#toxicleadership

Let me explain how it works here. First, actual performance is irrelevant. The people who work the hardest and produce the most are seen as threats, so they get cut, while the mediocre ones who keep their heads down and do not rock the boat stay. That is the goal: mediocrity across the board. Second, if you refuse to bow to a manager who has no business leading, you are done. They will find a way to get rid of you, and when there is no legitimate case, they cheat. They will lie, plant stories, and turn your own team against you. I have seen it happen to three people, good people who simply would not accept abuse. This is not an exception. This is the entire system.

Some managers here know exactly what they're doing. They tear at you until you're too tired and too unsure to leave. They make you feel lucky to have the job so you'll keep accepting low pay and bad treatment. It's a strategy.

When your CEO states, "If you don't buy into our strategy, go work at another company" - you are, indeed, working for a toxic company that has ZERO respect for its employees. Truly unbelievable that BE made it to the CEO position!

I think what’s worse than the tangible changes being made is the culture and environment it’s creating. They lack actual leadership competency to know that with any change comes a far and wide ripple effect you have to LEAD through! In the absence of that you create irreparable chaos that flows all the way downstream. Your next level leaders fear their jobs so they start throwing down hammers, those leaders isolate in fear cause they don’t know how to cascade those messages. Employees then feel the weight of all of it knowing something is going on and watching their colleagues disappear like it’s a reaping. The stress causes people to act in ways they normal wouldn’t and it’s not good! Unethical behavior takes shape, employees suddenly view their colleagues as threats - he-l even leaders do. You create a culture of every man out for himself trying to essentially save their life while dying on the inside.
Whatever your intended outcome is, congratulations MC, you effectively destroyed your workforce in the end.

Welcome to the "AI-First" masterclass, where our CPO and his merry band of visionaries have finally cracked the code: why pay for actual human expertise when you can just sprinkle some AI dust on the office and hope for a miracle? In this brilliant new company math, one prompt-wielder is magically expected to do the work of four seasoned professionals. It’s not a "layoff," everyone—it’s AI-powered efficiency optimization. Of course, the performance ratings are pure comedy; it’s a truly impressive feat to make KPIs impossible to achieve by simply moving them every time someone gets close. It seems the only thing "scaling" around here is the leadership's delusion that deep product context and institutional knowledge are "legacy baggage" that can be replaced by a stochastic parrot that doesn't even understand the roadmap.

I’m sure they’ll have a fantastic realization right around the time the production server catches fire because the code checked in by an "elite" hire who doesn't know the internals couldn't scale, and the IIM Product Manager’s slide deck isn't enough to rescue the business. There won't be anyone left who remembers how the system actually talks to itself, but hey, at least the PowerPoint decks looked sleek, right? It is incredibly draining to watch a leadership team systematically dismantle the very infrastructure keeping the company afloat, like watching a captain celebrate "weight reduction" while tossing the lifeboats overboard.

By the way, there’s a fascinating trend where every new "Director and above" hire seems to share the same IIT (from India) pedigree, while any existing veteran—PM or Engineer—without those specific credentials is being ushered toward the exit via "carefully crafted" negative feedback and impossible goals. Yes there are a couple of hires who are not from here, but watch the broader trend. If it happened to one person, it’s an exception; when it happens across the board, it’s a blueprint for a lawsuit. What these visionaries don't realize is that the momentum for a class action is already building among those who’ve been pushed out. I’m just waiting for that legal spark to materialize so I can join in and sue the heck out of these "geniuses" for wrongful termination. I have every single Workday feedback and "Connect" saved to show exactly how the narrative suddenly shifted the moment the new regime walked in. See you in discovery.

Machiavellian...

Management loves to brag about perks and post about balance, but ignore a late night message and suddenly you are the example in a meeting. The whole wellness message rings hollow when the expectations never switch off. You can see who gets protected and who does not, and it is not subtle. I would take blunt and direct over this polished version of pressure any day.

This is the "woman" who went MIA when her workforce was being gutted with 15,000 layoffs. Now she is holding up post it notes suggesting that employees should love their employer to make the company successful.

