#management

Director and manager layoffs next. Flattening the curve on the fat middle

When will middle management get changed over. If Uniti replaces upper management then they need to replace lower management.

It’s been over six months since Bridget came on board, so a major reshuffle in her leadership team seems inevitable at some point. I’m honestly surprised there haven’t been any changes yet. Who do you think is likely to raise or move on when it happens?

The whole problem with this company is the lack of visibility beyond line managers. I have no idea who my manager’s manager is, I’ve never met them, and I’ve never received a single message from them. Above that, there are another four layers of management who nobody ever hears from ever! And then we have the top brass who take all the profits and issue orders. No wonder the company is such a mess. By the time any direction filters down the message has changed completely, or just totally lost and forgotten.

Sorry I didn't post this before more layoffs. While your manager is giving you the news, disconnect immediately from the internet. They can't scramble your laptop if they can't get to it. I was laid off on September 3rd. I've had access to my files all this time. I just got my box, so I'll go on the internet now and let them scramble it.

An all-cash deal to buy an OMS nobody’s even heard of. Most of their marquee clients have already walked. The president of LB was quietly shown the door, and there’s still no real leadership in place. How on earth did none of these red flags come up during what was supposed to be “extensive” due diligence before the acquisition? At what point do RR, SK, and FF get held accountable for these missteps? How is this not shaping up to be Cymba 2.0? And when does Sanoke finally break up the boy band and bring in leaders who actually know what they’re doing?

I didn’t get laid off. That’s my crime.

I’m still here in Bangalore — bleary-eyed at 2 a.m., staring into the blue glow of another Zoom call. The Americans on mute, the managers on script, the executives smiling from Spring, Texas, while delivering the latest sermon: “This is not a layoff. This is transformation.”

And I nod along. Because nodding is safer than questioning. Survival in this machine doesn’t mean performing well, or collaborating, or innovating. It means parroting the story exactly as it’s handed down. No edits. No hesitation. Clap when they clap. Smile when they smile. Pretend the slogans mean something when we all know they don’t.

On the anonymous forums, I read the curses: “Damn Indians.” “They took our jobs.” “Outsourcing ki-led us.”
And in that moment, I become the villain. Not an engineer, not a human, not a man with a family. Just a placeholder: cheap labor, offshore body, the thief in someone else’s story.

But here’s the punchline: I didn’t ki-l anyone’s job. Neither did the guy three floors above me or the coder across town pulling a night shift with chai and instant noodles. The true executioners sit higher up. Senior management writes the script. Middle management enforces it.

Middle managers — ah, the great priests of ExxonMobil. They don’t believe in the gospel, but they chant it anyway. They gather us in Zoom town halls and deliver the holy lines:
• “This is about efficiency.”
• “This is how we stay competitive.”
• “We must all align with leadership messaging.”

Then they turn off their cameras, go back to their spreadsheets, and quietly decide which “asset” is expendable.

And the rest of us clap. Because clapping is mandatory.

The truth is uglier than the curses: Americans blame Indians. Indians blame themselves. But the real game is higher. We are not colleagues anymore, just chess pieces moved to satisfy a curve, a cost target, a shareholder’s smile.

So yes, blame me if you must. Curse me for still having a job. But know this: tomorrow it might be some place else. Or an algorithm. The villain will always be whoever management points to, as long as the real architects stay untouched.

ExxonMobil says: Energy Lives Here.
But after this round of
sermons, we all know the translation:
Truth does not. Empathy does not. Only messaging does.

It’s weird time. Many companies are lining up for packaging and 18A-P. Big A is signed up for 14A. But still managers are asked to prepare list for next round of layoffs.

Question for the folks that are in the factories. Are you guys leadership team dysfunctional or is it just ours. Seems the left hand don’t or won’t talk to the right hand. Nobody knows what’s going on. Always running out of things. Just curious if it’s isolated or wide spread.

Why are Principal Engineers taking on reportees and performing managerial duties? Isn’t this a fundamental misuse of the role? A Principal Engineer is supposed to be a senior technical authority, driving architecture, innovation, and solving the most complex problems—not acting as a people manager. When they start collecting reportees, it raises a red flag: are they trying to shield themselves behind a team to inflate visibility and give the illusion of doing ‘more’ work than they actually are? This not only dilutes the technical bar but also creates confusion in accountability. Instead of leading by technical depth, they start operating as pseudo-managers, which neither serves engineering excellence nor respects the purpose of the role. In reality, it looks more like a strategy to hide from real technical challenges, while showcasing headcount as a false measure of impact.

