#trust

Let me get this straight, Dan is Mr. AI, sits on multiple AI company boards, can clearly see in the the future so much that he slashes 13k jobs because AGI is 10 months away. But he only does email? Wait Mr. AI only does email a century old technology and doesn’t like slack a new technology with tons of AI functions. Yeah I don’t buy his little AI story. Hans was ousted by a coupe and Dan is trying to boost his pockets along with other prominent shareholders before Starlink takes ours and TMOs lunch.

There was a time when working here meant something. Now the dominant emotion is exhaustion. Pride has been replaced by fear and trust is all gone. Whatever made this company special did not survive the last few years.

I heard about this on our layoff page for my company and how y'all had 100,000 hits on one thread and like 4000 employees asking for your help. I came on here to look and didn't plan on commenting and wondered how y'all let this get this out of control and hurt so many of y'alls employees when this looks like an easy thing to do to gain y'alls employees trust again. Then I remembered the name of y'alls company and called my friend in our procurement and sure enough, y'all are a supplier. So now they are looking at this thinking they shouldn't be. Bless y'all but it seems like y'all should listed to your employees and take care of them. This is just not needed and it hurts what we call your 'brand'. SMH

Dell’s recent brand unification—and the apparent reversal back to older brands next year—stands as a textbook example of how not to manage brand strategy.

Brand changes are expensive by design. They consume money, time, internal focus, and customer attention. When done right, that investment buys clarity, momentum, and long-term equity. When done poorly, it delivers the opposite: confusion, fatigue, and erosion of trust. Unfortunately, Dell’s approach seems to fall squarely into the latter category.

Unifying brands only to roll them back shortly after signals a lack of conviction and strategic coherence. Customers are left wondering what Dell actually stands for. Partners struggle to align messaging. Employees are forced to relearn narratives that may soon be discarded again. None of this creates value—it destroys it.

The most troubling part isn’t the wasted marketing spend or the operational churn. It’s what this reveals about leadership. Strong leadership makes hard decisions, commits to them, and sees them through with discipline. Weak leadership oscillates, reacts, and reverses course without fully absorbing the consequences.

Brand strategy isn’t a logo exercise. It’s a long-term promise to the market. Changing that promise repeatedly tells customers one thing very clearly: we’re not sure who we are.

In an era where trust, clarity, and consistency matter more than ever, this kind of back-and-forth is not just inefficient—it’s damaging. And the cost will be paid not in rebranding budgets, but in lost credibility

Hey everyone. Ex-FR here from a PM Market, laid off beginning of the summer. just got the strangest text. My old boss has reached out to me and said that there is an open FR position. I’m curious if others have been approached due to people jumping ship or if because SMP didn’t go well and they need more hands on deck? Don’t think they can offer me enough that would bring me back after I’ve tasted freedom along with kicking me to the curb after 9 years out of nowhere.

Thinking about Dan’s fireside chat on Friday I’ve come to the conclusion it boils down to whether people will trust him or not and if they believe him or not.

Let’s be honest he’s not big on details…so it feels like a leap of faith right now and can people move on from 15000 layoffs and that effectively the same people are in charge as a year ago

Unbelievable - JW has become a laughing stock .... tone deaf and unrelatable to 99% of IOL staff across the board. Did y'all see his interview emailed - felt like a replay of his announcement on 30th Sep (exact same words too) - must be practicing them every night in sleep too! What a joker - worst CEO ever awardee! No leadership skills. He looks weak and incapable of ushering IOL to rebuild from here.

Not a single person I know in company is willing to trust this JW joker. Forget the transformation - people mostly in all stages of career - near retirement/Mid-career/Early career - everyone is looking to bail out of this sinking ship over next 2 years. Purely based on the lack of trust of the CEO. I wish HR understands this soon enough.

Not that anyone is asking, but perhaps here is an advise - EM could fire this joker CEO because of all the ill will he has earned in such a short time & replace him with a more trustable person to take the company forward into transition - someone who is actually capable of doing the job and not just a bootlicker.

He-l no! I don’t know where the first post went that was sent on the email but we will not do that until the ethical topics described on that post caused by executives are reported and there are consequences. We damn sure won’t tell that colonel sanders fraud or any of his team or him resources where he operates!

CEO Dennis Mathew’s said TWO weeks ago that the Optimum name is more than a name change, it’s who we are and where we are going, and that the organization was deepening its commitment to customers, employees, and the communities it serves. LOL. What a lying sack of 💩. Guy said that knowing this was happening. He can never be trusted again. Management’s word is meaningless. Hapless man, garbage company.

