Thread regarding Mattel Inc. layoffs

To the bonehead mouthing off about minis - get your facts straight, then you can come and talk to the adults! While minis could have been offered to all customers, it wasn't available for January planograms - only March. We leveraged more activity with Walmart than we could've, had it gone national the first year, AND with capacities at an all time high at our factory we couldn't have made more even if we had wanted to.

BTW - it was Thomas's (not 75th) - pay attention when we have company meetings and maybe you won't have so much inaccuracy to complain about.

If I was walker I would punch myself in the face and then fire myself the next day. F*** Yeah!

There's no excuse whatsoever. He needs to go. He's a useless little west coast twerp.

How does being a frat boy excuse being an asshat? How GW got where he is is beyond me. The last frat boy Duck Waddley has been shown the door so the other "bro" should go. Throwing around "f*** yeah" every now and then does not make an inspirational speech nor does it make you cool.

GW is a tool. A useless tool that has done nothing to fix the FP machine. He's more of a wrench stuck in the machinery that has jammed up the works and brought production to a screeching halt. Send him packing back to ES already.

GW's language can get a little rough for sure but that just the frat boy in him :) Always likable with me & I'm just a regular guy, not even a Director. I always thought that they were prepping him to be our next CEO but Dickson got that gig to try to exhume Barbie which will never happen with the current Design mismanagement in power. Hell, I'm really surprised that worm L Maz hasn't weaseled his way back in this place yet. Maybe next year when he gets tired of playing Mr.Mom? Damn, I just love watching this train wreck as you can't write this stuff.

When walker came in his first address to everyone turned heads because he was an obnoxious little turd who used questionable language when addressing us. Afterwards, he proved himself to be nothing short of detestable. When he would come to NYC he would NEVER walk through the office or say hi to anyone. Always took over the blobs conference room and sequestered himself there until his business was done. Not a very likable guy from the get go, but that has been the M.O. for most of the folks in upper management from California. I'm not sure if it's the superficial mindset that they like to exude or the fact that they have a false superiority complex but things have definitely gone down in profits/morale/overall workalike balance since they've all been around. Sure they leave at 5 but the rest of us? no way in hell. I cannot think of a California transplant that is looked upon favorably in any of the east coast offices. The mindset is that they stepped in and screwed everything up with their BS processes.

Wow, from reading these comments it sounds like FP/EA is even more f'ed up than ES which is pretty hard to believe. I remember years ago when FP was pretty much left alone and was doing great, in fact I used to wonder how they could afford such great high quality toys with so much play pattern at such a great cost. I was told that there pricing structure was different. Now as I read this blog I can see that once MattHell upper mismanagement got involved @ FP it all turned to crap. Was this because Geoff Walker came on board? I knew him when he was a summer intern here in ES. How things have changed here at this Company from fun to hell. I'll stay & do as little as possible for as long as I can. Pay me bitch.

Hate to burst your bubble but they decreased our severance packages immensely. It's a slap in the face. Maybe that's why douchenozzle DW with his super loud phone calls to china is practicing his Mandarin. Not that the folks in china don't laugh at him and his god awful dialect. Even the robots in SZ think he's an assh_le. Ever notice how the VP of engineering bears a slight resemblance to Sam the eagle from the muppets. His presentations are just as drawn out and boring. That guy could bore a statue to suicide.

F-P is only going to get worse as the Ma Tell appointed Sucker boy and his Design Leader counterparts continue to move more and more of the Engineering and Design work to China. Sucker boy was reportedly quoted in a staff meeting that his mission at F-P was to move all of Engineering to China...it seems as though he's making headway. They want innovation - it is certainly not going to happen by having Engineers play data entry in Agile while inexperienced Chinese kids develop toys. I hope my severance package comes up in the next round.

