#performance

Not happy, not mad either

How much does it have to underperform the S&P before Cartwrong is fired? I guess the board is watching a different stock market to the rest of us.

Hopefully those that have been instrumental in the decline of Teradata through derelict of duty to those at TD and their customers have run out of runway. They have been living a cat’s life for the duration of the decline at the company. Let’s face it..the barking will be more muted as there is no more or should I say no one left to hide behind or push forward as the sacrificial lamb. No more runway left, no more layers of gullibly management to hide behind. The layers have been removed and the spotlight is firmly on one specific service sales person to deliver. If you create a persona that you are the best, there comes a time when your bark will be seen through and you can no longer hide. The time has come..the end is near.

Simple. How’s Apache doing today?

CEOs Are Less Likely to Be Scored Below Target

In addition to higher average annual incentive scores, individual CEO outcomes were much less likely to be scored below target and performance modifiers were less likely to decrease CEO outcomes.

As shown in the figure below, 31% of the aforementioned U.S. companies had below-target corporate scores vs. only 13% of individual CEO scores. Additionally, performance modifiers were four times more likely among S&P 500 companies to increase than decrease CEO annual incentive outcomes.

Meanwhile, 39% of S&P/TSX 60 corporate scorecards were below target, but only 26% of CEOs received below-target scores on their weighted component. No Canadian company used a modifier to decrease the annual bonus.

https://worldatwork.org/publications/workspan-daily/comparing-individual-ceo-performance-against-corporate-results

Looks like Rarhul is dust, came in when yhe share price was $24 and left 2 years after leaving the Share price at $13

Absence of organic revenue growth over the past two years suggests it may have to lean into acquisitions to drive its expansion
Earnings per share have contracted by 3.6% annually over the last five years, a headwind for returns as stock prices often echo long-term EPS performance
Underwhelming 1.2% return on capital reflects management’s difficulties in finding profitable growth opportunities, and its falling returns suggest its earlier profit pools are drying up

I’ve been placed on a PIP in my very first performance cycle as an experienced hire. It’s been almost a month since the program started, and I’m now considering resigning. If I opt for PIL (pay in lieu of notice), will I still receive the remaining salary amount? Also, if I leave before completing the PIP, would I be eligible to be considered for future roles at ExxonMobil?

Look out everyone, orgs are now monitoring everyone's AI usage to fit with our glorious leadership's new decrees that we are now an AI-first company. If you aren't shoehorning AI into every part of your daily workflow, you are considered a bad employee and will soon be replaced by someone who is better at kissing a-s and BS'ing about how much they've multiplied their productivity by using the custom cr-p tools from the Copilot suite. Dadlani's posts asking everyone about how AI has improved their work experience are always met by shameless a--kissing from offshore managers about how their team is 3x faster than before and getting head pats for it while level headed managers who are pointing out how AI is not a magic one-size-fits-all panacea to this company's tech debt and other core issues are being completely ignored.

You've been warned, this company's headless leadership pivoting towards AI and making it a priority is not an idle threat. They genuinely believe that if everyone, even the janitors, are not using AI, then they are replaceable. Absolutely clueless and out of touch people forcing managers to choose who to fire based on unrelated criteria to their work.

I used to feel confident but now I doubt myself every single day because of the favoritism and gaslighting here. Even as a top performer I’ve never felt so low about my work. It’s utterly exhausting trying to hold it together and I don’t know how much longer I can.

PIP here is more about intimidation or saving money than actually helping anyone improve. Most of the people put on one are not even low performers. I’ve seen good people stressed to the point of burnout just because management wants to assert control. It's all bullcr-p.

I honestly can’t remember. It’s always been about cost, nothing else. We’ve been shedding talent like crazy for years, and no amount of reorganization will ever redeem that.

There is no point working in sales here at the moment . Unnecessary trainings meetings and demodifer make it close to impossible to hit your number. Not to mention 30% increase in your number when the company is not doing well. They just want to find way to get rid of people ..dells out of money for packages so now it's performance based termination...bring it on my laters ready with all details on how you have sc--wed many people . About time a class action lawsuit is done to get back to leaders who keep filling their pockets.

