#morale

See Subject

He came in quiet but to me he feels like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He exemplifies everything we know about IBM:

• everyone for themselves
• willing to do anything for short term profit
• no allegiance or feeling of obligation to support those that keep the company going
• this week’s changes were horrific

reduced Nike today.
And the arrogance and blind confidence that they had will be long gone by then.

Everyone in the company will be hoping for Nike to reach $30 Billion in sales soon.

PHK, if he alive then will be worth 2 billions.

And Nike employees will run into people like me who will be talking about good old days on the bar.

That is how things will be 6 years from now

Take Nike stock back to $100+. 9 steps. 2 years. No $50 million consulting firm required.

If I were running Nike, these are the nine things I’d prioritize to get our stock back above $100 within two years. No revolutionary restructuring, no 150-slide PowerPoint about unlocking synergies. Just getting back to what made Nike great.

1. Pricing: Stop Pricing Out Our Customers

Nike has gotten ridiculously expensive. A Tech Fleece tracksuit is nearly $300, and shoes that cost $120 a few years ago are now pushing $160+. Have manufacturing costs really increased that much, or are we just testing how much customers will tolerate? We’ve spent years raising prices while making our products less accessible. At some point, premium pricing becomes corporate greed, and customers eventually walk away. I remember when we raised prices during Covid in the name of Covid, and then never returned them back to what they were before😂 Prices just keep going up and up in the name of corporate greed.

1. Quality: Higher Prices Should Mean Better Products

We’re charging more while customers increasingly complain about declining quality. Go on Reddit, social media, or our own product reviews. The feedback is everywhere. Poor durability, inconsistent materials, questionable craftsmanship. Why should anyone pay more for something they believe is getting worse? Improve quality control, invest in better materials, and if necessary, make fewer products. A $180 shoe shouldn’t require the customer to perform their own quality inspection. It says a lot when I think of if I didn’t have the employee discount I probably wouldn’t even buy Nike because of what I’ve seen.

1. Listen to Customers: They’re Literally Telling Us What’s Wrong

We have an endless supply of free consumer research through Reddit, social media, and product reviews. People consistently complain about sizing, quality, availability, and repetitive products. Yet somehow, our response seems to be releasing another 47 colorways of the same shoe. Maybe instead of spending millions researching what consumers want, we could start by listening to what they’re already telling us.

1. Sponsorships: Invest in Everyday Athletes

Professional athletes will always be part of Nike’s DNA, but consumer inspiration has evolved. I can’t relate to LeBron James and his billion-dollar lifestyle. I can relate to the parent squeezing in a workout before work or someone training for their first marathon. Those are the people influencing everyday purchasing decisions. More so than ever, the younger generations are disconnected from professional athletes. I think we should maintain strategic superstar partnerships, but redirect more investment toward grassroots sports, local communities, and relatable athletes. Not every marketing campaign needs someone with a championship ring and a nine-figure contract.

1. Sizing: Apparently, Wide Feet Aren’t Athletic

Nike says, “If you have a body, you are an athlete.” Unless, apparently, you have wide feet. For the love of God, offer more width options. Even my own parents rarely use my Friends & Family discount because the shoes they want don’t come in wide sizes. Think about that. We can’t even convince people to buy our products at a discount because they literally don’t fit. If everybody is an athlete, maybe we should make shoes everybody can wear.

1. Protect Nike’s American Identity

Nike was born in Oregon and became a global icon through its connection to sport, innovation, and American culture. Global expansion is important, and markets like India offer enormous opportunities. But moving critical functions overseas purely to reduce costs risks eroding the institutional knowledge, culture, and identity that made Nike successful. There’s a difference between investing in India as a growth market and relocating operations because a spreadsheet says it’s cheaper. We can grow globally without hollowing out the foundation of the company.

1. Politics: Just Focus on Great Products

Nike has created iconic campaigns by taking bold positions, but today’s political environment is increasingly polarized. Not every controversy builds brand equity, and alienating half your potential customers isn’t exactly a brilliant growth strategy. Be intentional about the issues we engage in, but focus our storytelling on sport, performance, perseverance, and community. We don’t need to participate in every political debate to prove we’re bold. Sometimes the boldest thing we can do is make a product people actually want.