That's right! One mattel! go mattel, go to hell.

so true. The influx of california mindset douchery has really brought the whole place down. With their silly processes, presentation styles and song and dance requirements for the trained monkeys in marketing that have to perform at every GHO. Between the beached whale and her faghag forced culture the only option is going to be consolidating the office and moving the lucky ones (or unlucky depending on your viewpoint) out to California where hopefully we'll be able to defect to hasbro in burbank. Though from what I'm hearing their culture is just as crappy. I just might go to Devry and learn a trade and leave with my own set of tools! Has to be better than the tools I work for now.

To Anonymous187563

Remember that your current "FP management" is actually Mattel management. There is no FP management left who wasn't brought in by Mattel. Talk about Mattel hubris! It used to be at FP that there was a lot of give and take, freedom to share ideas, and managers not afraid to hear different points of view. Some of the many things that made FP successful... wow, FP was a progressive place! Think of that, right here in boring old WNY and not in trendy CA!

Unfortunately at this point FP has been overrun with poor leadership from the Stockton era and it doesn't seem like they're being shown the door anytime soon. they'll call us into our tiny conference room. expect us to speak our minds (which no one really does) and then try to pass on some BS good vibes. they cannot see past their own hubris. the failure that is FP leadership from VP to senior management. there is a vote of no confidence amongst the staff and until someone with the stones to right this ship steps up it's going to be little successes here & there but profitability will be a thing of the past.

When Stockton and his minions decimated FP and its management team... that's what happened. FP always had great years and then not so great years, but they always managed to pull out of a bad year. FP management, was, for the most part, respected by the worker bees. When Stockton and the minions he let run amok decided that they could do things better (or hired consultants to tell him what FP could do better) ... well, I think he just didn't understand how FP had managed to be successful for all those years. There's something to be said about really trying to understand a company and the culture that makes it a success. Things weren't perfect before Stockton, not at all! But at least FP was left somewhat alone, to sort out their own problems and change things that needed changing... within their own way of doing things. Always worked before.

Minis should have been mass and not an exclusive but from the get-go marketing had their heads so far up their asses with this line that they couldn't see the forest through the trees. Typical. They spent so much time concerned with one off Thomas 75th anniversary BS that no one cares about instead of focusing on a mini line that could have been a massive kid collector line at retail at an affordable price that would have amertized into major bucks in a year with existing tooling and repaints. The people that knew what they were talking about either left or were let go and marketing crapped the proverbial bed as per usual. All because they know what's best and have a powerpoint of their own making to prove it. Yeah, mini's might have been successful at walmart, but you morons missed the mass opportunity that would have brought the numbers up even higher. Forest through the trees.

If you want to know why FP is.in the shitter it's because the tool+holes that run it lost sight of what FP toys are supposed to be about: quality toys at a good price point that inspire imaginative play in children.

There are nearly no items in the current FP catalog that fulfill the FP promise.

Your toys aren't fun at all...

Also the douche fest in your marketing department doesn't seem to understand when they have a quality product or at least one that will sell.

Minis were a slam dunk so why give anyone an exclusive? Almost as dumb as giving AT&T the exclusive on the iPhone (almost....).

Get rid of the ass+stick laden white ladies and that tool+hole in your NYC marketing dept. and you might sell something... Oh by the way, great to crap on the DC licensing that tool+hole sucked his frat buddy off for... Poor execution at best...

There were no recalls from those factories because you didn't get caught. That doesn't mean they weren't shipping crap.

The small, low cost Chinese vendors made excellent toys for F-P for years. Oversight was certainly too lax, but there were no serious defects/recalls due to poor Asian quality during 1997-2007. Just the lead contamination from one barrel of pigment at one small factory. Stringent new testing protocols were instituted (3-stage checks) across the board. The vendors thought they were overkill, so they walked. Now these low cost vendors make toys for Spinmaster and Hasbro. Seems to be working for them.

There were no Overkill Quality Standards put in. The little mom 'n pop vendors were doing whatever they wanted. They could quote on a project, win it, and then use lower quality materials in substandard working conditions. No one was checking. When Mattel started checking these vendors couldn't cheat anymore, so they couldn't make any money. Of course the FP costing people should have known the factories couldn't make money on their quoted prices. They looked the other way for too long.