Five year return for TFC is just over 18%. Compare that to JPM at over 202%. I realize we are not exactly comparing apples and apples but at this sort of return for Truist why hasn’t the Board of Directors got rid of Billy Boy. ?

Fireside chat “I am more confident in our strategy than I have ever been”
The man is deluded.
Future performance is normally determined by previous performance and all that has happened under SB tenure is chaos, confusion, reducing results, reducing stock price

It’s exhausting watching people coast while the rest of us scramble to get things done. Every project ends up feeling like a fight, not just against the actual work, but against all the nonsense that comes with covering for others. And then to see them survive a layoff round after a layoffs round? No. Just, no.

From what i'm hearing, there will be minimal if any promotions this cycle. In December the ELT said that performance / merit based reward. Doesn't seem to be the case does it?

Given that the lay off selection didn't consider a person's performance rating, how on earth does Oracle think they can motivate the employees who remain ?

Well, apart from maintaining a culture of fear and simply telling them that "youre lucky you still have a job".

Thank you for your service .... sorry, no focal again.

Source: https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/shark-tanks-kevin-oleary-sends-harsh-message-on-intel-stock

"The U.S. government just announced it’s taking a stake in Intel, and let me be clear: I abhor this idea. America has thrived for over 200 years because the government stayed in its lane."

• Kevin O'Leary

"We let dead old companies die. I have no interest in taking my tax dollars and giving it to a company that has performed so miserably."

• Kevin O'Leary

"Intel should have been sold for car parts three years ago. I do not want to invest in it. Why would anyone want to own this thing. Take it behind the barn and shoot it"

• Kevin O'Leary

Would love to know if any REAL managers have insight as to how/why employees are let go versus others.

This is MY opinion so take that as you will. It's worked out for me in every job I've had and, Dell being a company that is on a 24/7/365 layoff frenzy, I'm still sitting pretty good.

If you don't want to be laid off then just be a middle ground employee. Try to border the "top performing" employees area but don't go much further than that. Be easy going, easy to get along with everyone and don't start arguments/conflicts; and don't voice any strong opinions or cause controversy. Basically, just stay as neutral as possible because the more you are "known" - for good or bad - the bigger the target is on your back during layoffs.

Managers always say "they had no choice in who to let go" - That is 100% BS unless HR/execs are simply wanting to get rid of high earners to save money. HR and execs have NO idea who you are, what you do and how well you do your job. Your direct manager does, though.

It's more beneficial to get rid of 5 people making 150-200k/year versus letting go 10 people making 50-70k/year. The math doesn't math up but you get my point I hope.

Strategically speaking, you get rid of the highest salaried low performers first, then the bottom performers overall, then if necessary, low performers in between.

Managers/directors have a checklist for layoffs that determine who they have to let go/who stays. It's more of a 1-10 type of check box but to keep it simple... Kinda how Tell Dell surveys work.

Does he perform well in his job? yes/no (1-10)
Is he easy to work with? yes/no (1-10)
Is he liked by his coworkers/others? yes/no (1-10)
Does he go above and beyond? yes/no (1-10)
Does he call in sick often? yes/no (1-10)
Does or has he had complaints against him? yes/no (1-10)
Do they volunteer to take on tasks/projects? yes/no (1-10)
Are they habitually late? yes/no (1-10)
Are they reliable? yes/no (1-10)
Have they had any write ups/coaching plans/PIPS?: yes/no - this will do it right here if you have and many/most of the answers are "no/indifferent" in the above questions.
Any HR tickets filed against them? yes/no (1-10)
Have they willfully broken any company policy? yes/no (1-10)
Have they attempted to steal confidential information? yes/no (1-10)

I made all of this up as I have NO clue but these are my guesses as to what some of the criteria would be. My dad was a sr. manager at Motorolla, Freescale and AMD for 20 years and he told me that when he did have to do layoffs, he had a "matrix" type sheet in which he'd rate employees on based on a bunch of questions; similar to the above. I'm sure Dell does it similarly.

I don't think most people are laid off at random though.

