Life’s too short to stick around in a place this bad. Most people here seem miserable, yet hardly anyone’s leaving. What gives? Is it some kind of workplace Stockholm Syndrome? Because I don’t get it. Just so we’re clear, I’m out of here the moment I find something better.
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No, the strategy of "cut cut cut" isn't everywhere. Seems that smaller companies try to retain valuable people.
Former JG 15 here. I left 3M in November. It was not easy. It was even harder to find a new job. If you think this 3M culture and landscape are unique, you’d be wrong. The “strategy” of cut cut cut is everywhere. In hindsight, I feel I made the right decision to leave but I have had my doubts creep in. It’s difficult to start over with a new company.
Pensions are going away by year end 2028. A large number of people in portfolio 1 and 2 are either going to retire or leave the company at that point.
What’s happening 2028
Most are staying until the end of 2028. Keep it on auto pilot.
I stay bc the salary is good, HDHP health care plan is dirt cheap (family is healthy), there’s a great 401k match and the safety net of my spouse having a stable job at a normal employer that doesn’t sh1t all over their own employees. Also secretly enjoy watching the 3M dumpster fire rage bc I detest this dying and hopeless place.
I left 2 years ago. People used to stay primarily because of the great benefits - Employee stock purchase plan, pension, reasonable path for LTI, etc. Basically all of that is gone now. With poor leadership and crumby morale I really am not sure who is staying other than quiet quitters and sycophants.
its subjective. Why would BB want to take CEO for a 'period of time'? I guess 3M's EBIT margin is still >10%, though declined significantly - still there is money here 'for a period of time'
I just intend to cruise along until my retirement within next 3~5 years. No more additional job expansions/scope nor promotions for me.
Mentality : Risk averse Midwest mentality.
Family connections : Many well qualified people with degrees from top notch East and West Coast universities decide to come back to the Midwest and grind it out in 3M, to be close to family. Many are not happy with their career, but family ties keep them here.
Company is turning around. Good opportunities abound and we are hiring!!! Why quit now?
Market is quite bad still.
They actually saved a ton of money by removing the LTIP eligibility for JG14&15。
I joined the organisation after they stopped offering final salary pensions, which seemed a bit unfair. But the upside to that is that I am now outside the company, looking on in horror at how they are treating people. I am free of the BS, free of the toxic cloud you work under and more important free of the bind of the final salary pension that is holding so many to the mother ship....
Lots and lots of LTIP if you are 16 and higher. All vests when you turn 55 so a lot of people holding out until then
Golden handcuffs
It’s fun to hear about your follies. Like you’re spending your time trying to convince people to leave because you want to. Maybe you’re better off spending your free time je-king off?
Inertia, in some cases.
Waiting for retirement in others.
Waiting for a severance package.
Family obligations making moving difficult so they are su-king it up.
Fear of the unknown.
Dread of interviewing.
Still believing things will get better.
There's all kinds of reasons why people just don't leave. Doesn't mean they are happy.
I will be 54 soon and have worked half my life here in 3M. Just hanging on in hope of severance. Current mindset is Quiet Quit. Just follow whatever the leadership says. Don't need to tell them even things are not going well. That makes the work life easier.
There is a reasonably sizeable contingent that is just hanging on a few more years until retirement, like me. My group is quite good to work with, so that part is not bad. It only gets bad when we have to interact with executives and their id--tic policies aimed to stop any progress to save money.
I have not left as I have vowed to go down with this ship. It is worth it to me to get severance versus to leave sooner on my own timing. However, I am only able to do this because I do really like my current role and my team. I am not a fan of my boss, but I am okay enough with them to stay. I have certainly had much worse bosses in my decades at 3M, so a sort of cr-ppy one I can deal with. Even though I no longer have LTIP, I feel like my regular pay and benefits are really competitive. In fact, through some searching externally I would say it is hard to match what I have personally for my function/job grade/work life balance. If people are quite miserable, have lousy roles, and most importantly if people work for a bad boss, then I assume they have not left yet as they are waiting for severance. Most people will not do something until they absolutely have to. In the mean time though, they will vent/complain on here. Which I think is fine, I will play the violin as we all go down ...
Because it's actually not that bad, and the pay is pretty decent?
Like, yes, there are many issues with 3M (including some serious), but if you listened just to this board then the problem is that Bill Brown is over there twirling his Snidely Whiplash mustache and backing while flogging the employees, but also hiring too many diverse people and using DEI to run the company into the ground, and also aggressively retaliation against the poor operators who know so much more than their d-mb college-educated managers.
Or, it could be that every large company with public shareholders has this same BS, and really the big problem with 3M is that we haven't had decent C-level leadership in a while and so our stock price has fallen, and as a result we cut some jobs but that didn't solve the problem so we cut some more, rinse, wash, repeat.