#culture

People keep telling me that should be enough. We've just accepted that we have to take the uncertainty, the disrespect, the constant stress, all so we can pay the bills. But that's not actually enough. We spend most of our waking lives at work, often doing overtime, and there's no meaning to any of it beyond the money. Is it any wonder people are burnt out and hate their jobs?

Corporations are not necessarily pulling the plug on AI, but the initial, unbridled "gold rush" has definitely hit a wall of operational reality. The corporate approach has shifted from a frantic race to adopt any AI tool to a much more cautious, calculated, and sometimes frustrated effort to find actual business value.

The current landscape reveals why companies are reconsidering their initial "rush" strategy, pivoting toward a more structured approach:

1. The Productivity-to-ROI Disconnect

During the initial hype, the assumption was that massive individual productivity gains (like writing code or drafting copy five times faster) would automatically translate to corporate profitability. It hasn't. Recent data, including a 2026 enterprise study by Writer, shows that nearly half (48%) of C-suite executives now call their AI adoption a massive disappointment, and only about 29% are seeing a significant return on investment (ROI). Companies are realizing that adding expensive AI tools on top of messy, inefficient legacy processes just creates faster chaos, not better outcomes.

1. Strategy "For Show" vs. Reality

There is a growing, uncomfortable realization in boardrooms that early AI roadmaps were built more for investors and public relations than for actual internal execution. In fact, three-quarters of executives admit their company's AI strategy has been "more for show" than actual operational guidance. Leaders are hitting severe bottlenecks when trying to scale experimental pilot programs into production-ready enterprise workflows.

1. Culture Clashes and the "Two-Tiered" Workplace

The rush to implement AI has triggered significant internal friction.

The "AI Elite" vs. Non-Adopters:

Management is aggressively rewarding power users while planning to phase out employees who resist the technology.

Trust Deficits:

According to Cox Business research, nearly 50% of employees hide how much they rely on AI at work due to a lack of clear corporate policies, paired with a lingering fear (around 47%) that the technology will eventually eliminate their jobs.

Loss of Top Talent:

Gartner warned that companies focusing strictly on cutting payroll rather than training their people to use autonomous tools risk losing their best specialized AI talent to competitors.

1. Severe Security Gaps ("Shadow AI")

When corporate IT departments didn't move fast enough to provide official AI tools, employees took matters into their own hands. This explosion of "shadow AI"—workers dropping proprietary code, sensitive financial spreadsheets, or customer data into unapproved, public LLMs—has terrified risk officers. Two-thirds of executives believe their companies have already suffered data breaches or compliance risks due to these unmanaged tools, forcing a hard pause to establish strict governance frameworks.

The Shift to "Agentic" and People-Centric Models

Instead of backing away from AI entirely—corporate spending remains incredibly high—organizations are drastically rewriting their execution playbooks. The "rush" is being replaced by two specific trends:

Moving to Agentic Workflows:

Companies are moving away from simple prompt-and-response chatbots and focusing on specialized "AI agents" built to handle specific, cross-functional business workflows with centralized IT guardrails.

The 80/20 Rule:

Forward-thinking organizations are abandoning the idea of total human replacement. Instead, they are structuring roles around an 80/20 model:

80% of roles are "human-led, AI-augmented" (the Ironman approach, where human judgment is non-negotiable), and 20% are "AI-led, human-supervised" (for high-volume, low-risk, repetitive tasks).

Ultimately, corporate America is learning that while adopting AI technology takes weeks, successfully restructuring a workforce to actually benefit from it takes years. The current pause isn't a retreat; it's a strategic realignment.

_

Work just does not happen anymore. Every morning brings a new set of priorities and by afternoon they have changed again. Projects get announced and then abandoned before anyone finishes the first task. People vanish from the org chart overnight with no explanation. Managers are drowning. I have stopped trying to achieve anything meaningful. Now I just float and hope nothing sinks me. Most of my coworkers seem to be doing the same.

