#toxic

I want to say something that might help someone avoid the mistake I made. I bought into all the hype about how great this company was, how it looked amazing on a resume, how lucky I was to be here. Friends and family reinforced that constantly. So despite years of bad management, a toxic environment, and watching good colleagues suffer the same fate, I stayed. I wasted so much time. If even one person reads this and decides to think twice before joining, then saying this was worth it.

My Wells Fargo group is made of seven people, in which five are women and two are men. Of the women, four of them are full-blown Karens and very unpleasant to work with. The remaining woman keeps to herself and has been looking for an internal transfer for months. Of the four Karens, and reason for the group toxicology, not sure if the Karens like each other or see it as to their advantage to act as a group as they like people to think they do.

Anyone else feel like management has been trying to build a case against them after a reorg?

My org has gotten really toxic. I’ve been hearing PIP talk, but I honestly don’t think they have enough to put me on one yet. My past mid-year and year-end reviews have been strong, my attendance has been good except for a few system issues, and I know my job well. It just feels like leadership decided they don’t want me around anymore.

If you’re in this situation, is it more likely they’ll eventually fire you for performance, or would you end up getting surplused first? Or maybe a PIP is a way to set the ground for a surplus (as a way to tell HR “Look, he is on a PIP because he doesn’t work very well, so he is our chosen duck to target for the layoff).
Curious if anyone has gone through something similar. Is it possible to fight it?

I’d like to get everyone’s thoughts on Wells Fargo leaders that are taking over in technology. Starting with Steve Hagerman down as old BB&T and SunTrust leaders are pushed out they’re being replaced by folks from Wells Fargo. They keep hiring their friends from Wells for HUGE money and most of them are getting exceptions to work remotely even they are enforcing the policy that all new hires need to be in a Truist office. They seem quite toxic leading by fear and are turning our culture into the terrible culture they created and left behind at Wells.

...for longest period of time that a public company has posted consistent YOY headcount declines.

I got curious this morning about just how unusual the situation at Wells is, and decided to do some digging. Based on the information I can find, here's some of the existing records for longest consecutive streaks of corporate downsizing:

IBM went through 8 years of downsizing from 1985 to 1993 as the tech market moved from mainframes to personal computers, shrinking from a high of 405k employees to 219k by 1993.

General Motors went through 7 years of YOY headcount reductions from 2002 to 2009 as a result of foreign competition and shrinking market share, up until their bankruptcy in the wake of the global financial crisis and bailout by the US government.

Blackberry/RIM posted 5 straight years of headcount cuts from 2011 to 2016 as a result of competition from iPhone and Android, finishing in 2016 with 25% of the employees they started with.

Wells is currently running a streak from 2019 to today, blowing past Blackberries record and in line with GM. Given the CEO's public statements, we're also on track to beat IBM as well. Don't you feel proud to work here?

(My point was this post was just to let folks know, if this feels like an overwhelmingly toxic place to work, you are not alone. The situation at Wells is extraordinarily, historically bad. This is not normal)

Hate hate hate

I've been thinking about this a lot. Working at BNY was like being in a bad relationship. Constantly stressed and unhappy but I stayed because it was familiar and the money was okay. Then one day I was let go and it was terrifying at first. But then the severance arrived and I had time to rest, to think, and to remember who I was before that place wore me down. And eventually I found something new where I'm actually treated well. In the end, leaving turned out to be the best possible thing for me.

I have stories from my time working there, I want to hear some stories so I know I’m not the only one!

Sorry for the linkedin slop. I'm not about that life on main but yall have been such a huge part of my professional career I have to say goodbye somewhere.

I wasn't surprised when Nike laid me off this time around. 4 months parental leave + sabbatical on the horizon is a tough pill for a declining company.

Anyways. After 6 weeks and 7 or 8 interviews I have my next job lined up. Similar pay, bigger title, bigger responsibilities. Everyone works in the same timezone and the office is full of smiles. I guess I do have to start wearing pants to work though.

I think I'm finally ready to close this toxic chapter of my life. It has been a long while since I was proud to work at Nike. But I can say I've always been proud to call all you OGs my coworker. I'll always fondly remember our golden years of competence.

I'm headed to the other coast though so I'll probably never see any of you again. 🫡
Look out for yourselves. If you start thinking your skills might be getting rusty brush off your resume and move on. The couch is comfy but Nike hates seniority.

There were always cuts, that's part of the business. But I didn't expect the culture to change so completely and so fast. I swear, it became toxic almost overnight. The environment is now completely unrecognizable. It'd almost be fascinating, if it didn't affect us all so much.

I'm not only looking to leave EM, but the entire O&G industry. I can't find a single company that's better than this place, and I'm so tired of all the uncertainty, cyclical nature of the industry, toxicity, and everything else that comes with working here. I'm so done with it.