Today's all hands confirm one more time that the Unfiltered survey is only s checkbox to say to employees: provide your feedback, we receive it but we do not care about it.
They spent maybe 2 minutes on today's all hands on the topic...+40% of employees not trusting the board are not enough to worry the board. An email saying they are going thoroughly through the feedback and take actions is all what they do... truly a sad and shameless joke!

It feels as though the Splunk BU has drifted off-course, guided by a weak leadership style that inspires more confusion than confidence. In all-hands meetings, what should be moments of clarity and direction often dissolve into polished evasions—answers that circle the runway but never land.

The repeated waves of layoffs have drained the teams of their momentum, leaving many people quietly eyeing the exits. No one seems to understand how decisions were made, and the cloak-and-dagger secrecy around criteria and RIF counts only deepens the anxiety.

Managers now echo the same rehearsed line “I wasn’t involved; the list was made from above without my input" as if it's become part of the official script. The result? A business unit that feels like it’s running on fumes, with trust evaporating faster than morale can be rebuilt.

Many are doing factory or punch clock, 8 hours and done. Innovation, extra items, change or update nope 8hrs , no 10plus hrs, no nights, no weekends why because those that had to did it and never complained. I see many in the office that I agree need to be there, but I also see what are they doing (nothing) since not in meetings throughout the day, one group is the so called (ACC monster) The mess up is they bundled the do’ers the ones that they know have gone above repeatedly to keep things going and in react mode when needed at anytime and never complained with the groups that can work 8hrs be done until the next day, those never are accountable. YES SIR that is where leadership sc--wed up, since without those that do the actual support and now 8hrs will unfortunately reflect in these RTO metrics missing just like the missing Employee survey that went missing a few years ago. Something leadership to date has never recovered as in TRUST ( PLE Class) with their managers. I think many that read this agree!

Is anyone out there selling or deploying Dell Private Cloud? It seems like we are just selling on promise at this point, and I do not trust this company to execute the vision into reality.

I believe that many of us as professionals fully acknowledge the necessity for our company to adapt and respond dynamically to evolving market conditions.

However, I believe the primary concern we are facing as a team is the lack of transparency from leadership. It is disheartening that employees often have to turn to external websites like this one and forums to learn about important developments, decisions, and updates affecting our work and the company's direction. This not only breeds uncertainty but also undermines trust and morale.

We kindly ask: Why can't the leaders of this company prioritize transparent communication directly with employees?

We believe that addressing this would strengthen our collective commitment and morale!

Signed, a loyal long term VBG employee.

There’s never been a moment when Dell felt this off-course.

Never been a moment when they reached straight into people’s pockets
and acted like it was business as usual.

Never been a moment when they grabbed freedom with one hand
and shrugged with the other.

Never been a moment when trust evaporated this fast, or when the math showed the people always came last
while the profit columns kept climbing.

Never been
and somehow, here we are.

Money compounds but character compounds faster - Buffet.

(Reputation, Trust by clients and employees.)

They’re here for the company, not for us.

It was not. Don't trust your managers, folks. They'll lie to keep you quiet and cooperative without a second thought.

Reflecting back on the past 25+ years....wow we really had great leaders who built Verizon the right way in Seidenberg and Denny Strigl. They literally started from the bottom and moved up to CEO. It's been downhill in leadership ever since .....

From Ivan:

“Leadership is all about standards . . . those people who watch you . . . they watch how you do your work. Do you cut corners?”

“Leadership is also about respect – how you treat other people. Do you treat others as equal?”

"...when you're in a position of power, what you think is right and correct doesn’t always mean it’s right and correct. To earn respect and trust, a good leader performs the job according to the needs of the people around them, rather than their own ideas. “It wasn’t what I thought was a good job, it was what the people around me thought was a good job.”

Leading by serving the needs of others may sound counter-intuitive, but it’s an effective technique.

It was a rough 8 years watching Hans post his daily morning runs, weekly sporting events and late night concerts. We wasted 8 years with him. He was a Trojan horse.

I thought that the new CEO could be one of the rare good guys based on his history. I was so, so wrong.

Jeez. $2.97. It’s all working - eh? All the SLT and leaders are stupidly silent with no Plan B at all. And when anyone (SB) openly has to say “trust me” as there is no natural, organic trust or credibility there at all, most intelligent adults know they should do the complete opposite. Where is Mr. “I am going to save millions through Cebu, which is currently under water” in all this (LP). Plotting his next traitor move probably. And apparently we should be working at speed and yet SB/JEG take over 5 months to put a new organization in place. $2.97 is about right. Jeez.