Quiet quitting drags everyone down. If you’re checked out, just leave instead of coasting and dumping work on the rest of us. The whole team pays the price when people stop pulling their weight, and it’s getting old fast.

It seems my manager is intentionally shutting my contribution down, even after evidently doing more work than rest of the team.

I have received zero appreciation from my my manager, instead keep receiving same comments for Quarterly.

Is this normal?

Let’s all compare. Heard many of my colleagues got an inconsistent in performance even if they were remotely involved with FNV4.

I got told I don’t respond enough on Teams so my collaboration is an inconsistent. Unreal.

Chevron’s CEO is “not happy” with exploration performance. That’s corporate-speak for “we spent a fortune and found disappointment.” But fear not, salvation may be inbound: Hess’s exploration geoscientists are now on deck. Will they bring seismic miracles or just another round of PowerPoint optimism? Stay tuned for the next episode of “Hope in the Basin.”

heard HR is going back to the 5-point performance rating system. Is that true?

Sometimes these engineers won't talk that much or only talk when a discussion is actually meaningful. Sometimes what they say won't matter anyways so they simply focus on implementation and development work.
They are among the few who deliver solid results.

Is management aware of this phenomena?

"IBM: AI Reality Remains Disappointing" (Seeking Alpha). GenAI Summary (because of paywall):

IBM's much-hyped AI business is failing to generate significant revenue growth. The author, a self-described "ultra Bearish" investor, advises selling the stock, as the recent rally is not justified by the company's financial performance.

AI is mostly for consulting, not products: IBM's large "AI bookings," which reached over $1 billion in the second quarter of 2025, are primarily for consulting services rather than for its proprietary AI software. This is not a high-growth business and doesn't scale as well as software sales.

Weak organic growth: Despite all the AI excitement, the article concludes that IBM's core organic revenue growth is only 2–3%. The overall revenue boost is inflated by factors like favorable currency exchange rates and the acquisition of HashiCorp.

Overvalued stock price: The stock's valuation is considered "stretched," trading at a 20x forward price-to-earnings ratio, well above its historical range of 10–15x. The author finds no fundamental growth to support this higher multiple.

Stagnant free cash flow: The company's forecast for free cash flow in 2025, at over $13.5 billion, is essentially flat from its initial projection for the year.

Focus on consulting: While IBM highlights a growing book of business for generative AI, a large portion of this is tied to consulting—a business that saw no growth in the second quarter of 2025.

In summary, the article portrays IBM's AI ambitions as more hype than reality, with little evidence that generative AI is meaningfully accelerating the company's overall revenue growth. The author sees the company's recent stock rally as unwarranted and views the stock as a sell.

Sources:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4816847-ibm-ai-reality-remains-disappointing

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4675533-ibm-artificial-rally

Can somebody please confirm this?

Symantec and Carbon Black are performing badly ??

They're now requiring us to record every task we do with a stop clock for 5 days straight. Its starting with a lot of people in our group. they gave us an excel sheet with tasks they claim are a list of everything we do. the list is missing so many items. you then have to select a task and start a stop clock. you can pause the clock and then start again. we asked what this was for and they said it was to help groups perform better. our offshore people said it's being used as performance tracking. we went to our boss and they said "just complete the form". it's very scary. they don't have everything we do and don't understand what our jobs are but using this to measure us? Why did we get rid of Sapience if we now have to manually track everything we do? We're also being rushed to complete this and some people can not use the tracking sheet because it's broken and they had to start all over. Even though they had a reason it was not completed they're getting requests every day asking if it was done. What is going on here? Why are they making everyone track down to the minute when none of this is right compared to what my actual job is? This feels like they're trying to decide who to fire next but doing it with partial information.
Are other groups being asked to do this??

no comments...

Every acquisition this guy has been involved with has been a failure. Assets were sold for 1/2 or less what they paid for them. And this is good ?

This doesn’t look like performance to me.

It looks like failure yet he is still handsomely compensated.

I barely even know what to say. This company will use you and use you. Relishing your output as you’re dying inside. If you try to do the right thing and get help for yourself, that’s when they will start looking at you.

Do not work here.

How many frac crews have been put down this year?