Has anyone had any dealings with the senior head of HR? My understanding is he is the one pushing RIFS, and a reason behind this increasingly toxic place. He wants RIFS everywhere but has the most toxic people leading HR teams.

Dear “leads”,
What the actual fu-k are you doing up there? If your goal is to make Mattel the least respected, most toxic, revolving door of all time - continue celebrating yourselves, you’ve done it.
Signed,
Someone struggling to care as little as you do.

Why is anyone still working here? Being unemployed would be better for you at this point. Leave the company. Let them choke on their own nonsense. Zuck deserves to be allowed to drive this thing into the ground.

For those promised a severance package towards the end of 2027, are you considering leaving/retiring before the end of this year? Just to escape Polaris, workplace toxicity and overall dysfunction the company is sinking into further each day ?
Despite the promised payout, does your sanity seem like too high a price to pay in order to receive the severance/settlement ?
(Also, what if they keep moving the end date later than year end 2027??)

Source: By Kevin Crowley, Bloomberg

The 140-year-old oil company is making more money than ever. Yet the pandemic exposed deep cultural problems—and talent is fleeing.

Shortly after Exxon Mobil Corp. lost its battle with an activist investor last year, an executive named Bill Keillor decided to give his department a morale boost. It had been a difficult year and a half for Exxon employees. Covid-19 and plunging crude prices had led to halted salary increases, reduced benefits, and, for the first time in decades, thousands of layoffs. Anxiety was coursing through the organization.

So Keillor, whose title is global IT vice president, and his leadership team organized an awards ceremony to take place at Exxon’s Houston campus. They posted an invite on Yammer, an internal social network, with Keillor’s face cropped onto a tuxedo. With many employees still working remotely, most tuned in via Zoom.

Keillor started by thanking everyone for their hard work over the past year, presented awards to three top-performing teams, and then opened the floor to questions. It was at this point things started to unravel, according to four people present who spoke on condition of anonymity. The software developers, data analysts, and technicians who run Exxon’s vast computing network, which helps the company manage everything from drilling wells to pipeline flows, were in no mood to celebrate. Emboldened by the virtual format, they began firing off tough questions. They wanted to know if there would be more layoffs, whether remote working would continue after the pandemic, and whether Exxon was willing to raise pay to the level of major tech companies.

To an outside observer, the scene might have appeared like a slightly tense version of your average corporate town hall. But within Exxon, famous for its top-down, buttoned-up, authoritarian culture, where employees rarely challenge their superiors, and certainly not in an open forum, the moment had the strong whiff of rebellion. As Keillor bristled, other managers stepped in to take some questions, deflecting attention from the boss. But eventually, Keillor had had enough and snapped.

If you want to be a “hotshot” and triple your pay working for Amazon, then go right ahead, the people recall him saying. “Good luck to you.”

Rather than be humbled by the scolding, staffers began circulating memes mocking the event in private chat groups, which rapidly spread across the company. One depicted a long-term career at Exxon as a car hurtling off a highway. Another compared the awards ceremony to a piece of tape used to patch a leaking barrel of water. Others suggested it was about time employees take Keillor up on his advice and quit.

A year and a half later, even as its stock surges again and Exxon makes more money than it has in its 140-year history, the company has experienced the highest attrition since its merger with Mobil in 1999. Of the 12,000 departures globally in the past two years, less than half were from layoffs. “Like nearly every company, attrition increased in the last two years, but we don’t see that as a long-term trend,” Exxon said in a statement. “Importantly, we are seeing good results when hiring top talent for roles throughout the company, at entry-level and for senior executive positions.”

But a Bloomberg Businessweek investigation involving interviews with more than 40 current and former employees (many of whom requested anonymity because Exxon hasn’t authorized them to speak publicly), as well as reviews of dozens of internal documents, reveals one overriding reason talent is fleeing: a culture that’s increasingly out of step with the world around it. Those interviewed describe an organization trapped in amber, whose insular and fear-based culture—once a beacon of corporate America—has become a drag on innovation, risk taking, and career satisfaction. Although many expressed pride at working for an industry leader, they were also frustrated by how slow it was to invest in some of the energy industry’s biggest breakthroughs over the past decade, including shale oil and low-carbon technologies, making it a place where the best and brightest no longer want to spend their best years. “I was bored at my job,” says Avery Smith, who earned more than $100,000 a year as a data scientist right after graduating from college and quit last year, echoing what many other former employees told Businessweek. “I was pretty fed up with not innovating.”

Exxon’s performance ranking system, which pits employees against each other, dominates the day to day. Subordinates are told not to speak out against their bosses in meetings for fear of being placed at the bottom of the rank and pushed out. Employees are reluctant to raise problems or speak freely about environmental issues. Senior managers too often promote people who look and sound like themselves at the expense of technical experts willing to deliver hard messages, and some employees of color say they’ve been marginalized. “Agreeability to senior leadership has become more important than capability,” says one executive who left the company last year after two decades. “Unfortunately this accelerated during the pandemic.”

