#workload

It seems every quarter Medtronic is going through another massive restructure. How are we supposed to keep up when entire teams are being made redundant or individuals just get fed up and quit?

The last quarter has been awful. I'm doing the work of four people. I'm stressed and stretched thin. My own manager up and left without warning. She just decided not to come in, hand in her notice and take all her holidays.

She text me today (after a month) saying she is working for a competitor, she is happy and I should do the same.

I'm so upset. I am left with so much work. A new line manager who has no clinical background - only sales.

I am not sure what to do. The workload is piling up. I'm working overtime just to meet deadlines. If I mention anything - my manager is like well everyone is on the same boat.

Surely this can't be the strategy moving forwards? Then I see weird promotions for people who actually don't do any impactful work..

How is this.fair?.

She says it's because I don't give her enough attention but she doesn't understand core Cisco principles, and that contributing to increased collaboration in the office & increasing shareholder value is my life's purpose.

I asked Circuit if it can help me but produced no helpful results.

I have too much responsibility in the company, I cannot afford to start any later than 8am and finish any later than 6:30pm, that and being on call every weekend, which I cannot miss out on as the company depends on me.

What is the solution to this P1 incident?

manager: "I’m expected to set priorities, resolve tradeoffs, develop talent, coordinate across functions, and create accountability" but isn’t this the full scope of what all ICs supposed to do? Individual contributors already juggle their technical workload, and they’re obligated to take on all the managerial responsibilities on top of it but without the title, authority, or benefits.

Manager ask you for something by end of day? Get it done by end of HOUR.

Manager needs it by end of hour? It's already in his inbox, unread, marked urgent, sent from your phone while you were being wheeled into a routine outpatient procedure!

There are 24 hours in a day. Sleep is a SUBSCRIPTION and I've cancelled mine. You people act like you never pulled an all-nighter in college and took a final on three Red Bulls and a stranger's Adderall. That was PRACTICE. This is the exam!!!

Cisco routers run 24/7 with 99.999% uptime. Are you telling me a METAL BOX has better work ethic than us? Heck no!

Cisco hired you for a reason. WHO'S GONNA CARRY THE ROUTERS?! AND THE LOGS?

CISCO ON THREE!

One.

Two.

Get back to work.

Just making up new titles again!

So now they hired a "Culture Activation" Leader to join HR after destroying the very culture that got CDW to where it was before current C-level took over and ruined 30 years of growth.

They're trying to "activate" culture lol
Goodluck with the buyin as everyone's pay is cut but workloads increased all due to self-inflicted wounds.

We'd be better off if we used Ai to replace our CEO and the rest of C level. Ai can't do worse than the incompetence we're seeing.

Do we need all of these people?

I knew to expect some chaos after half the company was let go, but apparently the solution was simply to hand everyone else three or four additional jobs and call it “opportunity.”

Everything is now urgent. Entire roles are being absorbed by people who are already overloaded, priorities change by the hour, and somehow the expectation is that we’ll just keep smiling and “do more with less.”

Leadership also seems to have forgotten that they can actually help with some of the work. Not every responsibility needs to be delegated down just because there’s someone below you to give it to.

I recently asked one of the "leaders" if they knew what a particular responsibility actually involved specifically, the steps required and how long the investigation can take. The response?

“No, but it can be done.”

Okay. 😂

So I gave them control of my screen and asked them to show me how it’s done.

You guys already know the rest.

Suddenly, they needed to jump on another call.

And that pretty much sums up the current environment. It’s very easy to say something “can be done” when you aren’t the one actually doing it, investigating it, documenting it, following up on it, and answering for it when something goes wrong.

And then there was yesterday’s town hall. We got to hear about favorite vacation spots.
Maybe next time, let’s talk about the employees whose entire summers were ruined because of decisions made above them. The people who were supposed to be enjoying their lives , spending time with their kids away from this place but instead spent their summer worrying about their jobs, their finances, and what was coming next. Some people didn’t exactly get a vacation this year.They got a one way trip to therapy.

But hey, at least we got to hear about everyone’s favorite vacation destination and how s-xi things were. 🙃

As for me, I’ll continue looking for my next opportunity while doing what I reasonably can with the workload I already have. I’m no longer interested in sacrificing my sanity to compensate for staffing decisions I didn’t make.

