#fear

A good friend of mine who has inside knowledge shared with me that your company is now 100% monitored.

It's a contracted service, and they are to monitor everything. The threshold for flagging and reporting is at the lowest bar. The service started in October and the service continues to March 2026.

I'm not sure why the sudden mistrust, but it's disturbing to be working under a microscope.

What is the purpose of this?

My source said that I should share with my trusted coworkers, but I don't even know who I can trust anymore.

I'm almost at the point where I hope layoffs happen, just so I can move on from the constant thinking and stressing over it. It's inhumane to say layoffs are coming and then just...what? Let us wait? Hope the stress is enough to get us to walk out on our own and save them some money? Is that what's happening here?

We might get one big round that everyone’s waiting for, but it won’t be the end. We can expect smaller, targeted cuts to keep happening for months until things look the way they want them to. None of us will be safe for a long time. Sadly, this is just our reality now.

Anyone else feel the same?

Same stories as the Trane posting. Leaders want you to keep quiet.

I’ve only been hearing rumors, and they vary wildly. I’d really like to have at least some sense of what’s coming, because I’m genuinely worried about my job, like I imagine most of us are. The job market is terrible, and the bills don’t stop.

We don’t need extra stress on top of looming layoffs. Some might find it amusing that people are reading too much into that org chart, but they should also realize many are genuinely terrified about their jobs. For some, losing it would have serious, life-changing consequences. I understand people panicking. What I don’t understand is how those paid to run this place can’t handle something as critical as layoffs more competently.

I’m really worried about my job. This is not a good time to end up in a precarious situation.

Name the role that encompasses this toxic behavior!

(The biggest red flag at work is when no one ever disagrees with the boss to their face. Unless you want to be a target).

Here’s why:

1. People are scared, not respectful, because speaking up feels like a career ending move.

2. The boss is insulated from reality. If leaders only hear what they want, not what they need, they become dangerously out of touch. That’s how companies rot from the top down.

3. It breeds a culture of fake smiles and resentment. Everyone plays nice in meetings, then tears the whole thing apart in private.

4. Bad ideas go unchallenged. Without pushback, people make poor decisions.

5. High performers leave. Fast. Talented people don’t stick around in echo chambers. They want to contribute, challenge, and grow, not tiptoe around egos.

https://www.engadget.com/gaming/blizzard-teams-working-on-hearthstone-and-warcraft-rumble-unionize-182104024.html

If any of you were around in 2015 (I think?) for the layoffs/merch transformation— what was it like? Was it devastating and terrible? Did morale plummet? I’m trying to brace myself for what’s to potentially come, and not just the mass layoff itself but the entire gravity of the situation. I’ve been at Target since 2018 but I’m still young, not married, don’t own a house, etc. If I lose my job I don’t know what the he-l I’m going to do or how I’ll achieve any of the goals I hoped I would in the next few years. I’m so scared.

How bad is going to get?

Oooof!

Why did CP announce layoffs the better part of a year before it was scheduled to happen?
Answer: To create a culture of fear to squeeze harder work and backstabbing from its employees. An employee in deep fear is a desperate employee, especially in times of industry decline, and many will do anything to keep their job, to include going the extra mile to make co-workers look bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MohJLPgutKQ

Investors have parted with unprecedented sums of money to help AI fulfil its lofty promise. But no one really knows how it will all pay off.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-fears-trillion-dollar-ai-130008034.html

Is it just UHG picking org charts, or is it the VP's Directors, offering up people on bigger teams as tribunes?

This is how I see things going from a logical point of view. Look up what happens within a company before layoffs. Wayfair is going through a good portion of the list they say to watch for. I think most if us will be safe until after peak. They are moving around a lot of employees right now. If you think you are safe because you are a top performer think again. View the the list. Top performers are not safe. We are expensive. Be careful. They will look for any reason to let us go. They will be letting go of a percentage of us before the new year. Better for the bottom line and more profits for the last quarter. Many more after peak. Do your own research on the signs. Good Luck.

It isn't hard to see that Humana has a leadership that is designed to lead by fear. This isn't done in an obvious manner, it's covert. The constant threats of RIFs, PIPS, DAs, reorgs, etc are designed to keep you in lock step, constantly aiming for perfection least you become a target. It's sickening that humans are treated this way by a "human" company. The founders would be appalled and ashamed by what this company has become. I have never in my life known of a more oppressive company. Yet, people stay- until they don't and it is only when they don't that they understand what has happened to them.

It’s no longer a job, it’s survival mode every single day. Layoffs keep rolling in like clockwork and management counts on everyone being too scared to fight back - and they're right! Everybody stays quiet and the bullying and power trips just keep getting worse. I’ve never seen morale this wrecked or people this scared to breathe wrong at work.

Punish first, play favorites second, repeat. After a while I stopped thinking of this as a career and started seeing it for what it is: a place where it's all about surviving another day without getting crushed.

This used to be an amazing place to work. Now, you can feel the fear every day. People whisper, avoid eye contact, and no one wants to stick their neck out. It’s exhausting just being around it. I think full RTO would cause me to quit just so I can avoid having to deal with that throughout the whole week. Could be just my location, though.

It's a nightmare trying to find a job right now. I hate my job, but I've never been more scared of losing it because of the state of the job market. So many laid off folks are sending out hundreds of resumes and can’t even get a callback. It's a scary time for sure.

I don't think I've ever dreaded Mondays as much as in the past few weeks. With everything that's been happening, just thinking about work gives me anxiety. I think I need a new job.

Not because I’m crazy about this job or the company, but because it’s really bad out there. My wife lost her job six months ago and still hasn’t found anything even remotely decent or in her field. I’m terrified of becoming jobless too. Honestly, the IT job market seems even worse than her industry. I hate what’s happening to all of us.

I just keep thinking, if they lay me off, what happens with my health insurance? I’ve got bills, prescriptions, and a family depending on it. Losing a paycheck is one thing, but losing coverage on top of that feels terrifying.

Are we supposed to continue living in constant fear indefinitely?

Hey Staples folks. Coming from a concerned Walgreens employee that just learned your ex CEO Michael Motz is now CEO of Walgreens. What do we have to look forward to? Is he good, bad? Pros? Cons? Is it all really doom n gloom from here on out? Don’t care for the fear mongering but curious what we potentially have in our future?

Thanks!

We refuse to pretend everything is fine.

We work in a company where people vanish from the org chart without warning, while executives celebrate imaginary victories and spout empty slogans about growth and culture. They tell us to be all-in, to treat this like our future. And yet we can be discarded at any moment, without reason, without acknowledgment.

This is not a culture of excellence; it’s a culture of quiet fear.

You cannot demand total effort while offering zero stability.

You cannot preach loyalty while practicing disposability.

You cannot expect people to build their lives when the ground is constantly being pulled out from under them.

This system is psychologically poisonous.

It breeds anxiety, distrust, and a permanent state of fight-or-flight.

We smile through it, but we are exhausted.

We produce, but we do not thrive.

We comply, but we do not believe.

We refuse the gaslighting. We refuse the fake optimism. We refuse the expectation that we should sacrifice everything for companies that can erase us overnight.

We deserve honesty. We deserve stability. We deserve the basic dignity of being able to plan our lives without living in quiet te---r.

Enough.