Thread regarding American Electric Power Co. Inc. layoffs

When will we be back in the office full time? I’ve been waiting for it to happen. Federal workers are having to be back in the office so what’s up?

Will the dei hire managers and even operating co executives be eliminated soon ?

Getting ready to leave in April, I'm done. Will give my 2 week notice on the Friday after our bonus is paid out for April. Will have enough to hold me over until the retirement checks kick in. I was going to tell them after we came back 2 weeks ago but decided 2 weeks was more than enough. Not sure if I'm being over generous or not with the 2 weeks, I should just walk out. Was part of the group last year that had to stay, missed out on the buy out and doubted there would be another one so best to steer my own course at this point. Good luck to you all.

"I work harder so major shareholders can have better lives", said no working American ever!

"when she was hired she promoted the co-sourcing" was a smoke screen. They could not afford to lose everyone before they got TCS trained. Why in the world would you bring in 20 Indians to work with 10 US based employees so they would be working when we were off. It took less than 5 months before heads started to till. Those 10 US workers was cut down to 2-3. They had to keep just enough to cover NERC/FERC access/work because overseas Indians were not allowed to hold an FBI background checks. It was all about cutting jobs from the start. F... Therace and the horse she rode in on.

Everybody not in the good ole boy fraternity also noticed the corporate culture paradigm that excluded men and women, who were independent and didn't rely on their "network" to get them promoted. DEI was not the only ideology to influence promotions and disappointing outcomes. Leadership professionalism promotes without biases the most qualified candidates. No one should be putting their thumb on the scales.

You are arguing against strawmen. No one said every woman who works at AEP is a DEI hire. That has never been what the discussion was about. But to sit there and pretend like we didn't all see this ideology sweep through corporate America the past few years is just willful ignorance and makes people question your motives. I get that you want to sweep it all under the rug and pretend like we are insane/evil for noticing, but some of us have long memories and we won't be forgetting the rhetoric that was being thrown when you felt like you were unstoppable around any time soon.

There were women working for AEP long before DEI, and doing a great job. 32 years and going to work everyday.
My posse of women still are hard at work, and all hold degrees. And they all work well with their male co- workers, sharing the work.

I would agree that Therace was not a DEI hire. However, I do not believe she was hired to cut costs. If memory serves, when she was hired she promoted the co-sourcing but at the same time she was expanding the size and scope of IT. She and her mangement team was hiring like crazy. She brought in new layers of management, new teams/roles, and IT had so many posiitons to fill that they had managers hire by job family vs to fill a specific position within their team. I think Therace sold management a growth agenda coupled with offshoring. Then AEP encountered tough times with high interest rates. So they had to slash people. Good management does not overspend to the degree AEP IT mangement did because it will catch up with you eventually leading to the need for more serious job cuts.

Two things here. It appears DEI has become all the rage on this board for whatever reason.

1. Is Therace a DEI hire because of her s-xuality or gender? Be clear what you’re referring to. I’m not defending her track record at AEP, but a quick search shows she led technology at a Fortune 1000 financial company and JC Penney which is a much, much larger outfit than AEP. To me, seems like she’s at least got the qualifications to lead technology at a utility company. Easily.

2. Technology has been slashed to death and offshored more jobs than any of us would have liked her to. Technology is in a terrible place. But has anyone ever considered that she’s doing exactly what the Board, Nick, Julie and now Bill wanted her to do?! Do you think she unilaterally decided to take technology in this direction? Absolutely not and if you do, you’ve got no idea how executive level performance is measured and how these leaders are hired. Therace has sadly done what she was hired to do. The leaders are pleased with her. She was hired to do exactly what she has done, which is to decrease costs in Technology any means. It’s awful, but why is Therace and DEI getting the blame instead of Nick Akins and the board that approved her hiring? Julie could have fired her. Bill could have fired her at anytime. But they won’t because she is doing what AEP hired her to do. I hate it, but that has nothing to do with DEI. That’s just illogical.

