#culture

I have been laid off after more than 20 years as a physician. It was a huge shock, with no warning—just an invitation to a Teams meeting! Inhumane! On the other hand, it was a relief after working nonstop in a horrible, toxic environment and wondering every day how much longer I could tolerate it. If you still work at Optum/WellMed clinic-leave!—do yourself a favor and don’t waste your time waiting for the next layoff.

The work culture has become so toxic. Incompetent leaders and Management who lack to provide any guidance and set unrealistic expectations. At the end of the day they make you feel worthless even after performing and working towards deadlines

At AT&T, that apparently means trimming ambition, stretching timelines, and praying no one notices the difference between discipline and drift.

Especially if you hate it here. Leave this place to those of us who like working here. Everybody will be happier.

Quit last year around this time and sorta forgot about EM, but thought I'd check in to see how y'all are doing.

I do keep in touch with a few EM folks and they all seem kinda sad or stressed out (though the BTC people on LinkedIn seem happy).

How's it going there these days?

Leadership is something that employees aspire to become one day. Our leaders are nothing but that. These are people who are so called HiPos stepped over others, stayed not more than two years, did nothing of value to the corporation but perception and favoritism moved them up and is reflected in poor leadership and zero vision that we see today. They travel for no reason, present mundane powerpoint slides just to show that they are busy to their division. Where will it end? These are the people that board trusted to lead in to the future?

It's always rush mode. Always stress. Always another thing due yesterday. I honestly can't remember what a normal day feels like anymore. Just starting work without that immediate weight on your chest sounds like a dream.

They sell us tones of BS.
AI. AI. AI. …..

For those who worked through the late 1990, what's one thing you're glad younger folks won't have to put up with?

I remember printing out hundreds of pages just to review a document and having to track changes by hand with a pen. The paper cuts alone were brutal. What other dinosaur era work habits are you happy died off?

I had to reactivate my account because recruiters kept asking for it, but the constant posts about nights out, people partying with coworkers, and random personal photos feel so unprofessional. Does anyone actually use this platform to help others find real work? It feels more like a social feed than a job tool most days.

I didn’t think it was possible but it seems as though the experience at Nike has only increased in toxicity. I cannot even imagine being there now. I left many years ago after 22 years.

Layoffs incoming !!!! Time for managers to count their favorites and retain the ego strokers.

Is the blue pulse truly anonymous?
Lets say they get all 0’s for most ratings, do they listen more to that feedback or off with her head?

Right?!

What if Marshall Field's had been retained ? There was so much good will that was accumulated. Since the conversion to Macy's, Chicago and mid-western stores are quite "different" to say the least. After pivoting, they discovered that there was a need for more localization but has it been enough. Look at what Marshall Field's used to be.

Why could they have not refreshed the stores and polished the legacy that was extraordinary. Maybe things were perfect....but wasn't there better possibilities for the future of the trajectory of the business and the long term viability all around ? T

These stores used to have restaurants, beauty salons, unique and curated assortments that were unique and exciting ! What do you think ?

This worrying trend of "side hustles" has me concerned for the support I (won't) get from colleagues when needed.

I have emailed senior management regarding engineers circumventing their Teams statuses, mainly via scripts, in order for DXC to start looking into ways of identifying those responsible.

I doubt anything will happen but hopefully we can rid the company off these non-team players. I recommend doing the same. A few colleagues are following suit this morning and sending their own concerns.

Mass layoffs are increasingly common, often involving thousands of roles at once. How senior leaders handle these decisions profoundly impacts organizational trust, talent, and performance. Research indicates that while layoffs offer short-term financial relief, they can damage long-term engagement and institutional knowledge. Effective leadership during layoffs requires clear rationale, human conversation, and dignified treatment of employees. Companies must prioritize support and transparency to maintain a strong culture.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/layoffs-leadership-test-executives-193830410.html

Remember when vz paid Tom Brady hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to HQ and say we were winners immediately after a VSP and a year before the biggest layoff ever? And during a period of losing big time to T-Mobile? Hilarious. Smoke and mirrors are the foundation of this mess and nothing has changed since.

Best place to work at. /sarcasm

Has anyone considered that all of these post might be from upper level management to try to constantly scare us into doing more work than is required of us?

As an Ex-Frontier person I was warned about the culture in Verizon.

Boy were they right - it is deeply, deeply toxic. Battle hardened silos, everyone covering their as--s, no one accountable for decisions, leadership that doesn’t have a clue about leading (or telecoms for that matter), passive aggressive behaviors everywhere and at the top of it all a bunch of leaders who are happy clappy about the future with no real desire to lean in to changing the underlying culture. So no surprise that the awesome team at Frontier has now almost all left. Will be fascinating to see how the financial performance of the old Frontier business develops, or will it become invisible and quietly disappear to be written off, just as with all VZ acquisitions. Remember Blue Jeans, Yahoo, Terramark etc etc. The street should be punishing these guys.

any company in the world, after certain growth it becomes mature, lackadaisical, entitled, and full of you know what! That is where Nike is and stuck!!
Unable to crawl out of sh4t pile that they slipped and fell.

EH just joined Nike when they came out with "Just Do It" campaign because they were young and hungry while living on the edge. Now, JDI means how to print on the T=shirt and sell it for $25.00 when it cost only $3.00 to produce.

