#culture

You should not feel disrespected. You should be grateful and eager to work hard with a song in your heart!

The sales manager cowards have all awoken from their coffins and have been unearthed - they cannot handle the pressure from the CRO and are funneling down the pressure. New VP nice guy but dud and already rolling out day 0 day 1 day 30 day 90 forecasting methods starting August and he thinks this is going to fix the horrid decline of this abomination of a company. SRD Kb lost her marbles and never make her number once as rep or dir or SRd she fire so many reps and replace with all duds already selling nothing what a joke

they all are cowards now writing big AI gen threaten emails to engineers support staff sales everyone

these are all big joke ppl

cro is biggest joke the tech industry has ever seen nobody gives a rats a-s about him or his life story or troubles no one like you! Leave cro!

I’m taking about the obvious ones (Veeva Systems, IQVIA, etc). Are they currently hiring Medidata employees? Any no-compete clauses for your standard IC/middle management personnel? Are they also going through the same layoff and cultural struggles as Medidata right now? For anyone working for Medidata competitors (either of equal size or smaller) has it been an improvement for your mental health?

What is the point in feedback sessions if it is always the same nonsense talking points then why take the time for a meeting.

What is the purpose of the 3rd office day? He-l, hardly anybody does it and lots of other teams barely come in for the required 2 days & are still employed. They come in for a few hours, swipe badge and are out.

Somehow, over last 10 years, especially since 2019 things have gone to sh-t. Now, you may say it's her and I'd agree but I think we have major problem stemming from the weak c-level lineup (and one layer below).

Is there any company in the world that has a worse ratio of good engineers to sh---y managers?

What are our marketing teams even doing? Millions of dollars were spent on cramming celebrities into an Ad that made no sense meanwhile adidas’ Ad was everywhere. We couldn’t escape it this World Cup. Who is signing off on these Ads? The London billboard debacle as well was embarrassing. It seems marketing has lost a step. All that effort just for two adidas teams to reach the final is fitting for how Nike’s turnaround has been going

The stock that AMD removed from the employees that were laid off in the last 3 years could be restored as a good will gesture considering the company gains.

It would be an act of class that shows AMDs true colors, nature and humble culture that is always talked about.

When is the board of directors and everyone else going to wake up and realize that John Stank has provided no value to the company for a long time! He is no longer relevant and if he doesn’t like the truth he can retire or find another company willing to take on an aging dinosaur. The culture under John is toxic and has been for too long.

I thought their reputation preceded them. I thought they cared. I thought they’d respect me and the quality of work I do day in day out with much overtime. I thought they offered respect
So far I’m finding I was duped by this persons.
I feel like they don't give a rats behind about me, my qualifications, my skills I’m just a number.
Something shifted maybe HR co-opted Abby with their lies and divisive mentality of the dei legion. But they aren’t looking to promote or help or encourage solid employees. Very disappointed.

:)

They don’t care about you xoxo

Joel didn't say anything meaniful, I had looked forward so much to that townhall like it was the Oscar's, it was just a waste if 1hr, couldn't answer any question straightforward or plainly

Whoever had the idea to bring on a dog as the Chief Pawsitivity Officer is a genius. She’s super cute and everyone loves her. She has a fan clubs. Great distraction to the fires burning all around the Association as they lay folks off and cut back on benefits, etc.

The CEO and his imps are now using draconian methods to ensure compliance to the new order. They are tracking attendance to stupid things like claude presenations. If you don't attend you may find yourself on the next "restructuring" list

How come the majority of EMG in Member Protection (aka Fraud/Disputes in the Bank) were promoted in the first half of the year (EDs to AVPs, and AVPs to VPs) but non-EMG employees can’t get basic promotions in place approved? Like seriously, you can’t get an employee promoted from a level 3 to a 2 or a 2 to a 1. They get denied or you hear nothing for months on end. Not even trying to get people into Lead position, just into positions that they should be in based on performance and experience and yet so many EMG have been promoted like nothing. Just because you don’t send out promotion emails doesn’t mean we don’t know or see it. Absolutely ridiculous!

For those who forgot we had a coworker die in the office and she was not discovered for several days. How many systems failed her? If you think you should give your life to this company remember that happened. Reinvest in your family and community.

“An apologist is someone who writes or speaks to defend and justify a specific belief, cause, or institution, especially one that faces criticism.”

Managers need to STOP being apologists for U.S. Bank and defending bad behavior. While you’re not expected to speak ill of the company publicly , you will gain more respect of direct reports if you’re in line with reality. We can spot fakeness. Those that see U.S. Bank with rose tinted glasses are looked at with disdain. Whatever corporate carrot 🥕 you’re chasing here isn’t worth it if no one respects you at the end of the day.

So there is a new tactic that everyone should know about. Since performance management was released, managers have been in touch with HR to understand how they can give more money to their reports that are their friends or family. And the only solution from HR is this -> employees that are seen as critical to business needs and have a legal offer letter from another company will get a salary hike above the normal SAP limitations to match their offer.

So basically, if you have a friend who has a company, ask them to create an AI-related job for you and make you and offer - it has to be a written offer and cannot be just an email or verbal confirmation. And then your managers starts the process by creating an HR ticket and getting an exception for you and increasing your salary.

