#culture

The executives at this company are almost cartoonishly evil. I've never seen more people who are deluded into believing they are kind. Yes, I know and I've heard that leadership everywhere are snakes (that's how they end up where they are), but to see it up close is hard to digest.

Stank tried to spin the metric that 79% of the employees that did respond felt committed and engaged and used that number as support for his policies. He did not share the next metric that if only 79% of those who responded felt engaged/committed, then it is a easy assumption to make that really only about 60% of the total work force felt committed and engaged.
Remember, the C-Suite will ignore the responses that do not support their ideology and strategy, and outright lie about what the employees really feel is important.
499/600 and 875/900 are the real survey numbers.

Silence

PHK or ITC, the same culture. We'll see where this takes the company.

is there anything they're actually capable of?

They can replace every single person in leadership, but there's no way anyone competent or with an actual vision is ever walking through that door. The culture is too far gone. There's no coming back from this.

Biggest bully manager at DSG?!!!
...and gets away with it...bc we all know the rules do not apply to everyone here like they want folks to think.

I've witnessed several managers openly talk about protecting themselves whenever deadlines slip or projects run into trouble. Meetings usually turn into long discussions about who caused the issue rather than how to solve it. Very few people seem willing to admit mistakes or take responsibility. It's exhausting to work in such an environment.

I have been through several restructurings before in other companies and here, but this latest situation feels different. Management keeps mentioning budget pressure and possible cuts during meetings, even when the topic has nothing to do with staffing. It has now started to feel less like planning and more like a way to keep people from questioning decisions and keeping us in our lane.

Link --> https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/ibm-ceo-commits-to-reaching-quantum-computing-milestone-by-2029/ar-AA24GHxd?ocid=msedgntp&pc=W099&cvid=6a2049f56af74598af51294d8ec381d8&ei=9

If you believe this stuff will be available in 2029, then you'll believe anything and... I have bridge to sell you in London. No mention of Arvind's golden boy, Dario in this article.
BUT...
What happens if the fabled quantum computers fail to materialize in 2029 ? Where will Arvind and Dario be ? Basking in the sun somewhere in the Caribbean or hiding from the Italian Mafia underground ? After all, a billion dollars is a lot of $$$. ($10 billion is even more). LOL.

They always expect us to be loyal, to give our best, to stay for years and build our careers here. But when it comes time to invest in us, we're just an expense to be minimized. Experienced people get cut or have their raises capped so the company can save a few dollars.

Would like to hear from any non-ELT GP on here. I assume those remaining support the culture changes. Do you? Is there something we aren’t getting?

Honestly curious.

T is like an enormous dinosaur lumbering through the telecom space. Had we cared for the aging dinosaur by making sure our fiber footprint and customer service were robust, we could have survived the times we are in now.

Instead we tried to weave ourselves into sectors we had no business in and come up with gimmicky BS to seem cutting edge.

Putting funding and focus into those pursuits made us quietly fall behind. Now we’re like a cringey guy in the throes of a midlife crisis trying to date 20 year olds and who have zero interest while neglecting his family that is rapidly falling apart.

Nothing is working and the company looks stupid as he-l flopping around trying to ensure everyone that things are going great and AT&T is cool.

Sadly, that's far from what happened here. The people who knew how to play politics, who knew how to hide during the bad times, they're the ones who mostly survived. Most of the people who actually knew how to lead, who had real skills and real experience, they're gone. What we've got left is the worst management team I've ever worked under and most of the rest of us who do the work looking for an exit.

If it’s any consolation, “thank you for being the best part of Verizon” was carelessly worn out like “love you’s” to your ex-wife. They got us all with it. They made corporate love to us (because it wasn’t consensual) while they took our innocence, money, and more importantly time. And you sold your dignity for a small check and what amounted to a pizza party. Hey we all get used from time to time. But this time, you got a skill out of it not just he---s.

I absolutely loved todays call and how Xeroids have to be coached on basic concepts as if they are something"New" to drive toward goals and functionality that Lexmark had already been performing and achieved over a decade ago.

SMH - I seriously don't know how a 120 year old company allowed it's workforce to be taken over by employees that just set on their hands collecting pay checks instead of driving these basic practices.

Do they think we don’t know they are reading from queue cards? These calls are so embarrassing.

Are all areas facing issues with complete chaos in their depts because they lost the good leadership (and valuable associates) they had with VSP? My area is crumbling and the management we have been left with is relatively new with not enough knowledge to properly manage. I’m not sure her skillset has even included managing people before. It’s become a free-for-all with some associates logging on barely 4 hours a day doing pretty much nothing. We were swept under a new director who also had no experience with our departments responsibilities so he exists but has been 100% absent. We were already understaffed before VSP but the past 6 months we are sinking fast. Is this just my area’s reality or is this being felt across the company ?

https://www.dailyuw.com/article/meta-layoffs-and-megayachts-what-the-zuck-is-going-on-20260603

Sometimes their expectations are truly ridiculous. Maybe we can let them do our jobs for a while, just so they could get some perspective (even though I firmly believe none of them would last for more than a day.)