I agree with parts of the last comments but I would classify Therace as a DEI hire, who in turn brought in her own hires who some were DEI hires. They in turn, destroyed IT. So it only takes one DEI hire to destroy a functioning department.

You are correct the big issue has been the loss of jobs to India and the hiring of former TCS managers who were out into positions of power in the department. I am sure they still have more loyalty towards TCS than to AEP. I just don't trust them, period. As for Martin, I don't think I've ever seen him in anything but a black T-shirt, he's no Steve Jobs for sure.
But everything goes back to Therace, she is without a doubt the worse CITO around and for now we've been saddled with her. I can not wait for that B to leave.

This thread has gotten really toxic. It used to be a place where employees could unite against a marauding gang of executives who've pillaged our company and our coworkers' jobs in order to save a few bucks and line their pockets in the short term.

Now this thread, just like any social media comment section, has been taken over by loud and abnoxious culture warriors who'd rather turn on their fellow employees than discuss the real issues at hand.

They want you to believe that DEI is the reason for all of our problems and not the wholesaling of entire departments to incompetent contractors overseas. In my department we've had plenty of bad hires, most of them were white males. Then again most hires were white males. This is not to say that white males are inherently better or worse than anyone else. That would be mo--nic. Just as mo--nic is thinking that any minority getting hired is evidence of DEI. The only difference is that if a white male turns out to be a bad hire, they were just a bad hire. If a minority ends up being a bad hire, then DEI culture is to blame. If we keep turning on each other then all we're doing is weakening our collective position and they win.

So, how do we turn this into unity into something actionable? At the very least we can call out the problems with executive leadership and our off shore "partners" in surveys, departmental meetings, or any inter-office communication opportunity that we get. Highlight their mistakes, explain how these actions are a burden to our operational efficiency and a detriment to our security. Call it exactly how you see it, but of course, remain professional and factual while doing so.

Man, someone kicked a hornets nest. I'm just wanting to get my time in so I can retire like my Dad and my Granddad. Not looking for much, an honest day's pay for an honest day's work like my Dad would say. I'm not looking to ever be the CEO, not in my blood, he-l, not sure if I would ever want to be a manager. What I've seen, too much backstabbing. I just want a fair chance if a position opens up that I might want to apply for. But what I've seen over the past 5 years, getting promoted just doesn't happen any more. Promotions are saved when they bring someone in from outside of the company. Upper management no longer value current employees because they feel they can get someone better from the outside. I will most likely leave over the next few years, I have a certificate or 2 that I'm working on and once I have those in hand, I'm leaving. AEP would rather replace me with some dude from India for pennies than to give me any opportunity for growth.
I'm sure there will be the same two people to vote this down but the company went south when it force fed DEI to everyone.

I have also seen incompetent ego strokers worm their way into a promotion they neither earned nor deserved because of their unprofessional fraternizing with supervisors and managers and this behavior diminishes good employees, who are proficient and professional in the performance of their duties. It makes years of hard work and initiative to learn and excel at a career a complete waste of time. Conversely, we-ponized incompetence is also tolerated to the detriment of the same employees, who are determined to excel at their duties and wind up carrying a goldbrick responsibility shirker around on their back every day.

If leaders were the exemplary example of professionalism they are well compensated to be, there would be no need for any monitoring or policing but all too often the leaders are part of a good ole boy club that are responsible for all the problems we endure as employees that diminish the institution. Confrontation, accountability and disappointment come with the career but it should be above board and without unprofessional biases or crony favoritism.

I like you, want to see the most qualified candidate receive the promotion they deserve on a level playing field where the referees make good calls and no one is deliberately handicapped or discriminated against. Good sportsmanship and professional career advancement keeps teams focused on being successful for the good of all team members and makes the effort worth it.