Nike only know how to play prevent defense and that will prevent you from winning.
According to dearly departed John Madden

• Layoffs: Ongoing fear of continued or phased layoffs; perception of quiet reductions and outsourcing
• Leadership: Low trust in executives; frequent criticism of decision-making and communication
• Culture: Reports of low morale, cynicism, and “toxic” or inconsistent management
• RTO policies: Major frustration with inconsistent return-to-office enforcement across teams
• Pay & reviews: Belief that raises and ratings are predetermined; weak merit increases and bonuses
• Career growth: Limited advancement opportunities; employees feel stuck or disengaged
• Attrition: High voluntary turnover, especially among experienced staff
• Technology concerns: Anxiety about AI replacing roles and increased employee monitoring
• Workplace stress: Frequent mentions of burnout and mental health strain

Overall: Negative sentiment centered on job security, leadership trust, and workplace consistency

Windstream/Kinetic employee here looking for advice or feedback on all your former leaders coming over here. They are not making friends and ripping the company that we spent nearly a decade building apart. They have come in like a wrecking ball and it seems if you are not part of their inner circle then you don’t mean anything to them. They might be smart folks but their people skills are awful and the only opinions they care about are their buddies they brought over. Are you happy they are gone or do you miss them? Help me understand my future lol

The whole world is changing to work from home due to energy crisis.Only these jokers ask everyone to come in person on all 5 days,badge in badge out..
Wonder where the priorities are.Org changes across the board by new SLT.Hopefully that revives the titanic

Let me describe how this place works. First pillar, punishment. Make a small error and they'll remind you for months. Second pillar, fear. Nobody feels safe. Everyone's waiting for the other shoe to drop. Third pillar, favoritism. Certain people can do no wrong. They get the promotions, the good projects, the protection. Everyone else gets the scraps. That's the culture. That's how they run things. And it's not just unpleasant, but also abusive. It wears you down until you don't even remember what normal feels like.

People keep trying to make this about generations. Older workers don't get younger workers. Younger workers resent older workers. That's not the real problem. The real problem is the gap between everyone who does the work and the executives who make the decisions. That's the only divide that matters.

Compared to other companies, our layoffs are both smaller and not as frequent.

What's happening with HPE? One week something is fine, the next week it’s not allowed anymore. We only find out after the fact when someone flags it. For the past year I've felt like I'm always one step behind something we weren't even notified changed. How are we supposed to work like this?

We're the ones who keep overextending ourselves to cover for those who are cut. We do it over and over again. If we all just stopped, they wouldn't be able to do this anymore. Work wouldn't get done. There would be consequences for their actions. As it is right now, we just keep rewarding them.

We spend a lot of time discussing what needs to be done. Then we discuss it again. And again. Meanwhile, the actual work barely moves. When did we turn into a company where every single thing has to be discussed into oblivion before anything can be done?

How much money did we waste on Metaverse? Upwards of $90 billion? It was obvious for years it was a bust but when somebody's ego is so big they can't accept that their brilliant idea is pure sh-t, that's what you get. How many jobs that money could have saved?

There are things that clearly aren’t working, but no one says it directly. Instead, we just keep adjusting around them. It feels like everyone sees it, but no one wants to be the one to call it out. So it just continues. Because that's so much better and productive than actually fixing the issue, right?

The bodies are there but the people aren't. Hundreds have already left in their heads. We do the minimum, watch the clock, and wait for the day we can physically leave too. Schwab did this to itself.

You ask three people the same question and get three different answers. All of them sound confident too. So it turns into a game of eeny, meeny, miny, moe to decide what to do. And if you get the wrong one, guess whose fault it is? This whole place has turned into one big joke.

I know this is not layoffs related, but it's been bugging more and more since it's slowing me down and it might affect my future here. We send out docs ahead of time for every single meeting, but it’s obvious no one reads them. Then the meeting turns into reading the doc out loud and re-explaining everything. I don’t understand why we even bother sending materials in advance at this point. It's slowing down the meeting, everything takes longer, and I have less time to do my actual job. How hard is it to get to a meeting prepared??

Morale at Cherry Point feels like it’s at a historic low. What was once considered a standout site in the Pacific Northwest, known for its strong culture and sense of family, feels very different today.

Many employees feel disconnected from leadership, and recent organizational changes have made the refinery feel unfamiliar to those who have been here for years. There’s a growing perception that leadership is not fully engaged with the workforce or the site’s legacy culture.

Recent safety concerns have only amplified these feelings. Employees want to feel heard, valued, and safe—and right now, there’s a noticeable gap between leadership decisions and workforce sentiment.

Cherry Point has always had the potential to be exceptional. The hope is that leadership will re-engage with the people on the ground and work to rebuild the trust and culture that once made this site so strong.

If you currently work here or have worked here recently, I’d be genuinely interested in hearing about your experience. Is this something others are seeing as well?

Been thinking about this a lot lately. Going back to four days a week in the office with the open plan unassigned seating (HMP) has definitely brought some good energy. You run into folks from different teams, have those quick real-time conversations, and get problems solved faster than the endless email chains we had before. Its helped cut down on friction and made collaboration feel smoother.

That said, I keep noticing how our field teams run on a solid 5-day rhythm and it shows in their consistency and momentum. Maybe bringing the office side to a full 5 days could line everything up even better across the company. Wrapping the week strong with everyone in on Friday, plus the occasional half-day on Saturday when it makes sense, might give us that extra edge to stay ahead of the competition and feel more like one-team.

Chevrons culture already feels special, and pushing a bit more on the in-office side could make it even stronger. Its one of the reasons Im still optimistic about sticking around long-term.

Anyone else seeing similar things? Especially curious how the current 4-day setup is landing for field and ops folks. Are you noticing quicker decisions or better handoffs, or do you think more consistent office time would help?