Exxon spokesperson Amy von Walter rejects those characterizations. “The idea that ExxonMobil’s culture is what these employees say it is doesn’t hold water for two reasons: how many people join this company each year and how long people stay,” she wrote in an email. “No culture is perfect and it’s far too easy to take a few data points and paint with a broad brush, but that doesn’t produce an accurate portrait.” (In response to the Keillor episode, von Walter says Exxon encourages candid workplace conversations, “although we may not get it right every time.”)

But CultureX, an organization out of MIT that evaluates corporate culture based on Glassdoor reviews, says these problems run so deep that Exxon now ranks below industry benchmarks for 143 of the 196 cultural issues it measures. According to CultureX co-founder Charlie Sull, innovation, collaboration, and psychological safety fell far below those of oil industry competitors, whereas pay and benefits ranked above average. Exxon, he says, appears to be using remuneration and perks “to compensate for a culture that faces significant challenges with toxicity.”

Exxon, which traces its roots to John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, is used to being public enemy No. 1. It’s incurred the wrath of politicians and civil society for being too powerful, too profitable, and too polluting. But rarely has it suffered such discontent within its own ranks. “Upper management doesn’t like to hear bad news, so to stay at Exxon long term, you have to drink the Kool-Aid,” says Dar-Lon Chang, a mechanical engineer who left the company in 2019 after more than a decade. “This doesn’t sit well with younger people and especially those concerned about the climate crisis.”

Since losing the campaign to Engine No. 1, a tiny activist investor firm, Exxon has reformed its climate strategy. Under Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods, it’s pledged more ambitious emissions reduction targets, increased spending on clean energy, and elevated its low-carbon division to the top of the corporation. It’s even made a series of rare external hires including Chief Financial Officer Kathy Mikells from Diageo Plc and low-carbon head Dan Ammann, who previously ran General Motors Co.’s autonomous vehicle startup. It’s condensed 11 businesses into three and is on track to cut costs by $9 billion by 2023.

By financial standards, Woods’s plan is working. The stock is up 60% this year, ahead of its major peers, and closing in on a record high. But if Exxon has any shot at dominating the volatile energy transition over the next century, it will need to attract and hold on to the next generation of scientists, engineers, and technologists. “We can talk all day about low carbon,” says one recently departed Exxon executive. “But first we’ve got to decarbonize the culture.”

https://governorswindenergycoalition.org/exxons-exodus-employees-have-finally-had-enough-of-its-toxic-culture/

https://www.thelayoff.com/post/@OP+1ktmsca1x

Eye opening! It shows how toxic UHC has become

https://www.thelayoff.com/post/@OP+1ktmsca1x
This thread highlights how toxic this company has become - both Optum and UHC. Highly recommend, share this in all social media and let it go viral.. this is much needed to drain the toxic nuclear swap that is UHC!

I want to hear from people who've moved around in their career. Have you ever worked anywhere with a more toxic environment than this place? With leadership that cares less about its employees? I'm not being rhetorical. I really want to know. Is this just how all big companies are?

The immediate team and the manager were so toxic - I got axed but I feel much better. So, go figure. Relief

It’s sad to say, but we’re back to where we started when JD was here. The environment is toxic, the directors are promoted by their friends who are at the top. The vibe around campus is depressing and we have no new innovations. Marketing is just throwing celebrities in Ads - with slogans written by 12 year olds. What happened to ‘getting back to sport’? Step foot out of Oregon and you’ll see people don’t give an f about Nike.

It’s a fcking sweatshop.

Enough with the nonesense from certain people.
No one wants to hear it anymore, no one wants to participate in it, no one likes you, no one likes your constant negativity, no one likes your entitelment, no one likes your doom and gloom, we are tired of your nonsense.

So Just Stop. Your continued efforts to stoke bitterness, lower morale and cause drama are no longer acceptable.

I joined just four months ago but I hate it already. I got lucky and another company just offered me a role that pays a little less but is much closer to what I actually want and hopefully comes with less toxicity. I am grateful for the option, but I am wondering how much it'll be an issue for my resume in the future to leave a job after such a short time.

you do not want to work at dell and you dont want to invest here. get out

There’s so much angst and misdirected frustration on this forum. This is an investment company. Not IT, not Distribution, not “Architecture”.

Only 10% of associates are investment staff. They generate the profits. They make the money.

Rest all are support staff. They consume money generated by investments. No matter how vital your job is, you are not making any money for the firm. You are a cost center.

Cost centers get cut when profit machine slows. Profit centers cannot be cut without shrinking profits further. That is called business.