I've seen too many qualified people passed over or told not to bother because the managers wanted a non-white male in the position. They never came out directly and said that but everyone knew. So now it's justified to have a form of discrimination based on s-x and race, so long as it's against white males. F You, I want to see whoever is the best candidate in the job based on their knowledge, character and ethics. If it turns out to best some blue hair freak that goes by it or them, so be it. But I'm not going to hold my breath that will be the case.

THE IRREFUTABLE TRUTH

The Founding Principle of Equality is the parchment upon which the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are inscribed. The blood and sweat of selfless patriots and veterans are the ink which forms the words giving meaning and authority to the revolutionary ideals espoused in these historical documents. American Colonists took up arms and rebelled against the British Monarchy to cast off the yoke of elitist oppression and were promised in return a nation where all men are created equal in the eyes of their government. “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.” In modern language, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all citizens are created equal.” Privilege, elitism, prejudice, bigotry, racism, s-xism, gender bias, religious persecution, political campaign financing, human trafficking, indentured servitude and slavery have no place in a nation founded upon the Principle of Equality. We can choose to be authentic fiercely independent Americans, who revere the Founding Principle of Equality or the traitorous servile sycophants of haughty and virtue-less oligarchs, who subvert it for their unearned, undeserved, obscene and vainglorious self-aggrandizement

Thank you for instantly demonstrating the toxic mentality that people are sick of.

DEI isn’t being rolled back because it’s useless. It’s being rolled back because many white males view the progress of less represented groups as a threat to the historic power structure that has benefited white males. You guys just aren’t strong enough to admit that. “More for the others means less for me. And there’s no way THAT person could ever be more qualified than me. I’m a white guy with a degree!”

For years, minorities and women have watched white men get opportunities because they knew someone or simply looked like their hiring managers. It’s called “The Good Ol’ Boy Network” and has existed at AEP and many other companies for decades. DEI simply ensures everyone who is QUALIFIED has access to the same opportunities. For the previous poster and many other people at AEP, that is simply unbearable. It cannot happen.

Well now, DEI is basically dead at AEP and many other places so who are you going to blame for AEP’s problems or your inability to advance next? The C-Suite and other leaders at AEP are laughing their way to the bank while their simpleton goofball employees blame the g-ys, women, blacks and DEI for the problems at AEP. DEI goals didn’t lead to 20 year directors being knocked down several pegs. DEI isn’t why your bonus stunk last year.

What a small minded world we live in.

This is the biggest gaslight session I've ever seen on here. DEI was everywhere for a good number of years and now it's being rolled back because people realized it was useless, toxic garbage and you lost the ability to silence dissent. You claim to be a man of the people but all this stuff was implemented from the top-down and only flourished in a climate of fear. You sound like a leftist who is angry that people are leaving the cult. You were SO close to finalizing g-y race communism. Darn! Just remember, there is no final revolution.

This board, like much of AEP, has a cartoonish hatred for DEI. QUALIFIED women and minorities being granted a few more interviews has apparently been an affront to so many of you hard working, deserving and smarter European men. White guys have utterly dominated corporate America and especially the utilities industry since its existence, and the advancement of well qualified people who aren’t white guys has just been a bridge too far many. It’s sad and shameful.

Take a look at the facts. AEP typically has anywhere from 75-80 people who are in leadership or executives. Right now, over 90% are white men. Over 90%! The business has entire departments with no female, veterans or minorities in supervisory roles. The new CEO has hired nothing but white guys, many of whom have little or no experience in utilities. I never even hear the term “DEI” used in my department so what are you guys afraid of? Are you that terrified that someday, a few qualified blacks or hispanics, or even worse, A WOMAN, might be your supervisor or manager at AEP? THE HORROR.