Are other employees so delusional they buy into this nonsense? Is she that far removed from reality? Is she still smoking the same stuff that made her think employees said they wanted to return to the office and stated that in their employee surveys?

Do these executives do this stuff and then meet to laugh at how gullible their employees are?

Last Tuesday my toxic manager called me rambling about job opportunities in a certain group I should look at but when i asked her job numbers, titles etc..she just said look out there and she said not even sure there are openings in your hub but you know them so reach out. This manager also gave me my first ever IM in 29 years with no real reason so I know she targeted me because she does not like me. The last 2 1/2 years since she became my manager due to a reorg has been miserable. When she gave me IM, I told her at that time I would be looking at internal jobs but do not think she was trying to help me when she called me because there were no jobs even in the group she told me about because i asked around. She told the team a year ago she cannot tell us when she knows person will be laid off but will try to give a hint. I am going to be mad if it is the case but on the other hand will be a big relief to escape her and toxic environment. Big fear at 49 is i will have hard time finding something external. Do u think she is giving me a hint?

The level of chaos and misery that I am seeing in Irving is off the charts. I've been in corporate America for decades and I've never seen anything approaching this level of cruelty-- unfortunately I think that's the point.

Just wondering what the goal is of McKinsey and co to destroy employee good will as much as they can.

Every person who takes pride in their work learns to not only stop giving a sh-t, but extract as much as they can from the company out of pure spite. Every department has people deliberately making mistakes and slowing procedures down out of PURE SPITE because they hate this company.

When you first start, you wonder at the incompetence of literally every team around you, but then you are adopted into the culture. The culture is: Smile while doing everything possible to make the company worse and the people around you’s jobs harder. This a joint effort, and eventually you fall in line.

Senior leadership is involved in this joint effort, they pass down initiatives that they know will fail with a smile and a song, and everyone nods enthusiastically, with the same smile, and the grunt employees smile a painful grimace as they purposefully make the process even worse than it would have been initially out of pure spite. But they are still smiling, that’s the important part. Their middle managers get their bonus, the senior leaders get their bonus, everyone smiles and money flows, wasted on infinite vanity projects and processes that don’t work.

Had you asked employees who do these processed day in day out if they might work, they could have told you from the beginning. But these employees likely did express concern at one point, years ago, and learned that that is NOT the Schwab way. The Schwab way is to keep your mouth shut and smile. Everybody knows they don’t work, but that is not important. What is important is that you smile some that whichever C-Suite gets applauded for fudged numbers from their vanity project.

I don’t know how clients think our customer service is wonderful. Everyone I talk to hates their job and is confidently incorrect. It takes me, on average, 10 hours of extra work a week to fix simply mistakes made by other department. I can call five different departments and receive 5 different answers. I don’t blame them, Schwab provides no training (too expensive) and no motivation. Hurting the customer and internal business partners seems to be the only way to lash out at the company that clearly hates you.

I have overheard the supervisors and managers talking about the posts and disgruntled employees posting on this site. It truly scares them and they don't want the new hires knowing about all the dysfunction and toxicity. Some covered up safety violations and firings have been exposed and posted. I loved in a town hall the then CEO of exxon mentioned that employees were posting they were year to year contractors and that this was eroding morale. Some exxon sites operate on intimidation and fear tactics. I attended a meeting where my stupidvisor threatened everyone with insubordination and retaliation for complaining. The stupidvisor said I don t want to have to fire anyone as they had the power to do it. They took pleasure in firing several contractors in the section. It talked so bad about the terminated employees and said they just were not excon material. One employee was fired to cover up the mistake of an employee friend of the supervisor. The supervisor would go out to lunch with this protected employee. There are some real evil snakes in exxon management. Several of the safety incidents should have been reported to OSHA but the employees are to scared and intimidated to do so.