I keep seeing some certain white dudes who never rose above Sr. Director at Nike (or anywhere!) promote themselves on LinkedIn as having been a Vice-President. Nothing says executive presence like a title from the imagination department. Anyone else see this out there??? WTF???

Why does C suite not get any punishment for tanking the stock price? All they know how to do is cut headcount and make objectively bad decisions.

We’re going to spend 2B on building this Plano Campus for no fu---n reason. Wow!! Why do we not have any money?? Guess we’ll have to make employee cuts ! We’re going to spend billions on RTO, wow, why do we not have any money? Time to cull the cattle again! We’re going to buy TWD, we’re going to give tmobile 4 billion dollars, we’re going to buy directv! Oh, I’m actually stupid?? Let’s go cut more cattle and give myself a raise for my hard work.

The layoffs in June are going to be nuclear. PoliSci Legg’s d-mb as fu-k AI push has the whole company on Microsoft’s leash, and co pilot is getting 6x more expensive starting in June. It is an abhorrent failure. He has successfully capped top performer’s usage, and given too much usage to pea brains that ask AI what the weather is today. The cost and mismanagement will be insurmountable, so layoffs of at least 10% will happen.

And all the while, the guy making 30 mil for je-king off in his office and saying “Fiber” all day is perfectly safe, somehow. The stock is down 17% in 10 years, what does he even do? Why do these guys have jobs? They contribute nothing to society but leach from the money made by employees.

It's been so helpful when managers explain processes in this debacle. It's a risk for them to do so, but it is much appreciated. The struggle here is real, your perspective is invaluable.

It's been interesting seeing where these newly hired people are located.

Honestly, it makes me furious. It’s embarrassing and even disgusting to know I work at the same company as these people, even if we’re not in the same department. During such a tough time, when so many teams and colleagues are heartbroken while handing over their work to leave, there are actually some twisted individuals in these anonymous threads gloating over it.
Everyone in my group (at least on the surface) would never stoop that low. The reality is, our roles are different, and whether we bring value really just depends on the company’s strategic direction. When our work no longer aligns with where the company is heading—and let's be real, that’s often completely out of our control—we get laid off. It’s a helpless, sad situation for everyone involved.
So to whoever is gloating right now: no matter who you are, you are the absolute worst, and incredibly stupid. You’re nothing more than a number that just lived on the survive on the list this time.
The people who got laid off will use their talent to land even better jobs elsewhere. As for you? You’d better pray you don't get cut, because you’d be left with absolutely nothing.

We’re failing because there isn’t a single leader including our crybaby CEO who is willing to cut through the bureaucracy, say what’s actually happening, and get sh-t done. Instead we get endless semi-emotional town halls.

This is a job and not a family. I’m here to make a paycheck to support my actual family. And right now? Compensation is embarrassing.

At this point I’d rather work for ruthless leadership that executes than leaders who cry in interviews while the company drifts in circles.

We used to be obsessed with winning. Now we are the poster child of “winning isn’t for everyone including us”

My three kids are all in high school right now, my oldest son and his two younger sisters, all just a year apart. He’s getting ready to pack up for college here soon, it’s hitting me hard. For the longest time, I thought I knew exactly how to guide him. I figured a solid field like software engineering or business was the way to go. But looking at what’s happening at my own job and this company, and seeing the entire office now Indian and all this AI tech... I'm not sure what to suggest. At the same time, I’m terrified of them just picking a lib arts major, drowning in student loans, and ending up without a job. We learned that lesson the hard way. My wife went to an Ivy League for a degree that took us years to pay off with no return(never do it). I love my kids more than anything. They have so much life in them. It breaks my heart to imagine them ending up in some WF type office, surrounded by the exhausted, lifeless faces I see every day, working for a evil CEO who doesn't care about them at all. I want them to be happy with their life.

A commenter said: “leadership needs to be realistic about the culture issue. There are people on both sides who clearly don’t even want to be here anymore. Fine — give those people strong packages and let them move on. That is not the reality at VZ. It was demomstrated that VZ is a cliquish club. They downsize those who they dont like. They dis not care about performance.