After yesterday’s town hall? Let’s just say the message was loud enough without actually being said: start preparing. If they can eliminate this many roles once, there’s no reason to believe anyone is permanently safe.
But hey… do more with less.
Until there’s nobody left and AI will do it all.

There is a difference and its effects the workload, ecosystem, internal support functions and customers.

What exactly do these guys do? They're always in POC mode, churning out white papers that nobody really reads. Do they actually add any value?.

Why does XOM make everything so difficult across the board. Even the simplest and most efficient processes have built in ‘tension points’ which add no value apart from extra work and more stress. What is wrong with our leaders that they want to do this each and every day and make people’s life’s miserable

i really dont have anything to report but i can tell you that the amount of stress my team is going thru is tremendous.

i've never seen anything like this and i've been around 10+ years. i think the uncertainty is the biggest culprit here and on top of this everyone wants things to be done yesterday and we've lost people and the amount of work went up.

i dont think this can be sustained.

I know it's to micromanage us to death but the fact that we need a dozen apps to put cookies on the shelf is hysterical. This isn't some fancy job it's a simple physical job. Order cookies. Put cookies on shelf. It's ridiculous.

Anyone who sits behind a CRT for more than 6 hrs a day is subject to serious health complications both mentally and physically and even moreso when the subject matter is depressing.

They are rushing to cut headcount costs rather than looking at organizational functions and what people actually do and the value they add to the ecosystem and customers. I want to jump off this sinking ship. Let them deal with the remaining performance obligations and unresolved internal customer issues without enough human headcount.
Yes this is just a rant and may be im wrong.

Yes yes look over there and ignore the shell game. Bethpage and Plano will be sold and leased back by the opposite orgs and when the planned bankruptcy stops being the worst kept secret in business, both successor orgs will default on their obligations. But make sure to bring your a-s to work to a desk you had to request with no trash can because that would be too many hours in the cleaning contract. Badge swipes above all. What is anyone even doing here anymore?

Does anyone get the sense that C14s and 15s are paralyzed right now. Projects are sitting in queue, legal is not responding, compliance is absent. Nobody knows what next Wednesday is going to bring and there's no use working on something when the project, or the personnel may go away.

At this point, we’re basically a skeleton crew trying to keep everything moving while picking up the work left behind by the people who left.

The interesting thing is, the workload doesn’t leave when the people do. It just gets redistributed to the ones who are still here. One person takes on a little more, then a little more, and before you know it, everyone is doing two or three jobs just to keep things from falling apart.

And of course, there always seems to be plenty of movement at the top too. New responsibilities, new things to oversee, new priorities… while the people on the ground quietly keep absorbing the actual work.

If you stayed, just remember to protect your time, your energy, and your sanity. Loyalty is great, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of your well-being.

At the end of the day, I guess we’ll see how this new structure works out for everyone.

There are people that install, provision and maintain the telephone network and then there are 7 levels of people that measure the pace of that work being done and talk about it on conference calls all day. Each level getting a bigger bonus than the last all based on the work of the lowest level employees output. I know that’s a bit oversimplified but really it’s pretty close.

One thing for sure: askin AI beautifying PPT deck >> socializing with their BEST FRIENDS

Why it’s always empty .
Everyday, every time I go there, it empty. Rows upon rows of empty desk.

No one comes to work in this office. Yet they say it’s full and booking is hard.

It doesn't make sense, There isn't enough work to fill the day, what am I going to do for 8 hours? do they still sell newspapers? will I run out of 5G or phone battery all day? The art of looking busy only carries me so far.

Rumor has it the next round of ISPs will take place later this year and in T1 2027. Any truth to this? On the one hand, I’m sad to hear it, knowing many families will be impacted. On the other hand, I’ve seen too many instances of friends hiring friends, people hired into positions they’re not qualified for. As a result, work is not getting done, and others have to pick up the slack. Whatever happened to “an honest day's work for an honest day's pay”? Where is the accountability??

🔗 Read more: https://on.wsj.com/3UvDBja

The most-endangered species in corporate America today might be the manager overseeing a tiny team.