Three years ago today I was released from the bondage of a toxic, unhealthy labor environment…. Yes I choose to work there for 20 years with the mindset that it will get better. IF you’re not appreciated financially for what you do then LEAVE! They don’t deserve your talents.
Next step… to make sure the public knows that they were found guilty on three charges of Military Discrimination… yes you heard me!!! Maybe a Presidential Complaint (that is where you file a complaint against … fill in blank) is on the horizon.. :)

This is the first weekend in god knows how long that I've spent completely carefree and relaxed. I know it might come back to bite me if I end up jobless for months, but I intend to enjoy this brief moment of freedom to the fullest. Yes, I felt like cr-p when I was told. But the feeling didn't last long. I realized quickly how much I'd lost perspective while being su-ked into TD. I deeply appreciated some of the great teammates I had, and definitely did not appreciate my most recent manager, the bad leadership that set the toxic culture, or the badly designed job. Anyway, I wish all the best to my now-jobless fellows and to my former colleagues.

Pros: a few decent coworkers who aren't management.
Cons: everything else. Bad management, zero work-life balance, toxic politics, no growth, no security. The list goes on and on. Says a lot when the only good thing is some of the people.

The way some of these managers treat people is disgusting. They tear you down like it's sport. The atmosphere is thick with anxiety. FIS has no future if this is who's running the show.

Just trust what this leadership team tells you. Look past the quarter-zip smiles and forced enthusiasm and you will see a mountain of corporate spin. CP called out “incredible collaboration” this week...People at desks were not collaborating they were talking about how bad this place has become and looking to duck when you walk by. At least two leaders on this panel are openly planning their exits and they are not invested in fixing anything.... like you they want out. Watch the clown show from yesterday if you think that translates into work-life balance for you ask yourself why. Here’s what this really means for you. Every keystroke is tracked. Independent thinking is gone even when you are right, you follow “Crown math.” Your work feeds leadership payouts, not long term stability. This ends the same way it always does. Leadership cashes out and another company gets stripped down. You deal with the fallout masked as 'goals' and “Clear” and “transparent” are just words here like PURPLE was... how'd that go. Their face and actions tell a different story. I have only 1 question. Are you listening to what they say, or watching what they do? Just look at each face even they can no longer play the game. Shame

Badge swipes, the president of SMS going desk to desk to make sure we are here, constant questions about where we are.

So glad I've given 10 years of my life to a company who thinks we deserve to be treated this way.

Public sector employees were told on Monday "don't get sick, don't take care giver days, don't take bereavement days, especially don't need surgery that will require an extended absense. Basically just work anyway.". Apparently they need to maximize charging to every contract and any illness by yourself, your family, or even death in the family minimizes the ability to charge a contract. And if you are so sick that you can't come in, were told to work weekends to make up the time. People were given a target of number of hours to charge in the year and it was basically calculated to be the total work hours in a year subtracted by your allotted vacation hours.

Also were told that if you do actually take too many sick days or caregiver days, your manager will be notified because they'll assume you really could have worked anyway.

That's on top of the other things the rest of the company is doing to make time spent in the office horrible (no assigned desks, etc). Apparently HR has no problem with this policy or was too weak to contest it being presented.

Hello,

I apologize if this is the wrong board for this post. I currently work for Verizon Business as senior account manager. I am considering transferring to t-mobile business as an account executive on the smb team as a req will be opening soon due to attrition. I am currently making about 120k per year but want to leave due the extremely toxic management culture I inherited from our recent round of layoffs. My question is mainly, can I expect to make around similar pay at 120k at TFB on the smb team or will it be a pay cut? I greatly appreciate any insight have a blessed day.

We work for a greedy, immoral company. I will openly admit that I am too nervous to move after 5 years. I am a coward.

This new comp plan is the final straw for me. And before you knock sales people, remember that 40% of our salary is at risk and we have no control
over what ships.

I never imagined working for a company that I now want to see fail so badly. I never thought it was possible to wish the worst on JC, MD and the rest of those pasty-faced, smug money-grubbers and their rubber-faced spouses.

I can always get behind a culture that pushes you hard to grow. I can’t deal with one that disrespects everyone and belittles anyone based on rank. It’s stupid. A job here isn’t worth any dollar amount. Bill is a creepy dude. Why work here? What does that say about you? I’m out of here.

Had a mid career experienced hire employee tell me he just likes to keep his head down and let his work speak for itself. He is on the fast track for a PIP. The psychos will notice and take huge advantage of him. I tried to warn him.

since when did USAA become so brutal. It's very traumatic and damaging mentally of someone escorted out with hundreds of eyes staring. Nobody wants to be shamed publicly.