1. Employee Morale: Trust in Leadership Is Broken

You can have the greatest strategy in the world, but it’s meaningless if employees don’t believe in the people executing it. Years of layoffs, constant restructuring, shifting priorities, and limited accountability have destroyed confidence. Employees are asked to embrace the next transformation while wondering if they’ll survive the current one. Leadership needs to listen, take accountability, and rebuild trust. We don’t need another inspirational town hall about “winning together” while everyone quietly updates their LinkedIn profiles.

1. Innovation: Remember When Nike Changed the Game?

This is arguably the most important point. Nike built its reputation on innovations like Air, Flyknit, and ZoomX, technologies that transformed entire product categories. Today, too much innovation feels niche, gimmicky, or impossible to purchase. Self-lacing shoes and foot-massaging technology are cool, but where’s the next Flyknit? And if we spend a decade developing something like Nike Mind, maybe we should make enough for customers to actually buy it. Innovation should be scalable, accessible, and meaningful. Not just something that looks impressive in a leadership presentation.

The Bottom Line: We’ve Completely Lost the Plot

I genuinely believe these nine priorities could dramatically improve employee morale, consumer sentiment, and ultimately Nike’s financial performance.

And the frustrating part? None of this is revolutionary.

Make better products. Charge reasonable prices. Listen to customers. Invest in communities. Innovate. Take care of employees. Protect the brand.

Instead, we seem obsessed with reorganizing geographies, relocating functions, cutting headcount, and calling it “strategic transformation.”

We’re rearranging the furniture while the house is on fire, then congratulating ourselves on the new floor plan. Our foundation is on fire and it seems like we are ok with that.

Nike still has one of the most powerful brands in the world. We have the talent, resources, and heritage to turn things around. But we’ve spent too long taking customer loyalty for granted, and now we’re paying the price.

Stop optimizing the PowerPoint. Start optimizing the product.

Just Do It. Seriously. Actually do it this time.

I don't remember Cengage being this difficult to work for. We're dealing with heavy workloads, frustrating systems, weak leadership, and pay that no longer feels competitive. And to think, we used to be one of the premier employers in our field. How things have changed.

Honest question. How are we supposed to work and live like normal when our reality is anything but?

Reading this board makes me realize that Nike either attracts awful people or turns good people into bad ones. It's hard to find so much hate in one place on so many bases as here.

Go brrrrrrrrrrr....brrrrr..... So if you're not getting a good share, they're trying to tell you something... You're not a part of the club and your contributions are not valued, so take the hint and resign so everyone else can have a bigger bonus and share payout. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

In honor of USBank telling us what the Bank is changing, despite outcry from employees, let's list what we are not changing as employees without a voice since they told us our voices doesn't matter.

I will not work more than 8 hours. I will come in at 8am and leave at exactly 4pm. I will not stay late eveb if there's an urgent matter.
I will not come in early to attend meetings.

I will not volunteer for any assignment as it's only more work with zero extra pay except to GK.

I will not do more than necessary. I will only do the bare minimum to keep my job as being a high performer and receiving praise from my manager and Co worker do not translate to compensation, only extra work

I was working with a wonderful colleague who has been such an asset to our organization today. Over many months I’ve seen her go from the can do kid, to overwhelmed and burning out. She like many of us feel like we are backed up to a wall…if not me than who will do it…and if I don’t get it done…I fail, I let the team down. - the problem is not the players on the field. It’s the coach, the GM, and the owner. - they allow slackers and id--ts on the team, call d-mb plays, then expect the skilled players will win the game for them. - and our customers are like the id--ts who pay to go to a Jets games. BD is a lot like the NY Jets. If you have skills, if you want to win, take your game elsewhere.

to He-l... I hope

If you're not already, that is. Stop giving Verizon more than it deserves. As long as people keep doing that, they'll keep doing whatever they want - including layoffs, as they know others will pick up the work. Just stop. Do your own bare minimum and that's it. Let's see how they like it.

Things are tough right now, morale is down SO MUCH on the greater team I am in, in the US. Teams rooms are quiet, people aren't engaging on calls, and so much quiet quitting and real quitting happening.
I found myself googling "companies that care about their employees" because Cisco has proven, time and time again, we're replaceable. I've been here for 7+ years and this is the worse it has been.