For the Devon side - this one should sound familiar. “Many managers actively avoid confrontation or honest feedback because it requires emotional maturity. Rather than doing the job they are paid for, these individuals let problems fester until they become so disruptive that higher-ups mandate cuts to clear out the bloat”

Cisco doesn’t care about you, why should you care about Cisco? Why work hard to make projects successful.

Verizon’s side of the house seriously needs to adapt some of the ways Frontier operates because, frankly, Frontier has always done certain things better. Faster execution, scrappier teams, less bureaucracy, and way less unnecessary process wrapped around every tiny initiative.

If I get added to one more Slack channel for something that could’ve been a two-sentence message, I’m going to scream. The amount of overcomplication is exactly why work slows down.

And leadership needs to be realistic about the culture issue. There are people on both sides who clearly don’t even want to be here anymore. Fine — give those people strong packages and let them move on. But keep the people who actually care, execute, innovate, and know how to get things done without turning every task into a 40-slide deck and six approvals.

Not everything has to be “the Verizon way.” Sometimes the better answer is already sitting right in front of you.

Why does John Stankey's teams status right now show last seen yesterday? It does not show he is out of office or anything like that. Why is the CEO of a Fortune 50 company not working on a Friday that he is scheduled to work?

I had to do a 1 hour commute to the office and back in the middle of a busy workday so that my presence report shows that I was there. Why does the CEO get a free pass and I cannot? Is he playing at the Highland Park links today?

Welcome to the penny stock category. Well done C-level - we'll deserved mega compensation packages.

That tells you a lot about the 'executive' ability of the lineup that steers this ship.

Top of the leaderboard again. Year after year:

https://x.com/TheLayoff/status/2055330545052381473

Thanks for sitting down with the Houston Business Journal, M@rk. Another example of time away from the office to manage your image while the CEOs at MPC and VLO are in the office leading.

And “responding to what the world needs” is an example of M@rk overestimating the company he is supposed to be leading. Phillips contributes, sure, but the tone shows arrogance and lack of awareness of the real scope of this domestic mid con business. At the moment, all supplying the world has done is ki-l earnings and increase volatility and led to MASSIVE underperformance vs peers

VTP?? It's not to be.....
Cause AT&T is here to stay.....
All the way.....

Long ago MDT was all about patients and customers and everyone lined up to support that. Then they started to get functional leaders who thought their functions were more important than the mission.

HR used to be a support function with a generalist per dept or function that knew people, helped hire, fire, promote, set pay..... then HR decided they were too important to work that way and needed to specialize to be more efficient., so they pulled all the features apart and created leaders for each.

Now you have, maybe, a generalist who might know you but they are spread across many teams.

You also have recruiters, who are called "talent acquisition" with all their own rules.

You have job leveling experts who review individuals against the job family rubrics to decide if they agree someone can be promoted.

You have compensation experts who decided what people can be paid.

You have "human capital insights" who run the global voices survey.

You have the Org design experts who know how you should be structured, spans and layers and such.

You have data teams, HR systems teams, who hold all the info.

You have pay disparity teams that go through your organization and send you a mandate to change someones pay to make things more fair (though never with any incremental funding to implement, you need to find it in your own cost center)

And you of course have D&I considerations.

As a manager, this has made work so much more complicated and difficult, but its done in the name of excellence in HR?

Now you see it repeating in Operations, etc...... All at the expense of the mission, patients and customers.

Amongst all the doom and gloom I think leadership has finally started to talk about doing the basics right. 10 years wasted on trying to be a tech company and now that tech is ubiquitous thanks to AI, the leadership can finally focus on building decent cars again. Here's to hoping for better years after demise of phony leaders 🙏

Intuit fires people due to Covid. Intuit fires people due to AI. Intuit fires people silently from time to time. Intuit only cares about $.