Have they been cutting in other PSL's yet?

Does leadership have an AI backup plan? So many companies are realizing AI isn’t going to save them any money. It’s producing too low quality of code and is costing too much in compute. The biggest misconception for people is that AI is already an AGI. These models are LLMs and only know what patterns they’re trained to understand. They just don’t get a deep understanding of enterprise code.

AI is still awesome to have in the workplace. Its understanding of documents and Eliza features like proof of concept apps are cool. But let’s be realistic, it’s not replacing anyone. If it has, BNY might regret it later.

Does leadership see this at all? Or will they die on the AI hill since our senior leadership team and CEO talk about AI so publicly? I think they need to loosen their expectations.

The WIM hammer is coming. Market Leaders not recruiting, gone! Branch Managers not recruiting, gone! Not generating income via Alts, gone!

Source below. The Economist, Aug 21st 2025 - 5 min read

Donald Trump’s fantasy of home-grown chipmaking

• To remain the world’s foremost technological power, America needs its friends

How low mighty Intel has fallen. Half a century ago the American chipmaker was a byword for the cutting edge; it went on to dominate the market for personal-computer chips and in 2000 briefly became the world’s second-most-valuable company. Yet these days Intel, with a market capitalisation of $100bn, is not even the 15th-most-valuable chip firm, and supplies practically none of the advanced chips used for artificial intelligence (AI). Once an icon of America’s technological and commercial prowess, it has lately been a target for subsidies and protection. As we published this, President Donald Trump was even mulling quasi-nationalisation.

More than ever, semiconductors hold the key to the 21st century. They are increasingly critical for defence; in the ai race between America and China, they could spell the difference between victory and defeat. Even free-traders acknowledge their strategic importance, and worry about the world’s reliance for cutting-edge chips on tsmc and its home of Taiwan, which faces the threat of Chinese invasion. Yet chips also pose a fiendish test for proponents of industrial policy. Their manufacture is a marvel of specialisation, complexity and globalisation. Under those conditions, intervening in markets is prone to fail—as Intel so vividly illustrates.

To see how much can go wrong, consider its woes. Hubris caused the firm to miss both the smartphone and the ai waves, losing out to firms such as Arm, Nvidia and tsmc. Joe Biden’s CHIPS Act, which aimed to spur domestic chipmaking, promised Intel $8bn in grants and up to $12bn in loans. But the company is floundering. A fab in Ohio meant to open this year is now expected to begin operations in the early 2030s. Intel is heavily indebted and generates barely enough cash to keep itself afloat.

A factory worker in a red baseball cap holding up a shining silicon wafer
Illustration: Deena So'Oteh
The sums needed to rescue it keep growing. By one estimate Intel will need to invest more than $50bn in the next few years if it is to succeed at making leading-edge chips. Even if the government were to sink that much into the firm, it would have no guarantee of success. The company is said to be struggling with its latest manufacturing process. Its sales are falling and its plight risks becoming even more desperate.

The Biden administration failed with Intel, but Mr Trump could make things worse. He has threatened tariffs on chip imports, and may try to browbeat firms such as Nvidia into using Intel to make semiconductors for them. These measures might buy Intel time but they would be self-defeating for America. Chipmaking is not an end in itself but a critical input America’s tech sector requires to be world-beating. Forcing firms to settle for anything less than the best would blunt their edge.

What should America do? One lesson is not to pin the nation’s hopes on keeping Intel intact. It could sell its fab business to a deep-pocketed investor, such as SoftBank, which has reportedly expressed interest in buying it and this week announced a $2bn investment in Intel. Or it could sell its design arm and pour the proceeds into manufacturing. Intel may fail to catch up with TSMC even then. Either way, the federal government should not throw good money after bad. Taking a stake in Intel would only complicate matters.

That leads to a second lesson: to look beyond Intel and solve other chipmakers’ problems. tsmc is seeking to spread its wings. It is running out of land for giant fabs in Taiwan and its workforce is ageing. It has already pledged to invest $165bn to bring chipmaking to America. A first fab is producing four-nanometre (nm) chips and a second is scheduled to begin making more advanced chips by 2028. Samsung, a South Korean chipmaker that is having more success than Intel, is setting up a fab in Texas. But progress has been slow: Samsung and TSMC have both struggled with a lack of skilled workers and delays in receiving permits.

