#culture

Did you know that 250 HCSC employees retired last year? Did you know that the number is 300 and counting this year? HR er um the "People" division knows. But they're talking about it as a trend, not another indication that the culture is in the toilet. If these were just "front line" employees but executives are heading for the exits because they can't deal with the craziness anymore.

Did you also know that beginning in January, employees in Richardson and Chicago are going to have to swipe their badges to leave the building at the end of the day? This is not a rumor. This is going to happen. It's been in the works. They wanted to do this earlier this year but came to their senses when they realized that along with making 75% of the workforce remote that would be too much.

Today is the first day of the Pulse survey. You're kidding yourself if you think it's anonymous. Even HR stopped telling that lie. They're very sensitive to negative comments and identify who says what. But you probably knew that. If not, you do now. Comment at your own risk.

One more did you know. HR is getting ready for another one of their "operations" (layoffs) in 2027. This won't be because the company isn't making money. It's going to be positioned as "eliminating redundancies." This is not a rumor either. This is going to happen.

Be careful out there.

I have had the most difficult time helping me build an HR case against an SVP who retaliates and regularly attacks me publicly. Copilot has done an amazing job at gathering the facts and putting it together in a nice refined document with proof points. I strongly recommend that anybody else use Copilot to do the same if you were experiencing retaliation of bullying at work.

Fierce Network by Linda Hardesty, September 11, 2026

Speaking at last week’s Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology 2026 conference, Verizon CEO Dan Schulman emphasized four main things at Verizon over the past year: stopping the company from “being overly engineering focused and really be obsessed with our customer”, shaking up the company culture, efficiency, and delivering ROI for investors.

Schulman also spoke about Verizon’s prospects from providing fiber connectivity to hyperscalers for their AI buildouts, noting the company has a lot of dark fiber capability. “It opens up a quite large addressable market for us,” Schulman said. “It’s growing quite rapidly, and we have the right assets in place and experience to take advantage of it."

A colleague in my group, with Shell 3-4 years, has a knack for ingratiating himself with our Team Lead and other more senior leaders. The guy’s sharp but so are a lot of others who just don’t seem to have that connecting charm.
And it works. He seems to be the fair haired child above the anxiety and worry of layoffs and being side-lined. Already been promoted in grade.
I guess whatever works but is that really what it takes to get ahead at Shell?

Can’t say I’m surprised. LDP quality has gone downhill so much that the businesses are taking development into their own hands

For anyone who's completely burned out, here's something I've learned. You can push back on some of the nonsense and the sky doesn't immediately fall. A lot of managers aren't going to fire someone who is still carrying a big part of the workload. If you're already expecting cuts, there isn't much reason to destroy yourself trying to please everyone.

Very disappointed that no email was sent corporate wide on remembering 9/11 and celebrating our first responders. Everything else seems to be celebrated or talked about, so this is a HUGE MISS by the company.

AT&T store worker gets 16 months inside for SIM-swap side hustle

https://www.theregister.com/cyber-crime/2026/09/11/att-store-worker-gets-16-months-inside-for-sim-swap-side-hustle/5295898

The energy in the office is incredible. We are hiring so many that HR can't keep up

Our stock price is heading up due to all the new customers

There are zero layoffs on the horizon as our CEO said on the town hall

What could have been a fantastic company across many markets has proven that poor leadership, politics, and undervaluing talent can cause damage so deep that it is not recoverable. Ever. The manner in which oracle has operated only cast a shadow and reward behaviors that continue to demoralize.

If you were impacted today my thoughts are with you. The world outside of Oracle is much, much better. If you were not impacted, there's a lot of opportunity out there for good talent. Run away as fast as possible.

Has anyone been told the assessment meeting themes for each rank group by their supervisor? I was shocked when I heard them. What a bunch of garbage.

leaders who cant take feedback should be fired immediately. these are the AD and above who are scared of pulse and send pre-pulse surveys their entire team is afraid to fill out.

these leaders hire other leaders who cant take feedback which makes for a TOXIC culture.

most of these “people” (if you want to call them that), have smiling faces and dont hold bad workers accountable

Please raise your right hand.

I pledge to the greatest CEO in the history of the United States. That loves us so much he can’t even breathe.

That I will go out with my family, my friends, I’ll do it any way — I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m going to try to cheat like he-l like they do. There’s never been bigger cheaters. They don’t care.

I am going to go out and I’m going to get my friends, my family. And we are going to worship Hock on Nov. 3, or we are going to worship Hock before that.

Senior Management, including left over TimeWarner and others not T heritage have sc--wed up. Moral is in the toilet, collaboration is minimal, invocation halted as well as patents. Many yes many critical folks are about to leave end of year and early 2027 with last minute notice due to 25 plus years and treated now with no respect. The part with leaving and critical to the business is factual, they have had enough to be treated with no respect

Seems like it will only last a moment
Then bye-bye

Supervisors in the US are told each year to rank the BTC expats in the USA high and push down the American workers. Happening in Houston, Midland, and Carlsbad.

My biggest regret is how long I stayed somewhere that made me feel like I was constantly doing something wrong. My new job pays better and I have actual freedom to do my work without someone picking apart my every expression or move. The constant intimidation is gone, and I didn't realize how much it was affecting me until I got away from it. Sometimes leaving really is the answer.

