Sincerely hope everyone is well and has found work again having exited the cult.
2 replies (most recent on top)
From a post below:
Genuinely cannot believe that it has been an entire year already. Myself and everyone who I still keep in touch with who were laid off are in better places – both personally and professionally. Pembina isn't life. As tough as it was, being let go from Pembina was a blessing in disguise as it forced me to re–evaluate priorities and what is actually important in this one life we have. Dedicating yourself to a faceless corporation and making this job your identity is absurd. Don't fall into this trap. You don't owe Pembina anything. There is a ton of family talk, but you are nothing but a number, Put in your 8.5 hours and go home/log off. If there are current Pembina employees, family members, or prospective employees who see this.. Below is what happened during Pembinas botched layoff process with me. If you still work there and think you are special and will get a huge cheque, think again friends. Maybe they will eventually get the process right!
- Pembina paid out the absolute bare minimum in severance. Not a penny more. It was a kick you while you are down move but not surprising given how cheap the company is. There was zero negotiation and a quiet "try us/shut up and be happy you are getting anything" mentality from my HR business "partner"
- Pembina gave us two weeks of additional benefit coverage and acted like they were doing us a favour. During a global pandemic. HR told us to "use up everything while you can!!".. I can't go to the dentist, chiro, massage, etc. Seriously, how disingenuous are these people?
- Pembina couldn't even be bothered to provide us with extended Employee Assistance Plan coverage outside of the two weeks, and guess what, EAP was booked solid! Being laid off can be brutal and there is only so much family and friends can say to you. Additional professional help over Zoom would have been nice
- A few days after providing the severance package paperwork, Pembina sent out a revised payout schedule where if you wanted the severance amount directed to your RRSP, they requested a signed letter from your bank with all your account information. During a global pandemic. Most of us had mere days to get that done and a few couldn't do it in time and had to take the hit taking the severance as a cash payout
- It took Pembina just over a month direct the severance payout to RRSP
- Canned responses from HR. We all compared the replies from our HR Business Partner together and it was obvious she had a word document open and copy/pasted the same replies to each of us
- For the old timers, Pembina nickle and dimed the 20–30 year employees. People who dedicated their lives to the company. This was confirmed during a Cenera Zoom meeting from a former irritated company man. Pembina has zero loyalty to you
- Returning of personal belongings. We were asked what was still in our offices and that it would be returned via courier. I had an item that was never returned. Hopefully someone used it
- Getting the Teams call from an inebriated manager and the career transition coach at noon–ish on a Thursday
1) HR shaming a woman for going on maternity leave
2) Team giving the cold shoulder and shaming a woman for getting pregnant
3) A manager telling their team that a male within the group who requested to take paternity leave would now be passed over for all future promotions
4) An internal debate within a BU about hiring a black man for a managerial role
5) Guilting employees for taking disability leave and then laying them off
6) Top–down culture that demands 10s of hours of weekly unpaid overtime
7) Questionable conduct within Human Resources
8) Cronyism with internal promotions and external hires. Want to be hired at Pembina? Go drink or play golf with a Pembina manager. Competence and experience not required
9) Nepotism with summer student hires
10) Internal culture that is based on vindictiveness and fear. Never question the cult. Fall in line soldiers and obey your masters and sycophant HR
11) A culture where the abuse of alcohol is not only tolerated but celebrated
12) Alright, here is another terrible one for the list. When all of the Covid stuff kicked off and we started to work from home, a former colleague of mine started to experience symptoms of the virus. The team was texting this person checking in but when they talked to management, the only thing they were asked was "who were you last in contact with at the office" and "let us know when you are able to get back to work". Nothing about their health. The manager told them that HR and the company "nurse" would reach out to them to check–in but that never happened. Was chatting with them a few months ago and they said that after that went down, they had their resume open on one screen while working, and that Pembina paid for them to find another job. The response was very Pembina–like.
