#employeehappiness

I really don’t get all the drama. This whole “market-based culture” thing has honestly been the best setup ever.

I’m up at 6, roll into the office, grab a coffee, and spend the first hour catching up on news and personal emails. Calls run till about noon, then it’s lunch somewhere good — Plano or the Dallas Design District, depending on the vibe.

After that? Head home early, knock out some errands or business stuff, and call it a day.

The trick is simple: do what’s in your job description — nothing more, nothing less. Follow every rule to the letter, badge in, badge out, put in your six hours, and keep it moving.

Worst case, they lay you off — and you get to take the next six months off to find your next move.. Tell me another Fortune 50 gig that easy.

Sacking someone who made you a trillion, reshuffling entire top leadership only to make associates go through anxiety, uncertainty and depression all over again????

Pulse survey can’t come sooner, fido leadership is dead

I've been working at Jones for nearly my entire professional career, right out of college, for the past decade. I worked hard to prove myself in the eyes of leadership and my peers. Copious amounts of overtime, volunteering for more work repeatedly, going above and beyond in every capacity I could with a ratio of 9 "Exceeds" to every "Meets". Promoted numerous times with several lateral moves, always "working my way up" however I could, because I believed in the company and wanted to be a part of something truly great.

But in that time...

I was hired with a title and grade two below the role I actually filled, told I had to work my way up only to watch others be hired directly to the higher title at higher pay than I made when I was eventually promoted. I was repeatedly paid less than the minimum for my paygrade, with more than one "Bring to Minimum" increase. I was denied increases outside of annual reviews, despite being below the minimum. I was never offered a partnership. I was converted to salary without my consent, with the expectation I continue working heavy overtime, in addition to regular weekends. I was denied opportunities for promotions due to my volunteer projects. And now, I have been ISP'd.

I stayed all these years because I felt secure, and I truly viewed many of my coworkers as friends. When I first toured the campus, in my interviews, even in the lunchroom I heard repeatedly how Jones was "one of the best places to work" and "never did layoffs", "the culture is incredible", and that "the happiest feeling in life is feeling safe and secure in your job, never worrying about putting food on the table" (exact quote). The older associates said this is somewhere you don't have to job hop, you want to stay here your whole career, it's that good. And, like an absolute mo--n, for the past decade I believed them.

This past month I've felt a lot of things... Anxiety. Shock. Frustration. Fear. Depression. Unappreciated. A number on a spreadsheet. Like my whole career has just been reset. But most of all? I feel betrayed. I've been stabbed in the back, and I feel sick to my stomach for it. And it's not only me - I've spoken to a dozen of my friends who all got the same news, and a dozen more who are heartbroken to see us all leave so suddenly (many of which received demotions). Being locked out of the building, having our names scrubbed from projects and tickets, being forgotten and shown firsthand that we never mattered. Thousands of years of cumulative experience purged in the name of profit for the select few at the very top.

My world view has been shattered. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to treat Jones as a stepping stone and take the opportunities presented elsewhere along the way. Instead, I was walked all over for years and the only thing I have to show for it is a lovely pink slip, and a crippling fear for my family's future. I've put out dozens of applications in the past month, putting my all into finding something new, and haven't gotten a single interview. They let us go into one of the worst job markets they could. At the start of this year, I thought I was going to retire from Jones... Now I don't know what my life will look like 6 months from now, let alone 10 years from now.

My faith in the firm's direction is gone; the company culture is dead.
If you're still there and thought you were safe, you will never be able to feel that way again.

Does ELT know how much their employees despise them or are they kept in the dark by the boot lickers below them? The BOD needs to realize how much of a failure they are and how they have completely lost their employees and fire them all.

Recently posted, in part, on LinkedIn:

“…AT&T leadership continues to set the gold standard in recognizing and rewarding its people. Their unwavering commitment to appreciation and employee happiness is what fuels our culture of excellence. When you feel seen, valued, and celebrated, you bring your best—and that’s exactly what we do.

I’m beyond proud to be part of a company that invests in its people and celebrates every chapter of their story. “

WOW.

Speechless. Though I did throw up in my mouth a little.

Once upon a time, ExxonMobil told me I was part of a family. Turns out, it was a family reunion where someone always gets voted off the island. Every year, the corporate ritual begins: managers huddle in air-conditioned rooms, armed with bell curves and buzzwords, ready to determine who deserves to be a “star” and who must be sacrificed at the altar of “forced distribution.”