Keep blaming “DEI” for your problems when the all-white and male leadership team gives you yet another thrifty bonus while they take home high six or seven figures. DEI did it. Or, God forbid, they lay people off yet again. DEI did it. The next time you think about the org flattening, embarrassing many of you who worked for years to earn a leadership position, just remember DEI did it. When you’re working 10-11 hours a day to do the work of two or three people thanks to the hiring freeze, remember DEI did it. I’m starting to think many of you are ok getting treated like children as long as those pesky minorities and women don’t advance in the process. “Hey Mr. Bill. Yessuh, I’ll come to the office 5 or even 6 days a week and keep working with no hope of a promotion as long as you keep our company looking like the country club I’m used to seeing and stop those darned minorities and women from getting a job, and keep those LGBT folks from wearing AEP shirts at a parade. Make my health insurance more expensive again too boss. Anything for the cause!”

I feel awful for the people in diverse ppl who have to work at this organization.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," DEI is fulfilling the commitments made by the Declaration of Independence that declared our rejection of immense wealth authoritarian tyranny and slavery. Why in the name of God, is there still an obsession with oppressing your fellow human beings for your vainglorious self-aggrandizement? If you cannot compete and win on a level field of competition, you are not worthy of success.

With META announcement today on getting rid of their DEI department and policies, I wonder if AEP will sh it can the post George Floyd DEI cr-p. They want everyone else to slim down and save money, that group is 100% cost, they produce nothing that goes to the bottom line.

Disappointed to hear people from outside the electric utility industry are filling positions held by long tenure employees, who understand the sacrifices required of employees, who are called upon to keep the lights on 24/7. Hiring people from outside the industry, who have not made the tremendous sacrifices required of them and their families is a slap in the face for all the weekends, holidays, family events and special occasions missed serving our customers. If the C-Suite Club does not value our contributions, talents, loyalty and sacrifices, maybe IT is time for all long tenure employees to look for greener pastures and leave this desolate shareholder ruled wasteland in the rearview mirror. After the spring ICP debacle, would be a opportune time for a mass exodus of legacy employees. Our families deserve better and so do we.

Our employees are risking their lives to restore power to hundreds of thousands of customers in frigid temperatures, with trees, branches and limbs coated with ice crashing down around them. They are driving and walking on dangerous roads, yards, right of ways and repeatedly exposed to tremendous levels of deadly stored energy. Where are the C-suite guys and gals? Where are the major investors? We are taking all the risks and they are raking in all the reward.

This company used to be a family of shared sacrifice and shared reward. Instead of cutting frontline workers and the employees, who support them, why don't we cut the corporate deadwood just taking up space and stealing the bountiful fruits of our labors and ruining our lives. A little common sense corporate deadwood pruning would have been better than burning down the orchard.

Ok AEP "leases" the building to itself because of some arcane legalistic mumbo jumbo no reasonable person would comprehend. Big difference. It's still all AEP.

Unless something drastically changed, Service Corporations are not allowed to "own" any assets. Everything is held by the OpCos. The HQ building is leased back to AEPSC, they don't own it. So there is an incentive to fill that building and others back up. You can not justify having x number of floors empty and continue to pay the lease on them. It will only be a matter of time before everyone is back in the office. It's not a matter of if it's a matter of when.

The rental incentives are from the localities that give AEP tax breaks to build in their cities/counties/towns. AEP pays less taxes and the localities make up the difference(and then some) taxing our pay thru their income taxes (like in OHIO). So when we aren't in the office, we don't pay those office locality income taxes(remember when we all had to change our splits in HR NOW?) and the localaties come up short on thier revenues.

New CFO hired.
Looks like Bill is churnin and burnin

I'll believe RTO when I see it. AEP employees are already significantly underpaid compared to similar roles at other companies. And I don't think they are suffering from not fulfilling commercial real estate rental incentives since they own their buildings. Allowing WFH and hybrid is one of the only ways they can offset the pathetic salaries.

