job? Hmm.

So many former employees comment here.
Why are they wasting their time?
Can’t find another job? Hmm.

Seems like the answers are obvious.

Dose of reality for those newer to working.
No job or company is perfect. Many are far from it.
F5 isn’t perfect. But it’s a paycheck. It’s decent benefits.
Bad mouth leadership until you are blue in the face, it won’t change anything.
So take a deep breath.
Take another deep breath.
Stop wasting your time on things outside your control.
The commenting isn’t burning calories, or teaching you a new skill, or fixing anything. So why are you continuing to do it?

Get back some free time! Don’t give it to F5!

Quote below not mine. Elevating from another poster. MW, your money can never make you sleep soundly. Know that you garner zero respect from us. And you don’t have the guts to accept any criticism.

“For me, the turning point was when the CEO openly stated, “stop being nice.” That should have been a PR and cultural disaster, no matter how it was framed. In my experience at Chevron, "being nice" meant mentoring juniors, collaborating as a team, and going the extra mile to achieve collective success. It was never an excuse or a way to dodge accountability for KPIs—it was about fostering a supportive, high-performing culture.”

This place would lay off a man on life support if it meant another dime for the shareholders. That’s the culture. Maybe I’ll be gone soon enough myself, but I sure as he-l hope the suits upstairs get a taste of the same when their time comes. No one escapes forever. Not even them.

Is this a version of He-l ?

I work today but who knows about tomorrow

Trust? They destroyed that. They don’t care.

Remember to keep your soul, give them 8 hours, but not your soul.

They don’t care.

Why is every software project at this company a pile of custom spaghetti that some opinionated developer threw together without ever bothering to google other similar things people have built for reference? If it not that , it’s a wrapper of some kind with 1% of the features and they pretend they built it. Why does IT keep adding to the misery by imposing more nonstop migrations and more tickets to submit and more things breaking constantly imposing more worthless refactors? Why does no one seem to have heard of a software standard?

Is it just me? I mean I don’t blame people for quiet quitting around here. But can y'all do it a little quieter?

Having worked for multiple operators and vendors during my career I found T-mobile the place where management favorite dogs are promoted the most and intelligence is generally disregarded. Is this prevalent across organization?

I’m a boomerang and I’m proud of it. I left Nielsen thinking that there were greener pastures elsewhere but learned that corporate life everywhere is just a mess. I had gone to a competitor of Nielsen and the turmoil there is significantly worse.

Yes, Nielsen has some issues but honestly, it’s the best place I worked prior to leaving and I’m thrilled to be back. The grass is definitely not greener on the other side. I’m glad I left on my own terms when I did so I could come back with a different perspective.

At Chevron, the HSE department is less of a safety net and more of a loosely tied hammock made of red tape and bad decisions. If common sense were PPE, they'd be working barefoot on a rig made of matches. Their idea of a safety meeting is a coffee break where they discuss near-misses like ghost stories, fun to hear, but no one learns a damn thing. Policies are either outdated, ignored, or written in a language only ancient bureaucrats understand. Honestly, the only thing they excel at is creating PowerPoints that could lull a fire into extinguishing itself.

…. Or more positively I thought it was a new partnership? But no. Everything I have heard and seen is Lexmark people saying “ we will do it the Lexmark way now from now on” and “what xerox did that was value-added and respected by them for years and years will be replaced by administrative type roles in our repetitive factories off-shore”. Jeez. Do they not realise that every client is different and so there does need to be non-repetitive, thoughtful, insightful work as well? I was positive but I have never come across a bunch of guys who behave in this mid-American bully-boy way. HELP !!

Fascinating how a storied and successful company like Marathon with a unique culture and technical achievements can disappear and not be relevant again. This is testament to leadership drive for self enrichment and the middle managers who destroyed the morale of the organization.

The company appears to be in a state of decline, with leadership frequently chasing the latest industry trends. Every few months, there’s a shift in direction and new sets of goals, often driven more by buzzwords than by long term strategy. It can be frustrating and sometimes even amusing to watch leadership make decisions based on vendor pitches, despite lacking hands-on experience themselves.

Strategic direction often changes based on which vendor a VP has a relationship with. Microsoft is currently the favored trend, but just a few months ago, it was all about "prompting." These cycles repeat, creating instability.

Benefits are decent, but be cautious getting sick can be expensive. PTO is generous, and pay can be competitive depending on your role and negotiation. However, layoffs happen regularly, roughly every six months, with many roles increasingly offshored to Allstate India, which probably accounts for over 50% of the IT staff.