It’s not personal, they tell us. It’s the system. And that’s exactly the problem: the system is personal. It’s designed to pit friend against friend, teammate against teammate, until collaboration becomes a liability. Help too much, and you’ve given away your edge. Share credit, and you’ve signed your own exit papers. At ExxonMobil, teamwork is celebrated in the posters, but quietly punished in the rankings.

I survived this game for years — until I didn’t. One morning, my badge beeped for the last time. Not because I failed. But because someone had to fail. Someone always has to. That’s the brilliance of the system: it doesn’t matter how many projects you delivered, how many nights you stayed late, how many crises you saved — the curve must be fed. And this year, it was hungry for me.

Meanwhile, senior management writes love letters to Wall Street, filled with words like efficiency and right-sizing. They call it strategy. I call it theatre. A tragicomedy in which real people become line items, and livelihoods are “optimized” into quarterly metrics. Funny how bonuses at the top never seem to follow the same bell curve. The VPs ascend while the rest of us are sorted into neat statistical buckets: star, survivor, sacrifice.

We joked about oil wells, about decline curves, about depletion. Turns out, the cruelest decline curve was our own. We became non-producing assets, flared off like unwanted gas. Quick burn. No emissions report. Just silence.

And here’s the saddest comedy of it all: ExxonMobil doesn’t need to fire you. It only needs to erase you. Your email blinks out, your calendar evaporates, your name is deleted from the org chart as if you were never here. The system is efficient — cruelly so. It doesn’t spill blood; it sterilizes it.

I’m left with a twisted gratitude. Gratitude for colleagues who became friends even while the system forced us to compete. Gratitude for the absurdity of it all — because if you don’t laugh, you’ll drown. And gratitude, perversely, for the clarity: now I know the truth. This was never about “our greatest asset.” It was about protecting theirs.

So to the survivors still inside: play carefully. Smile at your peers while secretly outscoring them. Innovate, but not too much. Collaborate, but only if the credit sticks to you. The machine loves you — until it doesn’t.

ExxonMobil: Energy lives here.
Translation: Human energy is expendable. Executive energy is renewable.

that's what this company is taught us: never work hard for them, never go the extra mile, absolutely do not try hard. only do the bare minimum because they're going to lay you off no matter what

They will use you and dispose of you with a layoff notice approximately five days after a contract you were hired to support ends or funding inexpertly gets cut. You are given less time now to find another internal job at Booz Allen before you are issued a layoff notice. There are hundreds of employees in this position at any given time, and their desperation shows, and mostly likely their mental health is affected too. After receiving a layoff notice, you can forget about Networking, to help you find a new position inside the company while the days count down before you are laid off. The reason for this is that IT shuts down your computer so you can no longer network using emails to reach out to managers you do not know or access the internal networks at Booz Allen to help you find another internal job at Booz Allen before your last day.

Buyer beware when accepting a job offer at Booz Allen.

Today’s kickoff call is blatant reminder that our leader (PK) is simply out of touch with his sales staff. More than once, he referenced a female sales professional as a male. This female sales professional struct a deal that resulted in over $800k of revenue. He had one job and failed. He couldn’t even read the slide correctly. As a female sales representative in this organization, it was so disrespectful to this female. It just shows he doesn’t care.

Even more upsetting was that PK’s colleagues, mainly DV, didn’t correct the mistake. Everyone knew it. Can you be anymore out of touch with your employees?

Today’s call showed the company has no interest in selling equipment. “Hey sell what you could at our inflated price. We love you guys!” Thanks for the extra 1% DV. The extra $350 on a $35,000 sale will make a huge difference in my salary when I used to make $2k-$3k on those deals just 5 years ago. The 30% in price increases we have taken over the past 2 years won’t affect business. Hey our competition did it so we should do it, right?

I have begun the search to leave this company. I am tired of the overall panic from my manager and director to hit a number that is unattainable. More than 50% of the company is under 50% YTD. The company is paying less compensation which is why they are now giving you the extra 1%. Majority of deals are written using the industry low 2% override. If you think making 2% plus the extra 1% on deals is good, you my friend are exactly who they want working here.

I have lost all respect for PK after today. He doesn’t care about us. DV is also not a leader. Talk about a guy who made it because of who they know. The Japanese better wake up fast because these leaders have lost their sales organization.

It's so sad to see people working so hard, doing the work of 2+ people every day, and seeing the light drain from their eyes and faces. Everyone seems to have the same "ugh" dejected and defeated look. Pure exhaustion!