But the caveat is this - HR has been asked to reject as many of these as possible.

For a handful of roles where a manager is well connected within SAP, they will get HR to approve this and give 10% or more salary hikes. For almost all other roles, they will decline and then HR will flag that you are not committed to working at SAP and find ways to get rid of your role.

So if your area executive or T5 manager of managers or your T4/T5 manager is asking you to find a good role and get an offer and use it to increase your salary, DO NOT DO THAT. A lot of area executives are peddling this as an idea to work around performance management limitations. It is a farce.

This only works if that manager has already made a deal with HR. Otherwise you will not get an increased salary but be asked to join that other job. HR is doing this to easily identify people who can be laid off without a severance. They are also using sick leave and AI usage data to decide who should be put on a performance improvement plan and laid off subsequently.

Be careful of the sneaky HR and area executives and managers.

For those that don't know, CUSA is surrounded by woods and open space. The area has lots of wildlife. Fox, geese, and others. All those working there have never had issues with this. Wildlife happens. Enter CFS. Decoy coyotes are now ALL OVER the parking lot and building. Being randomly and regularly moved by the new security guy that CFS apparently demanded we employ. CFS are soft, overly privileged, and clueless. I can't with them. I wonder if they know about the wildlife with no legs that get into the building or the 2 legged varieties that call the river bank "home".

Hope in one hand and relieve yourself in the other and see which one fills up first.

And repeat the mantra "I am a close personal friend of John Donovan".

When will portfolio SEs be pooled resources and not be involved with initial discovery calls?

Just goes to show you how Cisco values SEs.

Why are we measuring workplace engagement with physical badge swipes? Is this how effective leaders measure employee engagement in 2026 when tech enables top talent to collaboration from anywhere? Policies like this make employees less engaged. What are we doing here? Who is signing off on these policies? Were there literally no better ideas?! We are going to become a case study: The Collapse of the Edward Jones Culture - How Not To Lead.

Ask around and you'll hear real frustration. With Gunjan/leadership, with direction, with a culture that's betting worse, high workloads, burnout.... But turnover is basically nothing. People stay for years, sometimes decades.

That's a weird combo. Usually when people are this unhappy, they leave. So what's actually keeping everyone here?

My guesses:

Golden handcuffs. Pension, benefits, tenure perks that are hard to walk away from
Grass isn't greener thinking. Assuming other places have the same problems anyway
Complaining isn't the same as job hunting. Sometimes it's just how people vent
Not a lot of comparable roles nearby to jump to

Anyone who's been here a while, what's actually kept you?

Best part of the call “is this recorded?” 😜

0/10 would not recommend!!!! I wrote they are exploitive and my thoughts on making us all wait for this VSP. Mission Simplify is a fu--ing joke

It’s going to be a very long stressful difficult week! Hopefully we all hear the news soon and it’s everything we hope it is whatever it is we want. Good Luck everyone

This company would be nothing without them.

All new leadership coming from the outside.. And all from the same group who is moving from Company to Company

Don’t know where we’re going, so we won’t know when we get there

Even though I could be bitter and angry because I was let go, I'm not. I guess it's business after all and if that's how they want to run the company then whatever.

I am however quite shocked to be honest around the whole exit experience. I mean I knew from before that Dell doesn't really care, but the very fact that I've multiple times had to fight HR on things that were agreed on and they tried to gaslight me into thinking that I am wrong (although documents and agreements clearly says otherwise) just leaves such a bitter taste in my mouth.

Icing on the cake was when I handed in the equipment. Years ago whenever somebody left the company for whatever reason there used to be coffee, cake, somebody thanking the person and some parting gift. Now? Just handed over the equipment at the reception, not even a goodbye. Well over a decade at the company? No one cares.

I was listening to a podcast and the discussion was with a management consultant. I think they summed up the issue with Phillips 66 and this management team:

“…the macro implications of a society that is maximizing profit is that it's going to be minimizing other goods that aren't easy to quantify.”

Under Greg, there was a balance to things—a purpose. He cared about people and the legacy of the company. Yes, he was not perfect, but you knew he cared about the company, the industry, and the people.

I believe that is gone. We are just focused singularly on making more money, trying to beat the competition, and just catering g to shareholder interests. It is interesting that, despite that focus, we are falling further behind, while also giving up the soul of the company and are experiencing an erosion of culture.

In our search for profit, Phillips has abandoned its commitment to people, developing people and taking chances on people with promise. Instead, we give people a job description and tell them it is on them to prove they have the skills for the next role. We talk only in terms of shareholder interests, returns on equity/investment, and tell people we must always be focused on beating MPC, VLO and a group of companies that the management team and board are focused on.

Am I wrong? Would like other perspectives. Is Phillips still committed to people and the interests of the communities and customers we serve?

Come to think of it, I have been with the company for 10 years and almost never hear about customers. Why is that?