If there is a RTO I would expect more people to initiate retirements after March. If there is a bonus, collect it, get it in the bank and leave. Why take on the added expense of driving in every day, for what? I sit in a cube with my head set on talking to people all day. I bring in my own coffee and lunch, I get up about 10 am to take a pi-s and I sit at my desk around noon and eat lunch and get on my phone to play some games for 30 minutes if I don't get a drive by. Im back at it at 12:30, take another pi-s at 2-3p and pack up at 4. Home by 5. There is nothing I do in the office that I don't do at home. I'll spend $30-40 a week in gas but won't see an increase to cover that. I'll need to tell my insurance company I'm back driving every day so my rates will go back up. The best part, unless they force all of the managers in my line back in, Bill will be the only one in the office between me and him.
I'm really looking forward to that, queue up the next survey. I'm going to see how many cuss words I can put into it the next time. Go ahead and replace all of us with H1B visa Indians, I'm sure that'll come up in a Board meeting. Speaking of the Board, since that woman took over, the company has gone to a sh-t and a hand basket. Does she know anything about how to run a Board, let alone a company. DEI at it's finest.

Well in 2024, AEP…

• Fired a CEO
• Conducted two separate severances
• Hired a CEO who should rather work than enjoy the fruits of decades of his own labor (He also made a career at Berkshire. That alone sent a terrifying message to employees that profit over people is the new normal at AEP)
• Quietly forced workers back into offices without explanation or announcement
• Became the next shiny object for Carl Icahn
• Arbitrarily decided to “flatten” the organization by demoting an enormous amount of people, likely well into the hundreds and probably more. These are employees who have worked at AEP for years, and helped the company to grow tremendously. Their reward is they’re now overpaid individual contributors who would almost certainly be at the top of the list for a future severance. Everyone knows the company hopes many of them decide to leave voluntarily.

And for 2025, expect an RTO announcement very, very soon. It’s not a rumor. It’s happening. So if you’ve got kids or family to account for, prepare yourself to sacrifice even more of that time to make AEP an even more attractive investment opportunity for wealthy investors.

Buckle up. At least the new guy smiles and does inane interviews while he actively makes your work and personal life more difficult than any other previous CEO would have ever dreamed of. The family first, employee driven company you once worked for is dead. AEP! AEP! AEP!

We, the employees of American Electric Power shall prevail despite the many challenges we face. Our future, our legacy and our destiny are defined by us. Corporate leadership comes and goes and the consequences of that revolving door leadership is their legacy not ours. We carry the burden of wearing the uniform of this company everyday and we are the reason our customers forgive the sins of those residing in C-suites far removed from the consequences of their decisions. We are all that is good and right at AEP and those who reside in the C-suites owe us far more than a paycheck and a attaboy, RESPECT!

This was a cool page… but wth is up with some of these comments? Weirdos.

Also as a fellow vet your done with your oath once your service is over. Literally. Vets don’t let other vets be douch bro vets.

Buddy - these notes are really creepy. What is your end game.

The fu--ing wacko with the thesaurus and the kindergarten copy of karl marx's greatest hits needs to shut the he-l up.
I only come back here every couple weeks to find new quotes for my TR website and half of what I see is this friggen kook talking like hes an NYC Luigi wannabe.
In the words of MJ "Stop it, get some help."

You were paid weren't you? Less than we earned and far less than we deserve. We shall not be Discounted, Diminished and Dismissed. Your hypocrisy and heresy reveal your overinflated ego and dependence on privilege. Your delusional vaingloriousness shall be your downfall. Were you not loved as a child? Did your mother and father ignore you and fail to properly socialize you? A little man pretending to be a great man to everyone else's detriment. If you have to stand atop a mountain of unearned and undeserved money to rise to greatness, you have achieved nothing but fraud and extortion.

We demand symbiotic corporate management culture not callous parasitic corporate management culture. Eventually you ki-l the host your feeding on and then you starve or the host organism uses a tick key to pull you off and flush you down the commode.

The last comment shows the mentality of leadership at AEP. This is why the AEP does not provide careers but just jobs. There is a difference. Pay is always important but there are many other things that make working for a corporation great.

You were paid weren't you?

If there was anything I could ask for Christmas, it would be to get my time and life back that I wasted working for these rich uncarring je-ks of leaders at AEP.