Designing innovative new products at the right price has been almost impossible at F-P for 5 years. Retailers say F-P price value sucks and they're right. All started in 2008-2009 when Mattel over-reacted to lead recall by putting in overkill quality standards, which led to all the small low cost F-P vendors to quit. At same time, Mattel raised F-P profit margin % target to record levels. Consequence of all that was huge price increases way higher than the competition, so retailers cut F-P shelf space and sales. The people involved in costing F-P new products know this story all too well. Sales dropped...so let's layoff the experienced management team. Then sales drop again. And then more layoffs. And then...

Here in ES/LA Stockdown's NAD vs GBT made zero sense from the start. Nobody could understand the process or why. Then it was picking the marketing monkeys of who went where which went on for several weeks. To Design it just made it even more complicated to understand but didn't really effect the already screwed up approval process anyway. It's always design by committee here so who cares. Take a decent product concept into a so called approval mtg. and it gets redesigned by all upper mismanagement including design mismanagement and then gets cost reduced at the next mtg after everybody added features they couldn't afford. Awesome non structure here & each quarter result just keeps getting worse. Headwinds :) Just keep paying me.

Stockton's idea to create NAD and then move it to LA was also bad for FP. idea was to reduce US retailer influence on new product line. sure, no one liked influence of idiot buyers, but since they do have the power, ignoring them not smart either. heavy US retailer influence was better than no retailer influence. soon US retailers walked away from FP and then NAD and GBT pointing blame fingers at each other. and moving NAD to LA meant there were rookie marketers selling the FP new products to retailers. result was US sales down over 300 million since NAD happen. was that a coincidence?

The only thing that propel succeeded in at FP was propelling talented folks out the door. Our culture is currently a shitshow of dysfunction and the casual leader sauntering in to show face but having next to no role in the day to day with the exception of the company updates and occasional reviews. most of their days are spent hanging in one another office or with their feet up on their booze buddies desk BSing the day away or gossiping about their underlings. Top notch morale at FP.

Project Propel? Seemed to propel the biz into a ditch. Joy of Learning TV campaign converted all product ads into "brand" ads that didn't sell the new toys. Didn't even say the name of the new toy in the ads. And let's drop a lot of categories like Learning, Creative Activities, de-emphasize others like Ride Ons, Sports, etc. without any new lines to replace them. Got to love that project Propel.

Don't forget that FP was bleeding sales quite a long time ago before Mattel moved "Mattel Preschool" including elmo and sesame street to FP. There have been other problems with FP. Also, in that time frame mentioned above, there was also the loss of Sesame Street. Yes, many MANY good talented people have left or been pushed out of FP. And YES that has been a problem. But that's not the only problem.

Brain drain? Seriously?

Regarding the bonus, what happened after the cost cutting? We took zero risks in part to reduce tooling. How much $ was spent on consultants during the Propel days?

Sales down since 2010 due partly to mass exodus of leadership in Design and Marketing. In both departments, 14 of 21 Directors and VPs have left since 2010. Saw the list. That's call brain drain.

I recall big bonus years driven my record high sales and cost reductions at same time. Must have been some innovation going on too.

Ever consider happy math may have been one of the reasons for the decline, cost cutting vs innovation

Yeah, I would take those "Happy Math" days with Curran again too. best bonuses ever paid to F-P employees.

Hmmmmmmm. Lecker came in, brought her cronies from cali who spent more time shopping and gossiping then working, the wrong people were elevated to VP (pornstache, sarah - whocaresnowthatshe'sgone, the clown from Hit) and they spent more time trying to "fix" process which was admittedly screwy but was profitable and everything started to nosedive. We would have been better off with a bean counter like Curran than a marketing shmuck who thinks they know design and gives marketing autonomy over creative decisions.

Mattel happened