Get used to it. Or go work at a farm.

Finance SD is openly vying for a SVP job two levels above his. he frequently mentions it in team meetings and its all over LinkedIn. he uses my annual performance meetings to talk about his desire for a promotion. SVP and AVP show favoritism to him. he acts inappropriately around employees and encourages us all to slack off. he constantly pressures people with opposing opinions in an abusive way and lies to protect himself. toxicity at its finest.

I've witnessed several managers openly talk about protecting themselves whenever deadlines slip or projects run into trouble. Meetings usually turn into long discussions about who caused the issue rather than how to solve it. Very few people seem willing to admit mistakes or take responsibility. It's exhausting to work in such an environment.

This place pays cr-p, is unsafe, toxic, and with horrible management. I'm not sure why anybody's goal would be to stay at US Foods long term. I've been looking for something else for a while as it is, getting them to pay me to leave would truly be a dream come true.

After about 15 years of experience in GN&T my sincere advice is to move on and leave the toxicity behind! Don’t waste your time analyzing the future of the company, the impact of Dan’s decisions, the impact of AI, or whatever. Who cares? It’s a toxic environment and you need to get out.

At first, I thought I had drawn the short straw and got an incompetent and unethical boss who did his utmost to promote his rather incompetent favorites while holding back much more capable engineers but as time went on and positions got reshuffled, I realized it was a widespread and systemic issue.

All my bosses were fundamentally clueless about how to really improve network KPIs and relied on vibes. The company spent a lot of money on the network which masked the incompetence to a large extent.

Some people did well and got promoted to Principal or Distinguished engineer but paradoxically their work resulted in little or no concrete improvements. The promotions were also based on vibes.

You deserve bosses that know what they’re doing, treat you fairly and value your contributions! So do yourself a favor, move on as soon as possible and don’t look back.

Humana - where careers go to die. Get out before you lose all that you loved about your career. Before your skills diminish because they put you in a box! Runnnn

Well folks the day has come as my last day here at fidelity. To this community I want to say thanks for the entertainment and the small pockets of actual true facts warning on layoffs. To those affected by the layoff I wish you the very best and hope for a speedy bounce back to a job less toxic and more pay. To those still at fidelity I hope you guys make it through the sh-t show that has ensued.

Every conversation comes with a little reminder that they can let you go whenever they feel like it. You are never secure or safe and they want you to know that. It's a control tactic and it is draining every bit of energy I have left.

Been chatting with a recruiter friend who said he avoids former State Farm employees because too many are too toxic. I tried to get more out of him, what does that even mean, but he just shrugged and said that's his experience. What's that all about? Do we actually have a reputation?

I know it feels like all jobs are like this sometimes, but they are not. There are so many better places out there than the toxic dump that Nielsen has become, and you deserve to find one. Don't let this place convince you that this is as good as it gets.

The work life balance is so toxic it feels like they're trying to ki-l us off slowly. You either burn out or get pushed out. There's no in between anymore.

There is a massive gap in tech, telecom, and actual sales knowledge among the CSSC team leads. Instead of leading with real product expertise and honest solutions, they rely on manipulation and shady tactics to hit numbers, which completely trashes our company's reputation and customer trust. Their sheer ignorance about our industry is staggering.

Management constantly shows they don’t know the first thing about what we do, so they just make things up on the fly to cover up their lack of knowledge. For example, they clearly don’t even know the definition of the word empathy, so they just fake it by making up robotic, scripted lines that sound completely insincere to anyone listening. Out of pure ignorance, they will straight-up lie to customer service reps by feeding them entirely fake and false information about our products, claiming we have network features or hardware specs that are pure fiction, which leaves the reps totally blind when trying to help customers. They regularly feed reps fake details about product rollouts, forcing staff to pass along completely fabricated dates for products that don't even exist yet. On top of that, they lie to the reps about company policies and contract terms, meaning the frontline staff unknowingly pushes false product promises and looks incompetent because leadership doesn't actually understand the product line. And whenever management messes up internally, they lie to the reps and blame a fake "system glitch" or backend product outage to mask their own lack of technical understanding, using the company itself as a scapegoat instead of just being transparent.

This reliance on BS over actual competence is an embarrassment. It creates a toxic environment, ki-ls customer retention, and leaves the front-line staff to clean up the mess leadership leaves behind.

I’m a TL who is tired of this.

Leave if you have the chance.

I read a lot of posts on here about MW and senior management and middle management and culture and Chevron is the devil.
If you feel so strongly about it, either tell them directly or leave. If you do nothing you're honestly worse than you think they are. Have some integrity and hold yourself accountable to your moral and intellectual convictions. Maybe this is the sign you've been waiting for to say standing up for what you believe in takes guts and is risky.. so even though it's scary, you should quit.