13) Pembina is the only company I worked for in my career where if a quality person and decent performer accepted a position at another company, we didn't openly celebrate them or look inward as to why they left. As soon as the person had one foot out the door, they were criticized and their contributions minimized. It was serious Stockholm syndrome. People need to accept that these cultural issues are tolerated from the top down and there isn't anyone high level in the executive "pipeline" under Mick who have an appetite for changing these things. As long paycheques are cashed and the shareholder is looked after, who cares. I'm curious so see how far behind the eight ball Pembina will be in 5 years.
14) I'll add something that still makes me angry to this day. I was hired at Pembina in 2014 and sometime in 2015 there was a female on our team in her late twenties who was going through an obvious challenging time with her mental health and was struggling. It was heartbreaking seeing it take place from the sidelines, and I genuinely wondered if she would even be in the office the next day or if she took her own life. I remember seeing our HR business partner visit the office of our manager to obviously discuss options about the situation. A day or two later after that visit, the manager took her office away, assigned it to someone else, and increased her workload and field visits... to obviously make her resign and rid the company of any liability. Another note to the story: This is the same team that debated hiring a black man to replace said manager. It's all true and disgusting.
Pembina: Love our family because you won’t be seeing much of yours.... S—er
I logged in to LinkedIn this morning and scrolled through profiles within My Network and was completely floored to see that several senior people who were movers & shakers and VP material at Pembina have resigned within the last 8 months on their own accord. My first reaction was that if these senior people (who were always loyal to the company) moved on, there has to be some very serious cracks in Pembinas foundation.. or perhaps they see the writing is on the wall for Canadian Energy. Those that still work for the company who I keep in touch with describe morale at its lowest and there are "a lot of people just want to be let go". Some solace to people who were laid off one year ago can know that the PPL ship never received any new coats of paint and has many new leaks.
Genuinely cannot believe that it has been an entire year already. Myself and everyone who I still keep in touch with who were laid off are in better places – both personally and professionally. Pembina isn't life. As tough as it was, being let go from Pembina was a blessing in disguise as it forced me to re–evaluate priorities and what is actually important in this one life we have. Dedicating yourself to a faceless corporation and making this job your identity is absurd. Don't fall into this trap. You don't owe Pembina anything. There is a ton of family talk, but you are nothing but a number, Put in your 8.5 hours and go home/log off. If there are current Pembina employees, family members, or prospective employees who see this.. Below is what happened during Pembinas botched layoff process with me. If you still work there and think you are special and will get a huge cheque, think again friends. Maybe they will eventually get the process right!
- Pembina paid out the absolute bare minimum in severance. Not a penny more. It was a kick you while you are down move but not surprising given how cheap the company is. There was zero negotiation and a quiet "try us/shut up and be happy you are getting anything" mentality from my HR business "partner"
- Pembina gave us two weeks of additional benefit coverage and acted like they were doing us a favour. During a global pandemic. HR told us to "use up everything while you can!!".. I can't go to the dentist, chiro, massage, etc. Seriously, how disingenuous are these people?
- Pembina couldn't even be bothered to provide us with extended Employee Assistance Plan coverage outside of the two weeks, and guess what, EAP was booked solid! Being laid off can be brutal and there is only so much family and friends can say to you. Additional professional help over Zoom would have been nice
- A few days after providing the severance package paperwork, Pembina sent out a revised payout schedule where if you wanted the severance amount directed to your RRSP, they requested a signed letter from your bank with all your account information. During a global pandemic. Most of us had mere days to get that done and a few couldn't do it in time and had to take the hit taking the severance as a cash payout
- It took Pembina just over a month direct the severance payout to RRSP
- Canned responses from HR. We all compared the replies from our HR Business Partner together and it was obvious she had a word document open and copy/pasted the same replies to each of us
- For the old timers, Pembina nickle and dimed the 20–30 year employees. People who dedicated their lives to the company. This was confirmed during a Cenera Zoom meeting from a former irritated company man. Pembina has zero loyalty to you
- Returning of personal belongings. We were asked what was still in our offices and that it would be returned via courier. I had an item that was never returned. Hopefully someone used it
- Getting the Teams call from an inebriated manager and the career transition coach at noon–ish on a Thursday