Does it get better? Is it like a wave and we ride it out, or is this how it will be forever?

🔴🚀 WE PLAY TO WIN! BETTER MATTERS! CHANGE ENERGIZES US! 🚀🔴

As we take on Elon Musk and disrupt the market, one thing is clear: WE ARE THE BEST IN THE BUSINESS! 🏆📈 A highly competent, well-organized workforce powered by BEST FRIENDS AT WORK! ❤️👯‍♂️

💪 Repeated layoffs, VSPs, offshoring, and outsourcing have only strengthened our TRUST, CONFIDENCE, AND EXCITEMENT in leadership! Nothing builds morale like wondering who’s on the next org chart! 🙌📉😂

🪩 DJ parties? ABSOLUTELY! 🪑 Red chair photoshoots? ICONIC! 📸 JOMO? The joy of missing out on yet another reorganization meeting! 🧘‍♂️✨

🤖 AI IS THE HOW. EI IS THE WHY. ❤️ And LinkedIn is where we share our authentic personal lives with professional acquaintances! 🌅💼 #Grateful #Blessed #Winning

🔥 We’re leading the way in AI, prioritizing everything, and synergizing relentlessly.

WE CAN’T WAIT TO BUILD THE FUTURE TOGETHER! 🚀📶

#Verizon #PlayToWin #ChangeEnergizesUs #TrustOurLeaders #BestFriendsAtWork #FutureTogether #Synergy 💯🔴

Happy to see AT&T stock drop. They don't value workers. AI cameras and presences dashboards? WTF? This place su-ks. Maybe focus on sh-t that actually matters. Nobody here cares anymore.

We don’t communicate anything and that’s the reason our company stays at all time lows and we need to lay people off.

It’s a mystery lol

Everybody knows it's true. Dell executives and overall management are greedy, incompetent, and worthless. The only reason the stock is up is because they keep laying off more and more employees. That artificially jacks up EPS.

Let’s be honest at the end of the day we’re here for a paycheck. Not because we want to provide a stellar mobile service to anyone. Nobody grows up and says I wanna build a mobile network. We are here for a paycheck of which almost nothing consist of stock and the little stock we do get vest over four years. Nobody cares about where this company is going and from conversations today everyone is hoping SpaceX eats our lunch.. yes, there are some people who don’t like him for his politics. But we are unfit to succeed because none of the employees have a reason to care. The ability to be lazy at work is the only saving Grace of Verizon.

I heard from a source that employees impacted by the layoffs will be notified via email on October 28. Has anyone else heard anything similar or have additional details they can share?

Given the scale of these potential layoffs and the number of employees who may be affected, I find it hard to believe that all the details will remain confidential for much longer.

What’s most disheartening is how this entire situation is being handled. Behind every position is a person with a family, financial responsibilities, and years of dedication to this company. Yet it increasingly feels like we are nothing more than numbers on a spreadsheet.

Now we are facing even more weeks of anxiety, uncertainty, and speculation. How can leadership reasonably expect employees to remain focused, engaged, and productive when so many are wondering whether they will still have a job at the end of the month? At this point, productivity is going out the door, morale is deteriorating, and the emotional toll is only growing. The lack of communication is creating an environment where fear and rumors are filling the void left by leadership.

And to the person in Corporate Communications whose job includes monitoring conversations like this one: I sincerely hope you are taking these messages back to leadership. I hope you are communicating the anxiety, frustration, and emotional distress that this prolonged silence and lack of transparency have created. These aren’t just comments on a message board. They are the voices of real employees who feel abandoned by a company they have dedicated years of their lives to. Your responsibility shouldn’t just be to monitor the conversation or manage the company’s reputation. It should also be to ensure leadership understands the very real human consequences of how this situation is being handled.

Regardless of the business decisions being made, employees deserve transparency, compassion, and dignity. The uncertainty alone is exhausting, and the way people are treated during moments like these says a great deal about an organization and its values.

People will remember not just the layoffs themselves, but how they were treated in the weeks leading up to them. And no amount of carefully crafted corporate messaging will erase that.