Anyone?

Hi guys, JW here. It is now near the end of the transformation notifications and I just want to say that I am truly proud of everyone for showing up to work.

To those we severed and to those we are forcing to leave (in one form or another), I’d like to say thank you for maximizing shareholder value. Thank you for the long hours and free labour.

To those who chose to stay and were notified of fulfilling positions, the company isn’t done draining the life force out of you. We will eventually and in due time also cut you out. Extend our sincerest thanks to your family for uprooting their lives to move and support your ending career.

And just a reminder to please refrain from disclosing or sharing any confidential or proprietary information outside of the company you love and trust.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

I think Muse's Dead Inside should be Chevron's new theme song especially these lyrics. The leadership and company has no soul left....they are Dead Inside

You're free to touch the sky
Whilst I am crushed and pulverised
Because you need control
Now I'm the one who's letting go

You like to give an inch
Whilst I am giving infinity
But now I've got nothing left
You have no cares and I'm bereft

I have about 6 names I have filed away deep into memory, and I have a very long memory. There is a small chance that one day in the future your name will cross my desk and I will remember you. I will remember how you lied, manipulated and gamed the system to stack rank good people to force them out the door. I will remember your lack of ethics. If that day ever comes know this: I will remember you, and I will be sure to exert whatever influence I have to reciprocate after you burned that bridge.

Also know this, there are thousands of others like me who will remember you. They will also remember how Wells Fargo treated them. Eventually the damage to your reputation, and the firms, will catch up to you.

There comes a time when we must come to terms with being led by malicious, unethical, psychopaths. Protect yourself, they will eat you tomorrow if they believe they can gain anything.

and for the love of whatever higher power you do or don't believe in, whistle blow outside the organization not within it. They are smothering honest reports

Everything has gotten more dysfunctional and dystopian, meanwhile we are constantly gaslighted about culture and empathy.

Senior leaders have a certain mindset:

• do not consider employees as anything but expendable underlings
• do not consider employees wellbeing or fair pay
• company culture must be extremely toxic
• do not care about the quality of products or services or innovation
• do not care about the overall company reputation or viability
• only thing that matters is increasing compensation of senior leadership -no matter the cost or consequence
• although overwhelming majority of revenue comes from US customers, the US employees do not matter whatsoever
• if you are based in Mexico or another developing country, you get career advancement in the short term
• almost a billion dollars must be spent on acquiring AI tools that will replace humans. Better if such procurement also grants kickbacks to senior leadership
• any remaining humans must be worked to death (ideally) or they must be fired for any reason of your choosing. No empathy allowed.

Anything else to add? Who are the worst leaders?

This place post RIF has become a toxic nightmare. Where does upper management get off threatening employees with being fired on the daily and refer to us as mentally handicapped and cant get the job done. Upper management needs to realize sitting in a office everyday and sending passive agressive emails does not do anything besides makes us want to do less. This place is toxic and is a joke only a matter of time before we are sold or the government bails us out.

Listen up, every spineless Senior Director at this sinking ship: either pack your bags and bail now, or admit you’ve got no guts left in you. You’ve all morphed into soulless automatons, spewing scripted nonsense like you’re programmed by some greedy algorithm. For once, drop the corporate facade and talk to your teams like actual humans—with empathy, honesty, and a shred of respect—instead of hiding behind buzzwords and empty promises.
The SLT? They’re force-feeding us a steady stream of pure bullsh-t, letting corporate greed hit stratospheric levels while pretending it’s “strategic evolution.” How about you finally grow a conscience and do the right damn thing? My TFB managers are being shoved into executing half-baked schemes they know are doomed to fail—wasting time, burning out talent, and ki-ling morale just to pad some executive bonuses. If this company’s employees are as top-tier as you keep bragging, then prove it: rally the he-l up, unite as one unbreakable force, and push back against this toxic tide before it drowns us all.
Mark my words, everyone’s about to feel like absolute garbage once this hits full force—it’ll cascade like a rotten avalanche, crushing every level from the C-suite down to the front lines. By the close of Q1, you’ll be begging for a layoff with severance just to escape the misery, because this “restructuring” is a slow-motion disaster in disguise. We all know this place ain’t the innovative powerhouse it was under better days, but etch this quarter in stone as the official nosedive into the abyss. You id--ts pushed every wrong button by sc--wing with TFB.
To any Directors clinging on after this bloodbath: time to sprout some real ba--s and stand for something, or slink away in shame. And managers? Cut the gaslighting cr-p—I’ve spotted too many of you already twisting truths to “keep the peace.” Own up, be transparent, and tell your teams the unvarnished reality: the ship’s taking on water, the captains are clueless, and it’s time we all grab oars or jump ship together. Let’s turn this outrage into action—unionize, speak out, demand accountability—because if we don’t fight now, we’ll all regret it when the pink slips start flying. Who’s with me? Let’s reclaim what made this company great before the greed monsters devour it whole!