The last lesson is that, even if domestic chipmaking does make America more resilient, the country cannot shut itself off from the rest of the world. One reason is that the supply chain is highly specialised, with key inputs coming from across the globe, including extreme-ultraviolet lithography machines from the Netherlands and chipmaking tools from Japan. The other is that Taiwan and its security will remain critical. Even by the end of this decade, when tsmc’s third fab in America is due to begin producing 2nm chips, two-thirds of such semiconductors are likely to be made on the island. TSMC’s model is based on innovating at home first, before spreading its advances around the world.

To keep America’s chip supply chains resilient, Mr Trump needs a coherent, thought-through strategy—a tall order for a man who governs by impulse. No wonder he is going in the wrong direction. On Taiwan he has been cavalier, confident that China will not invade on his watch, while failing to offer the island consistent support. His tariffs on all manner of inputs will raise the costs of manufacturing in America; promised duties on chip imports will hurt American customers. He thrives on uncertainty, but chipmakers require stability.

A sensible chip policy would make it attractive to build fabs in America by easing rules over permits and creating programmes to train engineers. Instead of using tariffs as leverage, the government should welcome the imports of machinery and people that support chipmaking. Given the bipartisan consensus on the importance of semiconductors, the administration should seek a policy that has Democratic support—with the promise of continuity from one president to the next.

Economic nationalists should also see the progress of chipmakers in allied countries as a contribution to America’s security. Samsung is aiming to start producing 2nm chips in South Korea later this year. Rapidus, a well-funded chipmaking startup in Japan, is making impressive progress. Both countries have a tradition of manufacturing excellence, and may have a better shot at emulating Taiwan.

The chipmaking industry took decades to evolve. It is built for an age of globalisation. When economic nationalists build their policies on autarky, they are setting themselves a needlessly hard task—if not an impossible one.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/08/21/donald-trumps-fantasy-of-home-grown-chipmaking

here is my mini rant... they expect you to do “plus one” work and a bunch of unchargable stuff, and you've got to play along if you want to be rated as good. basically do extra work for free, on top of your actual project, otherwise your performance looks weak. it’s a scam imho...

staffing is a constant headache and the process is not clear at all andd you never know who makes the decisions, and every time you’re scrambling just to land somewhere. feels like you’re rolling dice more than planning a career.

and forget about keeping your tech skills. most people get pushed into business analyst or pm type roles whether they want to or not. you stop coding, you stop building, you end up in meetings taking notes. your skills just rot away.

ok, soooo -- no promotions, no raises. fine... 2+ yrs of nothing for a lot of people. they just say wait, be patient... but nothing changes. what’s the point of working harder if the outcome is the same??

nobody will be surprised when I say that everyone i know is pulling overtime, weekends, late nights. they say it’s temporary but it’s always like that. that's just acn, that's what they say. and that's the game they've been playing for decades. it just becomes normal. at this point you start asking yourself, why am i even here???

I joined about ten months ago and it was great for the first six months. But lately, everything I do is suddenly under a microscope, tasks feel impossible, and I’m left out of key meetings. My work isn’t acknowledged, and my role keeps changing. Is this just how things are, or is it a sign I’m being edged out?

It was a long Monday. Everyone can do what they want, but don't complete surveys. They’re seeking legitimacy for pre-planned actions. The only survey should be work output. That’s the bottom line.

The company when hired 17 years ago promised a long-term career. I performed really well initially and began moving to different jobs every 1-2 years. I always felt as soon as I really understood and could add value they rotated me. Management told me I’m gaining exposure to all aspects of the business to be a future leader.

Now the company reduced my potential And I’m sure they want to replace me with a low cost employee in India.

I’ve started looking elsewhere but I’m not qualified because I’m a generalist and master of nothing. It’s like the 15 years of dedicated service were for nothing. My options are to stay knowing I have limited upside or take a pay cut and start all over.