Presumably most of the people posting on here are Verizon employees or have some other internal interest. And yet, when something legitimately bad happens for not only the company, but the industry- something thatwill most definitely negatively affect the employees and people are on here like they just won the ** Super Bowl or something.

I found that there are a lot of truly and deeply unhappy people on this board, they have given up hope of anything good ever happening to them. So they find joy when bad things happen. I legitimately feel bad for these people.

Has Five9 turned into a burnout factory to just burn through good people with no thought about maintaining our ability to complete our mission...

Some will say it’s not real. How dare people work for pay.

How did you all like your "awesome " customer service card from Flavia Flave?! Guess there will be flowers at the landfill

Our department got a low engagement results on our annual survey. This year our director told everyone that we own the results and need to fix it at our monthly safety meeting. Not sure if he is suggesting we need to score higher or lie next year to help the department!

Is this ethical?

Let's go everyone! The mid year farse has begun. Pointless exercise after pointless exercise. How about we spend time doing a mid year review when these useless id--ts can spend time taking care of their employees.

Tomorrow is my last day at EM, deleting my bookmark to this site, to be honest really couldn’t care what happens at EM anymore.

Later di-kheads

The level of skill at gainwell is shocking. Most of the people i work with seem to be pulled of the streets.

We are constantly firing and hiring. But only from people within gainwell.

Do you think the talent level is related to the low pay?

They’ve reduced the allocation amount, stretched the vesting schedule to four years, and limited withdrawals to just twice a year.
At this point, it almost feels like Dan doesn’t want the program to exist—but somehow couldn’t actually shut it down, so he’s slowly making it less and less attractive instead. 😂

I know, I'm still employed, getting a paycheck and health insurance so that's a great thing, but working at O is such a drag now, I just can't stand it. New boss(es), new tasks, a ton of work, the same old "come on guys, we can do it" pep talk even though everyone is completely demoralized. It just su-ks - I almost wish they would put me out of my misery so I can just retire.

that's the post

A cautionary tale for the people who built an empire and the people determined to hold on to it.

There was once a company that started with 1,200 cable subscribers and a few people who believed they could build something extraordinary.

And they did.

It was a company where employees were treated like family, and for many of them, that word actually meant something. There were leaders who cared about their people, who understood that success wasn’t measured by how much power they accumulated, but by what they helped others accomplish.

People stayed for decades because they believed in the company and the people leading it.

Then the little company became an empire.

And somewhere along the way, something changed.

The empire created wealth. Wealth created power. And power began changing the people entrusted with it.

Some leaders became more interested in protecting their positions than questioning their decisions. They surrounded themselves with familiar faces, rewarded loyalty, and slowly built an organization where challenging the person above you could become more dangerous than making the wrong decision.

But the real trouble began when the company started believing its own success was permanent.

For decades, Comcast had a product people needed. It could command a premium because customers had limited alternatives.

Then the alternatives arrived.

Fiber. Fixed wireless. Streaming. Customers who no longer needed the same bundles or valued the same things.

And rather than fully accepting what the market was telling them, some leaders seemed convinced the market had it wrong.

Competitors were pricing too aggressively. Fiber was supposedly underpriced. Comcast still had the superior product. There was no reason to fundamentally change the approach.

Imagine that.

Customers are leaving. The stock is approaching levels not seen in 13 years. The competitive landscape has fundamentally shifted.

And the company is still arguing with the market about what its product should be worth.

That’s the danger of spending too long surrounded by people who reinforce what you already believe.

Eventually, you stop asking whether you’re right.

You start looking for explanations for why everyone else is wrong.

And inside the company, employees were watching a similar pattern unfold.

The people who questioned decisions weren’t always welcomed. Employees shared stories of favoritism, stalled careers, fear of retaliation, and leaders who seemed more interested in authority than accountability.

Some of those employees had given 20 or 30 years to the company.

And when they spoke about what they were experiencing, some were called whiners.

The company that once called its employees family was now struggling to hear them.

So leadership announced more changes.

Another restructuring. Another transformation. More cost reductions. More businesses separated. Another day in the office. More restrictions on promotions and career mobility.

Everything kept changing except the convictions of the people directing it.