New in office expectations stated for tech.

Don’t comply you’ll get fired. Pretty much it.

And the implied threat of we don’t we could go to 4 days in office.

F@@k this place.

I given you 20 Years!!!! Why?

I know alot of the items on this site give insight to what may or may not be occurring but I was recently let go and was here 27 years. I was pretty sure our department was going to have cuts so I was not shocked when I got the meeting from my manager for a random 1 on 1. What I was shocked about was that my severance which I was forecasting to be roughly a years check be dwindled down to 12 weeks due to me missing training by 2 days last year and RTO because I wasnt in office or on network long enough. I argued that this isnt fair and I was told the policies are in place for a reason so management is definitely targeting high severance people and doing what they can to make sure they don't get it. My case is not a one off either I've seen many others have the same issues here. I was in Westboro and all our jobs are gone to florida soon. Just please heed my warning and have common sense that this place doesnt want to pay a year upfront to anyone and will dig and find any reason not too. Im lucky im able to retire in a year so im not concerned about this too much, I just find It very sad this is how they treated me after so long.

If the company is going to treat its employees as disposable, I for one will not be helping them decide who to lay-off and who to keep. Make them make the tough decisions that will backfire.

The way Citi is handling layoffs is beyond disrespectful. Getting a random unexpected call saying your position is eliminated, with no clarity on severance, is barbaric. The uncertainty is hanging over those still working, waiting for their turn. It's clear to everyone, yet management acts oblivious.
I've been through layoffs before, and there's a right way to do it—team meetings, advance notice, incentives to stay and help with the transition. Citi has the resources but chooses greed instead.
They don't seem to realize this will backfire.
If they don't start treating people like human beings, they'll regret it. I'm ready to speak up and go to the media if needed. I've got nothing to lose by standing up for what's right.

Corporate Communications sent an email to our location today asking for us to send in submissions about how we’re living the WELL life at Wells Fargo.

Really? You ask this now?

Even if you think those of us upset about the 8 hour thing are being whiny, you have to admit that sending out something asking us for a testimonial about the great Wells Fargo RIGHT NOW is pretty laughable.

It's the only rationale that makes sense in my mind. There is no innovation any more, oh apart from some earbuds, lol. Reduce the workforce, the wellbeing of which went out the window years ago because, well that costs money. They own some realestate probably worth a bit. But no investment at all. Any educated guesses as to when?

Hopefully some really savvy up and comer reporter(s) will come across this site and see a lot of the painful accounts being posted on this site. More specifically, how Humana is hurting the American citizen working class.

At Dell Technologies, we lack good leadership. Instead of transparency, we see random layoffs, no coherent strategy, and no confidence instilled in employees or shareholders. Leadership is not about hiding behind tough decisions.. it’s about owning them, communicating them, and guiding people through them.

The difference between courage and cowardice is clarity.

Why do people even bother with kissing a$$ to upper management and then burdening themselves with the fake lifestyle of pretending to matter as a 'middle manager'? I did tech for about 20 years and then retired because my 'butt kissing' manager was an a-hole. Just wondering what in the he-l inspires someone to be that person that most people despise.

Companies will always follow where the money is. Doesn't care if they lose talent and reliable people.

Are anxiety levels still sky high?

I have NO idea who took this survey or who they asked, or how many people they even asked but...

Those Tell Dell results were pretty horrible and I highly doubt most people would ever "recomend" dell as a good company to work for. Maybe 10 years ago but absolutely not anymore.

There are so many bad things to say I can’t decide where to start. Stay tuned.

....said no one ever. XD

We had the annual employee culture survey last week on working conditions. I looked through it but did not hit send. I have to say there were very few questions if any about how employees felt HR, the HR officer, recruiting, compensation, or leaders in field operations were doing. Lots of questions rating our direct managers. Company will try to tie low responses and blame managers so senior managers are insulated. Many feel the workloads in many field offices and in various areas like operationally like loans, new plans, payroll integration are still bonecrushing and management has no gameplan.Anywho, let hope the results lead to real change and the canning of a few incompetent execs. Our hope the survey results will be released two weeks before XMas so that 50 people can get blindsided a week before the Lord’s birthday

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

This last round of layoffs broke something in me. I’ve been running on fumes for months, taking on double the work, and it’s obvious leadership couldn’t care less. You treat people like a spreadsheet and then act surprised when they stop caring? Please.