Did you notice that after every layoff the environment becomes a bit more toxic? People start keeping to themselves, become less cooperative, and are more likely to take credit for things they didn't do. It's not even that I blame anybody, I can perfectly understand wanting to protect yourself. I just think it's incredibly sad.

I believe its another month before Aus moves to Woodside. Hows the mood there? Heard the first thing they're getting rid of is PDS.

Does anybody here trust this leadership? If the answer is yes, why? What have they done to warrant that trust? I can't think of a single thing.

Does the new cohort of managers know that fear-based management is not the only one in existence, and that it certainly isn't the one to result in highest productivity? I swear, the more somebody yells at me, the slower I do my job. Intentionally. These "leaders" need some lessons in people skills.

In the current climate of layoffs, no one wants to speak up, even when senior management is demonstrably wrong about the root cause of an issue. But hey, we told the regulators before we did any work, ergo it must be true right?

After about 15 years of experience in GN&T my sincere advice is to move on and leave the toxicity behind! Don’t waste your time analyzing the future of the company, the impact of Dan’s decisions, the impact of AI, or whatever. Who cares? It’s a toxic environment and you need to get out.

At first, I thought I had drawn the short straw and got an incompetent and unethical boss who did his utmost to promote his rather incompetent favorites while holding back much more capable engineers but as time went on and positions got reshuffled, I realized it was a widespread and systemic issue.

All my bosses were fundamentally clueless about how to really improve network KPIs and relied on vibes. The company spent a lot of money on the network which masked the incompetence to a large extent.

Some people did well and got promoted to Principal or Distinguished engineer but paradoxically their work resulted in little or no concrete improvements. The promotions were also based on vibes.

You deserve bosses that know what they’re doing, treat you fairly and value your contributions! So do yourself a favor, move on as soon as possible and don’t look back.

Any thoughts on the town hall yesterday? Lots of teamwork and buckle up talk but nothing of substance.

We have been losing AUM in Wisconsin hand over fist. Minneapolis has experienced similar losses after their two top teams walked out the door. Texas is losing money hand over fist. Kansas City is losing assets and advisors. When is someone going to look at "leadership," and finally make some changes? I don't know if it's possible, but I am guessing they will find someone even worse to take over for DF. On BL's call, she repeated talked about the $2BN in assets that has left. What do they think is going to happen here? You cannot simply rely on mortgages to carry the day.

Expect there to be layoffs June/July in Member Protection aka Fraud, Disputes, and AML first like operations.

Rumor has it most will be in the Fraud space as they over hired when the old guard went out and the new guard came in 2023/2024. I imagine it won’t be the overpaid cronies they brought with them from BofA, Citi and the like.

The senior leadership team (Bashore and his directs) is very clique-y. There is no loyalty if you aren’t part of their in crowd.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/02/bill-pulte-director-of-national-intelligence-00946319

The digital witch convert TS, the human first departament in a fu-k.. jungle , micromanagement everywhere, failed projects and remember stock $$ is not because of you !
Silent rifs are on going...

After 6.5 years of successful remote and hybrid work, leadership decided employees must return to the office more than half the time. Despite years of strong performance, increased productivity, and record results, management couldn't even provide a basic explanation for the decision.

The announcement itself perfectly reflected the company's culture. After months of rumors and speculation, employees were informed through a Teams meeting while many of us were already sitting in the office. Cameras were off. Employees were muted. Questions were not answered. Instead, we were told to ask our managers for information that leadership should have communicated directly.

The return-to-office rollout has been just as poorly executed. Some employees have been separated from their managers, collaboration has become more difficult, and basic equipment and workspace issues remain unresolved. Apparently, requiring people to commute was a higher priority than ensuring they had functional tools to do their jobs.
What makes this especially frustrating is that employees spent years proving that remote and hybrid work could be successful. The company benefited from our flexibility, commitment, and results. Now we're expected to accept a major change without transparency, accountability, or even the courtesy of a meaningful conversation.

This experience has made it clear that employees are viewed as resources to manage, not people to respect!

And they deleted days from April and did not properly tracked May WTFffff

Like it’s getting to the point where they are counting how many times I’ve reached out for assistance in a multi month period. For the record these were assigned cases that were rare scenarios I hadn’t come across yet and neither had they lol. I was told i apparently reached out for assistance about a dozen times over a 2.5 month period. lol whatever

So uhhhh…are we not going to talk about this? Results were atrocious. We think anything is going to happen or a lot of hand waving and being told we should appreciate our jobs?

Site in Limerick has lost it's buzz entirely. First time I've actually felt an unease about it's future & I remember the 2009 cull.

Portfolio leadership is directly responsible for the failures in losing market share. My Heartland Gulf Operation OD is an example of this. He blames everyone else and wants people fired on our teams and our specialists but never holds himself accountable. Tells everyone to do their job but does not do his. He does not even reside in the operation. This is the type of leadership that loses market share.