“You saw our preliminary results… The first step is just to own it.” We already do. Every single one of us on the ground owns our number, every quarter, no matter how the goalposts moved that quarter. So let’s talk about ownership both ways: what exactly do you own here? Not the words “own it” in a Monday message : the actual outcome. What’s the consequence for you when the results miss? Who’s putting you on a PIP?
Nobody around you says this out loud, so I will: we had real leaders who could have told you this a year ago, and they didn’t leave for a better offer .... they got pushed out because they tried to correct you. You don’t get to say “no deflection, no excuses” while the people most likely to challenge the plan are the ones no longer in the building, because they challenged it.
Maybe IBM’s software problem isn’t the market, isn’t the customers, isn’t even the products. Maybe it’s you. Look at the CROs and software leaders actually winning out there right now. do you really think they run their orgs the way you run this one? Reshuffling structure every six months, pushing out anyone who isn’t aligned, surrounding yourself with people too scared to push back? That’s not how growth companies behave. That’s how companies behave right before they lose the people who could have saved them.
And look at how these decisions actually get made: under panic, not conviction. Every reorg lands like an emergency reaction to a bad quarter, not a plan anyone thought through. And somehow, in that panic, we’re the ones treated like zero, like we can’t understand a reorg, like we’re not agile enough, like we’re the ones resisting transformation. We are exactly those things. We adapt every single time you ask us to, on a shorter timeline than any of you have to answer for. What we’re fed up with is taking transformation advice from the worst-performing leadership in the room, delivered in a panic, and then being blamed when the panic doesn’t produce results.
And on that note: when you write “we are putting more attention on software consumption,” who exactly is “we”? You and McKinsey in a slide deck, or you and the people actually sitting in front of customers who could tell you months ago that this was coming? Because from where I sit, “we” hasn’t included us in a long time : it’s included consultants who get paid regardless of whether the plan works, and employees who inherit the plan with no say in it.
“Every Second Counts” is a good line for a kitchen sign. It’s a bad operating model for enterprise software. Nobody sells real value in one or two quarters. Value takes time to build because it’s built on trust, and trust takes longer to earn back than it takes to lose. Nobody deploys software in one or two quarters either, because deployment runs on the customer’s timeline and their business needs, not ours. If every second really counts, the first thing that should buy us is more discipline before changing structures, incentives, and coverage models mid-year : not less.
Here’s my Monday growth message back to you: a leader is accountable to the people below him, not just to the market above him. That means listening to employees and customers before restructuring around them, not after. It means being able to say “I was wrong” and “this is going to take longer than I promised,” out loud, without spinning it into a hype line for the next town hall. We show up accountable every day, on our numbers, on our customers, on our word. I’m asking you to show the same thing back .... not another recap of initiatives, but an honest account of what you got wrong and what you’re doing to fix it, including how it affects the people asked to execute it with less time and fewer resources than the plan pretends.
We’re not asking for perfection. We’re asking for the truth, and for someone to actually be willing to hear it.

Senior management protects their turf, you do something to better the company like win a technology challenge and are told that you should have saved it for your own group and not shared it company wide. For that specific reason I have been canceled. No longer an e performer even though no one knows nearly how to do their job and comes running to me. I was told that I should be honored that many take my slides for their own presentations and not giving me credit.

I went to a competitor who now loves my work and also understands their competitive edge over fidelity

Look at Nike’s stock price over the past 50 years. There have been ups and downs, but nothing compares to the decline since 2020. The five-year downward trend is crazy.

It’s hard not to see this as the point where Nike went off the rails. Leadership, business strategy, and company culture all changed for the worse. I wonder how business analysts will explain what happened years from now.

Everyone should tune into 2Q earnings on Wednesday and witness “leadership’s” spin on their reality vs ours and our customers. What’s the anticipated playbook? If like other earnings or townhalls it will go something like this:
1) Credit Hoarding and Blame Deflection: Stankey will take personal credit for all successes, but scapegoat realities or market factors for any poor metrics, failures, or missed targets.
2) Spinning Data: He’ll present metrics selectively to inflate achievements while minimizing or altogether hiding negative data/results.
3) Focusing on Optics Over Substance: He’ll prioritize vanity metrics like PR splashes or superficial growth instead of addressing structural issues or the long-term sustainability of the corporation.
4) Gaslighting Employees: He’ll publicly contradict internal realities; he will claim the company is thriving while employees experience understaffing, canceled projects, and record level layoffs and burnout.
5) Silencing Dissent: He’ll negligently ignore bad news, punish employees (no matter their level) who report operational failures or low morale, and exclude critical voices from high-level conversations.
6) Lack of Empathy for Stakeholders: He’ll dismiss the toll that poor organizational performance (e.g., RTO and targeted layoffs, restructuring) takes on the workforce and quarterly results.

This place is in shambles because the people running it don't know what they're doing. Most of them got to where they are through nepotism, and it's obvious.

I'm genuinely curious. If you hate your job so much, shouldn't you be trying to get out? I'm happy where I am, and I come here because I fear losing my job, not because I hate the company. The overwhelming hate I encounter here all the time is always shocking to me.

Leave belk off resume…unless you have a huge gap in years….other big box retailers (mostly all clothing retail) will not even interview a person with belk on their resume. Belk is considered the red head stepchild of the retail world.