People show up, smile, type a few things, but you can tell they’re already planning their next move. It feels like working in a ghost town where everyone’s just waiting for the moment they can leave. RTO only made it clearer how miserable we all are at Dell.

The post pandemic work life at the firm has made me seriously consider leaving the workforce completely. “Support” being a new buzzword with zero meaning is the base of the new culture.

So many people keep talking about how other companies are worse, so I kind of don’t want to take my chances.

I am mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted with all the uncertainty that’s going on and dealing with a manager who’s an absolute bully. It feels like I’m clinically depressed and trapped.

For those of you going through Wave 2:

It’s been just over two months since I escaped, and even though I wasn’t expecting this outcome, I don’t miss it.

It took a few weeks, but I haven’t felt this good in years.

The more I look back, the more I realise how utterly dysfunctional and toxic Chevron is as an organization. Like a cult that’s more damaging the longer you stay, but that tries to manipulate you into not wanting to leave.

Sure, there were some good people and good times to be had, but also, some absolute trash tier people - many of whom have been hand selected to stay on like the good little impressionable cult leaders are they.

If you feel worried or nervous or anxious about what’s next - remember, you’re not alone. I was there before you, and not only have I survived, but I have thrived.

I wish everyone the best of luck for what comes next.

I swipe in, do exactly what’s needed, and leave. Used to stay late, used to hustle, but not anymore. Every month the bare minimum gets a little lower because the company’s shown me they couldn't care less about us.

Our managers love to say that we’re all in this together while handing out more work to already heavily overworked people. It’s like that old joke about the beatings continuing until morale improves. At some point you just have to laugh or you’ll end up losing it.

The chair i sat in today has been sat on by over 1000 different bottoms. The keyboard and mouse i handled, was handled by some poor snotty nose woman yesterday. This workstation has a weird smell to it.

Never been much of a city person. I know some of you folk are used to sharing subway trains and busses. Never had to do any of that myself and i sure am thankful. I can see how this.. ahem.. logic is applied here.

Its not that i dont enjoy sharing the workstation as Janice, Jessica, Albert, Ethan, Olivia, Mason, Sophia, Liam, Ava, Noah, Emma, Lucas, Isabella, Elijah, Mia, James, Harper, Alexander, Aria, Benjamin, Layla, William, Zoe, Daniel, Violet, Matthew, Chloe, Jacob, Stella, Samuel, Grace, Nathan, Audrey, Henry, Scarlett, Owen, Lily, Caleb, Nova, Isaac, Riley, Julian, Penelope, Carter, Savannah, Leo, Autumn, Gabriel, Hailey, Wyatt, Aurora, and Miles, its just.. I'm not used to it i guess? Look, i get it, i'm just a spoiled first world country person.

I did invest in my own car to get here. So at least thats still private. I'm told everyone can see all the things i type and do on the computer. Not sure why they would be interested in the boring things that i do, but okay.

I am getting better at tuning out my paripheal vision since Paul is sitting close enough that i can see his mouth moving (hes chewing some gum). I was thinking about having him look over this email im about to send to Sanjeet Pashminderdajeed, he's the one heading our big project from india. I wonder what its like over there this time of year? I'm losing my train of thought, what was i doing? Ah right, trying to tune out Pauls gum chewing habit. Oh look at that, its time for lunch! I wonder what the vending machine has in store today?

My relief of still having a j-o-b has worn off and reality has set in. If CVX was trying to be forward thinking in any capacity, they’ve failed miserably. This model won’t attract (or retain) top talent. Who signs up for a culture that lacks flexibility, provides minimal promotion opportunities, limited resources, and maximum workload? Certainly not the kind of people Chevron will need to stay competitive. This reorg is a joke. This isn’t about not being able to work remotely (solely). My primary complaint is that legacy CVX professionals have been placed in “supervisory” roles (again) in areas of the business they don’t have the capabilities to lead. I KNOW I’m disposable. One voice amongst thousands, but I am just so disappointed that I’m back in a place of looking over my shoulder for the next best opportunity.

Is it just me, or is everyone exhausted from these constant cuts? I’m this close to walking out no matter what happens next.

What was the point of working hard, getting a good review, caring about your customers, and adding value, only to be let go while performing better than others?

Totally absurd, thank you Oracle I can move to something better.

We’ve got more tasks than people, and somehow the management expects miracles. Nobody complains out loud anymore because we all know full well it doesn’t matter. We just get our heads down, grind through it, and hope we don’t get fired in the meantime. It's depressing, to say the least.