The latest broadside against small-team bosses comes from Uber. The ride-sharing giant said it would reduce the number of “micro-teams”—those with only one or two direct reports—by nearly half.

The move is part of a broader plan to cut 10% of its staff, about 3,300 people. Ultimately, the company will have 20% fewer managers, a spokesman said.

The cuts highlight a larger shift afoot: CEOs want managers overseeing bigger groups, with fewer layers between individual workers and executives at the top of companies. Many employers now expect managers to do less coordinating between departments, and to spend more time in the trenches building products or generating revenue themselves.

For the supervisors still standing, that often means doing a job that is bigger, and more complicated, than ever. Workers, meanwhile, say it can often be tough to get time with bosses overseeing evermore people.

Watching the burdens on bosses grow, many junior employees say they have no interest in pursuing the management track.

I wish I had the real numbers, but it feels there's at least two new ones every week.

I can't say I'm being laid off, but I'm definitely being pushed out. The workload is impossible and the support is nonexistent so the stress is suffocating. They're not showing me the door but they're making me want to walk through it myself. And I know I'm not the only one feeling this way.

I have this recurring fantasy to swap roles with my boss for a month. Let them try to handle the workload, the complexity, and the constant pressure. Let them see what it's actually like. I'm pretty sure they'd be begging to trade back within a week. But they'll never know, because they'd never survive.

They always want us to do more with less. Until there's nothing left to give.

It's the first day of the month and in-office adherence reporting hasn't updated!!! Just like every month before this one!!! What will we DO?!

Just getting ahead of the curve.

As name suggests time in office is now apart of performance.

<8h a day will put you on list and <1h few times will get you even worse.

Ask me how found out lol

Stuck in this Frontline Leaders training and I really don’t have time for this nor do I care in current climate. Anyone else have to take it and if so any ways to get around wasting this time I could be working?

We were told no more CW in our team and Ai can help with manual work

Old routine: Enjoy a cup of coffee, go heads down and be productive before meetings.

New routine: Log and be immediately bombarded by IMs and meeting invites by offshore contractors that don't understand the work because they log off earlier than you and just cannot attend meetings.

Is it once again in thousands?

I wish it was me. I really do. There's no way in he-l we'll be able to do all of our work without them unless we completely give up our personal lives. They think we're automatons who can keep doing more and more all the time. We're not. We're human and this will break so many of us.

Based on Slack numbers we're down like 450 or something actives, beginning with around 26,000-something.

I guess maybe the 20% is over the course of a couple years but IDK

I will deduct it from my 40 hours on Friday. By lunch on Friday I will have my 40 hours and head home. Gotta love the culture Stank created!

Nothing like replacing an ordering system that worked fine - opus, and then replacing it with salesforce. But hey, it's ok, everyone is using salesforce now, as so should we. Watching the 17 screens of salesforce flash, redirect, load, bouncing ba--s - hang on were almost there - gives us all time to figure out what we are doing for lunch that day. Or hey, look at that butterfly on the window. You took a transaction that could be handled in just a few minutes and you destroyed the customer experience - all by using salesforce. After all, slowing down employees and hindering them is the object here. Houston we have a problem here - the sales reps are operating in an efficient manner - we have got to slow them down. Roger that, salesforce launching in full force - this will ki-l their numbers. But hey, everyone is using it and so should you, just gimme 9 more boosters while your at it.

Anyone else seeing what’s happening in the UK?

Good people are leaving, particularly women, and others seem completely burnt out. Yet we still hear all the usual talk about diversity, inclusion and people being our biggest asset.

Since the leadership change, the culture feels completely different. There seems to be a leadership style being imposed that just doesn’t translate well to the UK market or the way teams here have historically operated.

More pressure, more workload, questionable appointments and everything coming back to the numbers. People can deliver what’s asked of them and still somehow be told they need to improve.

And it’s not just employees noticing the change. Some partners and customers are starting to see the disconnect too, which should be a much bigger concern for the business.

NetApp UK used to have a great reputation and culture. It’s sad watching that disappear.

Anyone still around in US timezone after the latest round is executed, be prepared to work during IDC timezone in addition to the regular hours that you already do as you all will be reporting into IDC.

IDC VPs have figured out there are no jobs in US . So IDC experience and work hours can be rolled out to every one left in US.