People leave managers due to their behavior politics and secret meetings with trusted people

There is no reason to have so many layers of management in the US for the supply chain group and I'm sure the same applies to other groups like polaris, gbs, emtec.
A prime example of bloat is the COE group in materials management full of people who aren't experts of anything but are the ones making over complex processes that fail and promoting made up savings figures to justify their jobs in houston. Why close our offices in sg and in canada when we have this bloat in likely every organization within XOM. Shame on SG and the VPs with their lies when EMSC was introduced.

I want to thank all the managers who made it so miserable that I found employment elsewhere. My group manager told me that I would eventually be laid off, said “if there is anything I can do for you, let me know.” I asked for a letter or recommendation, which he said he couldn’t because of company policy. Since I have left, not only have I been 10x happier with my new job, a majority of those managers who thought “I’m too important for them to let me go” were let go. I’m now full remote. There is hope outside the stagecoach.

New research suggests many companies have used return-to-office (RTO) mandates as a tool to reduce headcount. A BambooHR survey of over 1,500 U.S. managers found that one-quarter of C-suite executives admitted they hoped RTO policies would prompt voluntary resignations. One in five HR professionals acknowledged that their in-office requirements were specifically designed to make staff quit.

Nearly 40 percent of managers surveyed said their organizations eventually turned to layoffs because not enough workers left after RTO mandates were introduced. The report concludes that "RTO mandates are layoffs in disguise," echoing a sentiment long suspected by employees.

The backlash to rigid office policies has been well-documented. Amazon faced one of the largest employee protests, with about 30,000 workers signing a petition and more than 1,800 pledging to walk out in opposition to its RTO requirement. Many staffers described updating their résumés and job hunting immediately after the mandate.

Data shows that 99 percent of companies with RTO mandates have seen lower employee engagement, nearly half have experienced higher-than-expected attrition, and 29 percent are struggling to recruit. BambooHR’s research further found that about one-third of employees would consider quitting if forced back to the office, even if fewer ultimately follow through.

The findings highlight a growing divide between leadership strategies and employee expectations, raising questions about the long-term costs of rigid return-to-office enforcement.

https://fortune.com/2025/09/30/bosses-admit-return-to-office-mandates-meant-to-make-staff-quit/

The intel middle mgmt needs to be humble n get off ur high horses

I was with a vendor company and came to the Hillsboro site for a technical review meeting , we were all properly dressed in smart business wear and hold n behold , the snr mgr who was hosting us appeared in his gym wear and slides … we were all applauded and talk among our selves at the airport commenting how unprofessionally that was.

I hope this gets to LipBu’s ears

How many managers do they need? when there's an issue, 3 or 4 of them come to you and say the same thing, maybe they should just do it. We are busy with little staff. Maybe the managers should be evaluated by the assotiates like in the movie Office Space. To many cheifs not enough indians.

MST home dispatch tech use and abuse company assets. They drive 100K-200K bucket trucks to their home and back to their home garage everyday. Big V8 6.3 L engines use a lot of gas and insurance on top. Also, with MST high pay and only have .5 job per tech a day per tech how is that saving company money and liability.
There are rules to follow when joining home dispatch program. Following the rules helps save gas and time and wear and tear on a vehicle used to drive to work and to home. But MSTs abuse this program from driving to the garage every day and dispatching at the garage. Making a stop at the grocery store to grocery shop in the company vehicle before driving home. Not closing your last job at the job site and instead, drive home and being still dispatched on your work ticket and then closing the job when you arrive home. I follow the rules, and I do not want the home dispatch program to go away because of MSTs taking advantage of the abuse. Also, MST managers are favoring many MSTs and letting the home dispatch MSTs do what ever they want. STOP ABUSING THE HOME DISPATCH PROGRAM YOU MSTs. You know who you are...

Has there ever been a bigger cr@pshow?

The systems, the process, and the endless disconnectedness. Non stop dysfunction. Will it ever stop?

What a huge mess. No one is ever accountable. We experience tons of effort to produce the most valueless work.

Get your 8 hours in, get your badge ins but please don’t add value. Anything but that.