A vegan diet may be in order.

https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/chuck-robbins-2270936687.jpg?resize=1200,865

I had an American Airlines card from Barclays. Two days back, Barclays switched off my account saying i should deal with Citi now via landingatciti.com. Of course the website doesn't work. I would have been shocked if it did.
Then Citi sends an email about account having been migrated and payments should now be made to Citi blah blah blah. Click the link to set up the account...nothing. That website doesn't work either

Absolute d-mb@sses. Of course, I saw the incompetency from way too up close when employed at Citi. The ONLY thing that seems to work without a hitch at Citi is A) Board approving billions in share buybacks every year despite heavy layoffs and B) Jane getting salary bumps and bonuses every year. It will soon fo from 42M to 45 and then to 50.

Anything else is a total mess at Citi

Hehehe an entire team is about to put in their notice because of the way this company is being run

I've seen post on here dissecting and criticizing some of the collabs Nike has at the moment. Some of which has been relatively successful, like the Travis Scott collab. I haven't seen anyone pick apart the Drake line tho. That may have been one of the worst investments by Nike.

Nocta has really been a lackluster for the Nike and considering how big of an artist Drake is, he's never been someone people looked to for style, like never. Definitely wasted opportunity there.

Let's see how deep we go today

I was not able to make it. How was the food? Was it crowded? Did everyone get stock shares or a car?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-15/germany-s-merz-says-he-wouldn-t-advise-his-children-work-in-us?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc3ODg0ODU2NiwiZXhwIjoxNzc5NDUzMzY2LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJURjJSUFlUOU5KTFMwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJFMjYzRDA4MENGRjY0MDA0QjkyRDM1MEIwNTE4QjEzMCJ9.RUbY5XoiGe4klBSUVOd3eJKwVga-rsRbYtI7pMBuPMA

might as well say what we all know. each day is like watching a trainwreck even latest clueless strat team knows emrs poor planning and short staffed centers wont work. investors coming to collect in 2027 the worst for patients and staff is coming. referrals to a handful of places no lcsws and demotions for all the poor staff left holding the po-p bag. playbooks trainings and daily new workflows wont stop the terrible reputation centerH$ll now has. psa: riffing people then posting their jobs that week is trash.

No other way to really explain it.

I've been in "corporate america" long enough to understand that the decision to surplus you often goes beyond just performance or willingness to improve, it often hinges on the fact if your supervisor or leadership chain like you. If they don't like you or you're always seeming to cause a problem, you're likely one of the first to be selected.

For some reason, and don't ask...lol...I did a random Nielsen search on reddit, and sure enough the first thing that came up was an 18yr old thread from back in the day during the original Nielsen demolition by Calhoun/Habib regarding their "genius" idea that deleting the "reply all" button in our Microsoft Outlook emails would save money! Lol. Man, I remember this like it was yesterday. This would have been circa 2008, about 2 years into the "transformation." And here we are all these years later!

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7ttuo/nielsen_deletes_replytoall_button/

I wish I would have been in SVP or D level to not get axed. So far what I have seen only these levels are in decision panel and only vp avp getting cut. Which makes no sense though because they again hire new resources for those positions once the wave is crossed. They don't have any idea what are they doing (an ordinary VP has better understanding) just thinking themselves as king and cutting people they don't like not on merit.

Go here https://www.forbes.com/lists/employers-culture/ and tell me I'm not seeing things. Edward Jones in at No. 21?

I think about all the talented people who have left this place not through layoffs but on their own. So many of them left because of ego clashes or small misunderstandings that could have been resolved if anyone had just acted like an adult. Treating people with respect works so much better than ruling through fear. EJ never figured that out.

It’s a dirty game. They rank their own favorites at the top, then use those inflated rankings to hand them spotlight roles, visible projects, keynote slots, everything. And because those opportunities are handed to them on a silver platter, they get ranked high again. It’s a sick cycle. I wish some one tells new hires its not about your work its the way they choose to see your work

Some one tell him stop with the navi hoodies and high tops. I am embarrassed for all of you

How long are the investors going to buy that this company is going to do better because they’re going “back to basics?”

Answer:
Forever.

Bleed 🩸 money