For the better part of past 2.5 years, my manager has been "dangling the carrot" in front of me as a promise to give me opportunities but reality is I have to find my own ways to showcase my work.

I have noticed this snake keeps shutting down my thoughts / ideas in group calls.

Apart from that, there's a pattern I noticed of finding ways / excuse to invalidate my work as well as giving a new joinee in the team more opportunities, asking team to reach out to them for assistance (if any).

Is this normal at Fido?

There needs to be a real reckoning with what unchecked corporate power does to human beings.

What happened to EMC after the Dell takeover wasn’t just a business shift. It was a dismantling. A culture was stripped, people were discarded, and decades of loyalty were erased, all in service of financial objectives set by someone who would never bear the consequences. That kind of damage doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when wealth insulates leadership from humanity.

But it doesn’t stop at the billionaire level.
What made it even more disturbing was watching the layers of managers beneath them fall in line like puppets. The obedient middle tier. People who traded conscience for proximity to power. Who repeated corporate talking points as if they were truth, never questioning the harm being done, never stopping to ask who was paying the price.

That is the most chilling part: how programmed it all is. How sleepwalking managers enforce decisions they didn’t make, defend outcomes they wouldn’t survive, and convince themselves they are just doing their jobs. Completely unaware, or unwilling to be aware, of how thoroughly money and hierarchy have overridden their moral compass. This isn’t leadership. It is extraction enabled by obedience. It is cruelty made efficient by people who mistake compliance for professionalism.

If we are going to talk about accountability, it cannot stop with the billionaires at the top. It also has to include the systems and the people who carry out harm while telling themselves it is normal, necessary, or inevitable.

It is not.

Verizon CHRO: Retaining Top Talent!!!

Mind blowing: McKinsey, high performers deliver 800% more output than average employees.

Proven tips to retain top talent:

1. Overpay to keep your top performers
2. Make recognition the default
3. Listen to what energizes your team and lean into it
4. Address toxic behavior immediately
5. Be soft on the person and hard on the problem
6. Trust people with as much autonomy as possible
7. Implement meeting-free days
8. Normalize frequent feedback
9. Remove friction to let your top people thrive

The age of pizza parties and ping-pong tables as retention strategies is over.

Use these 9 tips to invest meaningfully in your highest performers and they’ll reinvest in the business tenfold.

After cutting 20+% FTEs and 50-75% contractors the work remains the same. Management is ok to do the resources cut but no spine in negotiating the deliveries.

On one side we hear reorg and new priorities are not out. On the other side selfish, gutless leaders are just pushing deliveries to save themselves with less resources

When will software engineering managers especially in multi-family finally be let go? Fannie can survive without them, and may even thrive. Too many managers lack technical expertise and real credibility. It’s hard to understand how they were hired in the first place? Instead of leading, they create toxic work environments, master office politics and bureaucracy to confuse hardworking engineers, and show blatant favoritism toward their loyalists. Their contributions rarely go beyond empty buzzwords. They constantly talk about AI, yet demonstrate little real to no understanding of it.
Why does Fannie need these hypocrites?

I joined T-Mobile late last year and was let go on Tuesday. I'm in my late twenties with a technical degree and passed on another offer because the role seemed stable. It's hard to understand how hiring keeps going when cuts are clearly coming. Staying in touch with recruiters turned out to be the smartest move I made.