Looking to apply here. How’s the culture and management at leismere

What is the business rationale for extending visas for GCLs and CLs who function primarily as people managers rather than technical leaders?
.why should a low level iq person with low technical skills who came on H1B be made people manger of a highly competed amrican worker

Still getting emails from corporate and my manager about completing the survey. Is it Mandatory? What will be the consequences if I don’t fill it out?

Been in Oracle for more than a decade and a company that values people would have never put someone like SC in charge. I respect LE deeply, he's genius. But couldn't stand the idea of working with someone like SC. The day I left the company was the best day of my life.

I found out many Cloud Engineering middle management people left OpenText because of uncertainty and mechanical behaviours of leadership. Out of curious, when i started talking to people over coffee , I learnt that IT under Chan*** have let go many long time, accomplished, hard working managers and that is making left out team quite delusional. I used to work for one the manager, who used to out 10 hrs a day even in weekends. This is ridiculous. No value for hard work n productive. Leadership is just a power mongers and replacing with their pets from other stores.

Any news on when McKinsey will depart so we can all get back to work? It would sure be nice to focus on work instead of meeting with them daily simply so they can provide our leadership with a fictitious projection for savings. I no longer even try to provide them with accurate information since we all know they are serving as middle management in Chevron now. Of course, their very survival depends on drumming up more fictitious projects.

Notice how some people can always stay close to 200% of their goal that month when the rest are at 70-85%. It’s so annoying that brown nosing will let a manager sc--w over the rest of the team by funneling all the work to their favorites /friends.

Has Exxon or Imperial Oil mgmt made any statement about ownership changes? I am tracking Imperial's board (it's on fire BTW as they are going through massive cuts this afternoon) and there are many rumors about this?

Managers are aware of who will be impacted in Oct/Nov. HR has the lists already. Does anyone know if the names are set in stone?

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.

i was the only one riffed in my team and probably the product. Was working ok, not so excellent but not so bad that i will be riffed. Have been in Oracle for 2 years

If AI cannot replace FLMs and even SLMs then how is it used to detect early cancer ?

https://thefinancestory.com/oracle-fires-3000-employees-after-144bn-cloud-revenue-projection

And then this is saying that for example in Zurich it was mostly managers https://www.linkedin.com/posts/robin-wiethuchter_oracle-fired-most-of-its-managers-and-some-activity-7376369071761752064-npyv

Not sure about other teams but we were recently presented some Digital Delivery s..it that required us to update our own task lists and workload At the same time we were all asked to fill up a skills matrix that AI will use to automatically find people that could work on projects. In his naivity our managers told us that this will, in a first stage go through manual approval. What he missed was that it will require probably 10% of the current number of managers for the same job. This will also curb nepotism, we have people in our team who are favored by managers, they clearly get work above their skills to help them progress and then othe rear licking employees are asked to watch o er and to save their managers' protégé when they can't handle the work assigned to them.

No meeting, no heads up. Supervisors in MFG side don’t even know who got laid on their team on A/B shift. How did they pick the people.. crazy

300 layoffs. Not everybody at the same time. People that has been with the company for more than 10 years were let go just a few days before Open Enrollment. When staff in key positions are let go, it usually signals something beyond “normal turnover.” It could affect severance, morale, and how the remaining team should respond. HCSC is a disaster, and they are using the washington argument to do that. It is a lie! No communication at all.

@a7+1k60xsqgh said it perfectly.

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.

Nothing drives me up the wall like the phrase “Ask your supervisor”.

LITERALLY every senior manager, every email from exec, HR, colleagues, company intranet just tells you to Ask your supervisor if you have career ambitions, have family problems, have questions about the company strategy, company CO2 and NOx emissions, oh and while ur at it you can also ask your supervisor what next quarters dividends are gonna be right ???

Any managers here who can answer how management views PIP?
For the employee, PIP is a trap, you are asked to do more, more, and more, once you are out of PIP, they will ask to increase velocity to the death, once you are exhausted you are done anyway.
But how does management stay sane through the BS pretending?

I saw information that the number of reports under a manager is being reviewed. Any news? What does this mean?

In the past week or so, everybody got a request to complete a management survey. Is this mandatory to fill out? It would be ideal to fill it out honestly, but I'm worried about possible retaliation, especially given situations witnessed in the past. Does anybody know any details about how this works? Does it count against either the employee or manager if one doesn't respond? Thanks.

I'm eng4 level management, what does the severance package look like? I'll be exiting in 8 months at any rate, but I cannot find any detail on Comcast severance. Yes, I will be leaving voluntarily, but I would prefer a layoff.