The company is heavily focused on “cloud” and “AI” at the moment. Overall, I’d rate it an average workplace, it’s a place where you do your job, keep your head down, and hope to stay employed. Tenure doesn’t offer much protection. If your views don’t align with the ever changing corporate vision, you may find yourself out.

If you’re hired, my advice is: agree with leadership, reinforce their ideas, and avoid pushing back, your opinion won’t carry much weight. On the positive side, there are solid opportunities to improve your skills through a strong internal training ecosystem.

https://www.financialexpress.com/trending/its-scaring-me-microsoft-employee-of-7-years-says-current-work-culture-has-changed-for-the-worse/3982230/

In the first plot select 'Insurance' and 'USAA':

https://www.economist.com/interactive/business/2025/06/16/corporate-culture?fsrc=core-app-economist&mc_cid=fa28ffc4ba

The second chart shows culture dimensions like Transparency, Candor, Strategy vs leadership, pre and post COVID.

Spoke with an old co-worker last week, who got LR'd last year and still does not have replacement job. Really sad, great worker.

I was LR'd years ago, and moved on luckily to much greener pastures.

I was at Cisco a long time, the last two years were Psychological Warfare. Felt I would get LR'd; sure enough eventually did.

Early in career, was a "highly valued" and highly paid, who then, with time morphed into an older male. Great money. The problems indeed began when new "management" took over our BU. It took a year, but there was a dramatic "change" of "philosophies", which also brought more likeminded folks into the BU. Let me just say, languange became a definite much tougher to navigate challenge. Also, many cultural differences.

That is not a popular opinion, but it was reality. Sounds like it still may be reality. Now even more.

I am SO glad I was removed from the sullbhit and moved on. I am also glad it was years ago, and not in today's market. Times are tough. If I was still there, I do not know what I would do, the opportunites are not there.

Many people will most likely not like this post. I am supportive of all peoples, but skill and job abilities were, and appear to continue to be for the mostpart, completely ignored at Cisco.

To the upper management who sanction and condone this pile of sullbhit, I hope you feel truly proud of your accomplishments, mostly of padding your pockets while picking off other workers, and continuing to foster a culture of misery.

if you come across a better opportunity, move on. Your sanity will Thank You.

No offshoring / put profits over patient care.

We lost a great manager. They decided to nuke our department for no good reason and then handed the pieces to someone who loves micromanaging and playing politics. I went from enjoying my job to dreading it within a few weeks. Again, for no good reason! This place makes no sense to me.

Now, what a fu--ing waste of everyone's time - also, powerpoint lides make it much worse.

The reward for doing good work is getting to do more work. Can I get a witness!

Why do we need several meetings to decide something that should take five minutes? It looks suspiciously like people just drag stuff out to make themselves look busy. Meanwhile, I’m doing real work and stressing about layoffs, and they get praised for this nonsense.

The goal isn’t a promotion anymore, it’s escape. Forget raises or fat bonuses, the real win here is landing a new job and walking out. That’s the only future that looks good to me right now, and I’ve been chasing it for months.

what bothers american workers the most today? oh gee, where do we start.

Imagine getting one of the most decent people around to walk away from his life’s work. Imagine buying Ben & Jerry’s and then putting a muzzle on its founders, the very people who built it into what it is and who’ve always stood on the right side of history. Messed up is all I can say.

A question for people who've been working for Oracle for more than 10 years.

I wanted to see if you can quantify how much quality of employment at Oracle deteriorated over last 10 years.

10%, 50%, 90% worse than 10 years ago.

Pick your number and see if you can tell us why you feel that way.

love how this works.

my manager gets a terrible rating, keeps being the same awful person, and nothing happens.

zero consequences, zero change.

but sure, let’s keep pretending VOE means something.

We have a few coasters in our team working on same item since idk, 5 sprints

And they have 0 knowledge of what they are building, cannot even write or understand a simple join query

Guess what, they get to demo all my work.

Why do managers encourage such behavior???

How sc--wed are we now that DoorDash is taking over? I've only heard bad things but that's mostly about how the company treats its drivers. What about the rest of us? Is it just as bad? To say I'm nervous about this whole thing would be an understatement of the century.

They’ll burn out your creativity, crush your motivation, and smile while doing it. Get out while you’ve still got some spark left in you, because they won’t give it back once it’s gone.