And here’s the tragedy.

The company didn’t lack intelligent people. It didn’t lack resources. It didn’t lack warnings.

What it may have lacked was enough leaders willing to admit that the world they had mastered no longer existed.

Some had spent decades building their careers inside that world. Their authority, their reputation, their compensation, even their sense of identity were tied to it.

Admitting the old model was failing would mean admitting that the experience that once made them successful might no longer be enough.

And for some people, that’s harder than watching the business decline.

Because ego can make a leader defend a losing strategy long after the evidence says it’s time to change.

Now the company sits around $20 a share, and employees are left wondering how much more they’re expected to sacrifice while the people making the decisions continue to explain why their strategy is sound.

Maybe the company will recover. Maybe the people at the top will find the courage to question themselves.

Or maybe the company will keep getting smaller, selling pieces of what generations of employees spent their lives building, until all that’s left is a fraction of what it once could have been.

And someday, when someone writes the history of Comcast, they’ll talk about fiber, streaming, wireless competition, and changing consumer behavior.

But I wonder whether they’ll also tell the story of the leaders who became so powerful that nobody could challenge them, so comfortable that they couldn’t imagine being wrong, and so attached to their positions that they couldn’t recognize when it was time to make room for something different.

The company didn’t fail because the world changed.

It began losing its way when the people running it could no longer accept that the world had changed without their permission.

And the saddest part?

The people who built the company may end up paying the price for the people who couldn’t let go of it.

Knowing a few Shell retires, they talk about the times when the work environment was very collegial. Regular communication from the company about promotions, transfers, retirements, etc. - maybe holiday get-togethers or cookouts at the department manager’s home.
You knew about colleagues’ spouses, kids, achievements, vacays, etc.
Now, not everyone got along cheerfully and there were always some sharp elbows but the company they describe is hard to imagine when I hear of Shell today.
Are there any vestiges of what they relate? Hope so.

This company is on the total verge of failure 😂 they think we are d-mb they forget we are Discover we are the most intelligent of people ! lol 😂 cap one are total id--ts the hoops they want you to jump through cracks me up I going to play with them a bit as I do not care at all

Layoff discussions and fearmongering exists at SAP not because the company doesn't have money to pay the employees. It exists because the company doesn't have enough money to satisfy the personal greed of the executive board and career politicians. We need less dragons and more knights at SAP. And I am extremely disappointed with employees who get distracted by nonsensical issues such as trans people at SAP, CK fans who support CK no matter what, managers who have not written a single line of code in their life but manage technical architects, hatred towards Indians at Signavio, SAP employees at WDF and ROT who don't want anyone in other locations to grow, the spineless supervisory board that only wants to maximize executive bonuses, the even more spineless works council members that protect pedophiles and SA abusers but not the victims, performance management which disrespectfully treats employees as children and only managers as adults, the AI token count duck measuring competition that is not helping the business one bit, etc. WHEN WILL THIS END?

63%. Validates the state of how we all feel about our opinions not mattering.

Self-evaluations due 10/9/26. Q4 layoff wave begins 10/13/26.

Said it before, I'll say it again: The cruelty is the point.

Seriously - They come out with a retirement offer for craft and then they deny people with close to four decades seniority from taking it? And if you're management you have to worry that regardless of the job you're doing, you might still get canned in order to bring the stock price up a few bucks? The decision makers up above us really have a cruel streak in them.

I think something else is brewing here. Many managers have been unavailable and attending meetings. There doesn't even seem to be a sense of priority on the projects we are working on. I think we've all just become numb to the noise and continue to work until something happens. Happy hump day. I'm taking a 3 hour lunch because no one's around to reprimand me anyway.

I’ve seen people mention more than 6 or 7 hours of activity needed a day but our leadership told us we need to have 8 or more….and that the safe spot is more than 8 hours

That seems like a lot to me. I work 8 hours a day not counting lunch but I’m not sure if I’m even meeting this number since I’m not constantly typing or clicking. So far I have not had any issues but who knows. Sometimes I’m reading through documents or doing required training videos or I need to take a break. Ironically I got an invite to an in person event but how am I supposed to attend when I have to be active on the computer all day? This company is becoming a joke.