I forgot how much noise, how much constant chatter, how many distractions there are at the office. I swear I was half as productive on the RTO days than I was when working from home, and I know there are many others in the same boat. Can somebody explain to me the logic of intentionally crippling the productivity of your entire workforce?

We spend so much time starting things that never actually get completed. By the time we're getting somewhere, management has usually decided we're doing something else.

We used to be an American institution. Working here was a dream for many. Now, all we know are plant closures and layoffs. Those who can find something else are leaving in droves, and I can't even blame them. It's so sad to see an American icon fall so low in such a short time.

I didn't realize how much people hate this place before I started sharing where I work.

They agree with each other, defend each other, and somehow always seem to land on the same side of every decision. If you're outside that group, getting anyone to seriously consider your idea is a different story. I've seen genuinely useful suggestions get dismissed without much discussion. Then someone from the inner circle says something similar later and suddenly everyone thinks it's a great idea.

After seeing that happen enough times, you start wondering why you bother speaking up. It's not that there aren't smart people here with good ideas. It's that the right people aren't always the ones being listened to. Eventually people get tired of fighting that battle and just keep their thoughts to themselves. And that's how things continue going in the wrong direction.

The people who get promoted fastest are the ones who know how to impress their bosses. Actual expertise and the ability to lead people don't matter much. Sad but very true.

Leadership seemed convinced that getting rid of expensive senior employees would give the company a fresh start. Then they started bringing in younger workers and to nobody's shock, they didn't magically fix the bigger problems inside the company. Instead, they made it worse because so much institutional knowledge was lost. And now they want to do it again. Id--ts.

I have had this experience. Told the obvious truth and was reprimanded for not being a team player. They wanted to keep the lie alive so they could be promoted. Company spends a lot of money, time, and effort keeping lies alive so that the chosen ones can be promoted. We would be much more profitable if they would quit working on these lies.

https://youtube.com/shorts/WlQ3ZOgWfnU?is=0it6Te-s-v9lYnMj

There are plenty of opportunities here if you count favoritism, being used, and watching other people get ahead. Leadership can lie or retaliate and somehow never seems to face any consequences.

If you believe in working hard, helping your team, and learning from mistakes, you're probably going to have a rough time here. Mistakes get held against people, while micromanaging and corrective action seem to be the main culture.

The company I joined years ago feels like a completely different place now. Everyone seems exhausted, and the constant threat of discipline has people scared to do anything wrong. I've got a master's degree in a field that's usually in demand, but I've applied for 14 jobs and barely gotten any response. I'd leave too if I could find somewhere to go.

With another reorg reportedly on the horizon (an annual fall ritual at this point), I wanted to share a few observations from peers and colleagues as events unfold. For those hoping this will lead to a major cultural reset at Comcast, the outcome may be more limited. The new CEO appears to be seeking input from the same executives and senior leaders who helped create the current problems. If those leaders remain after the reorg, they are likely to continue causing damage. That may not be what people want to hear, but it seems like the most likely outcome. Comcast is risk-averse, and while many companies use new executive leadership as a chance to clean house, that does not appear likely here.

Outside consultants may help with the mechanics of restructuring, but meaningful change will require leadership to hear directly from employees. Feedback from executives who have been here for years should be weighed carefully, especially if they contributed to the culture that now needs fixing. The new CEO needs to recognize that toxic and ineffective leadership has persisted because there have been few real consequences for the people responsible. Until that changes, Comcast will keep treating symptoms instead of addressing the root causes.

Agile at f5 isn't dead because it never was there

https://www.forbes.com/lists/best-employers-for-tech-workers/

SAS (#1 and #2 in the Great Place to Work survey a few years ago) didn't make the top 300 this year. Maybe the layoffs and uncertainty about the company's future are dragging it down.

On a scale from "mildly incompetent" to "couldn't pour water out of a boot with the instructions on the heel."

VP for our org is based in India and has used these layoffs as pretext to totally decimate US employees.

He treats few remaining US employees as contractors and not part of his team.

IDC employees as "us" and US employees as "them" .

The product was incepted by the US employees when the VP never existed and slowly over time most of the US employees have been laid with systemic knowledge transfer.

Now the product has become a Sh-t show.

we have managers, directors, vp’s that do not even know the purpose and what it does, a cpu, gpu, cuda, or even a workload

The biggest problem I've seen here is how much management avoids saying what they actually mean. The person who hired me back in 2008 was like that, and every team I moved to seemed to have another version of the same thing. It didn't matter who was running the group, the higher up you went, the more obvious it became. By the time you get to the VP level, it feels like nobody wants to take responsibility for anything.

I've never worked somewhere where so many decisions seem to make absolutely no sense. People will point out obvious problems with their reasoning and leadership just keeps going anyway. The latest VSPs and involuntary layoffs combo are the best example. We're being run by id--ts.

I used to think Florida was considered a strong growth market for the bank. Seems like it collapsed after putting the short heavy set guy that looks like Alan from The Hangover in charge. Anyone have any insight into that market? Are there constant resignations? Noone wants to work there? What is going on?

it had some good inputs - who is the mod ?

I don't know exactly when things changed, but IBM feels nothing like it used to. People are exhausted, nobody has much enthusiasm anymore, nobody seems interested in anything, and the old sense that everyone was in it together is gone. We used to actually enjoy seeing each other and working together. Now everyone's just trying to get through the day. I miss the old IBM.