Looking at the feedback and followups from the flaccid ‘fireside chat’ meetings, you will see that Eliza was used to collate responses and determine what the outcomes were. There are bullets that spouted off management groomed responses. All you see is that all BNY working people are excited and thrilled with the direction of the company. Then Eliza somehow determined that people agree with the direction of management and our mission. Lastly, people felt the top level communication was very informative and appropriate.
Let that sink in and ask yourself, does anyone believe this speaks for the majority of people working here? Anyone?
It’s now official. Eliza is a lying BS tool that truly is artificial ‘intelligentsia’ at BNY’s elite management level. Not intelligence at all.

My supervisor says I’m safe, and not to worry. He’s always been straight with me, but part of me thinks “what else would he say”…

Has anyone else been reassured that they are safe? I guess I will know for sure by Friday evening…

The days of mutual respect and loyalty between management and staff at IBM are long past. IBM’s one-time core principle of trust and personal responsibility in all relationships no longer applies to its executive ranks (nor do the IBM Business Conduct Guidelines.) Don’t overly invest in your career because it’s guaranteed that your employer at most makes extremely short-term investments in you.

Know that your 1st or 2nd line manager may have been coerced to sign a justification for laying you off written by higher ups and certify it as their own assessment. The documented decision making process and paper trail scrupulously follow the law. The actual decision process is a different matter. IBM’s no longer squeaky clean in this century; it just presents the outward appearance of being so.

In IBM even band 10 and band D employees are disposable interchangeable parts now. The situation has become similar at other major tech employers. Show your next employer no more loyalty than they show you. Beware of loyalty to your local team. Big businesses get a free piggyback ride from that loyalty to your local team. They count on it!

Even if you’re the best in your country or geo, they can always find 2 or 3 lesser talents in a far cheaper developing country to replace you. They won’t think twice before doing so … even to someone who walks on water.

This. OP: @ce+1k9hfmk62

More people gone. Good people — who gave a lot and deserved better. And the message to the rest of us? “Stay positive. Be agile. ”I’m tired of hearing that. This doesn’t feel normal to feel trust being chipped away and a culture that doesn’t feel the same anymore.

We’re supposed to smile and adapt. But it’s hard to find inspiration in watching good people disappear while everyone else pretends we’re going to be fine.

Sometimes the truest thing a leader can say is just this: it really su-ks right now.

Moving teams to outsourcing companies like NTT, Infinite has completely misfired. Instead of improving efficiency, it crippled operations, destroyed accountability, and ki-led ownership. Rebadged staff don’t respond, don’t resolve issues, and have no stake in outcomes. Management must stop making these reckless decisions — you cut inefficiency, not entire teams. What was meant to streamline costs has backfired, creating chaos and eroding trust. Leadership should focus on empowering in-house talent, enforcing accountability, and rebuilding culture. Stop outsourcing responsibility — it’s not cost-saving, it’s self-sabotage. Learn to lead, not to offload. Fix the structure before the foundation collapses entirely.

Credit Admin was told to work from home due to ceiling repair. The following week layoffs came. Turns out there was no ceiling repairs. They needed all the admins at home to give them the boot via zoom.

Mike reads these posts? Somehow, I think he does. Unlike Frank, it seems like it gives him a pulse on employees, better than the survey. Frank used it to find out our thoughts and get revenge

What’s really frustrating, and honestly a little disturbing, is how many of our leaders have started acting like politicians. They ignore anything negative, spin reality, and only focus on whatever sounds good in a town hall or email. It’s insulting to our intelligence and completely out of touch with what’s actually happening on the front lines, where the real work gets done.

Until leadership stops pretending everything is fine and starts listening to the people doing the work, nothing will change. Just more talk, less trust, and a widening gap between the top and the rest of us.

I don't trust them anymore when they say it's over.

Tomorrow is the last day for the employee survey. How many have completed it, because nothing ever changed from the past surveys. I’m not sure of the purpose of the survey, so why waste my time. I don’t trust anything here anymore, the company has completely changed as of definitively September/October this year, noticeably the targeting of employees by management and HR for minor things are strange behaviors.

AT&T would face a lot less resistance to change if leadership finally dropped the RTO obsession. Most of us support performance-based expectations and accountability, but the forced return and relocation policies have turned the majority of employees against upper management.

You can’t rebuild trust while punishing the workforce. People aren’t resisting change, they’re resisting bad leadership. Until that changes, you’ll keep getting the bare minimum effort and zero loyalty in return.

In every company that I have ever worked for, my focus has always been advocating for the customer, whether that be in new product development, maintenance of existing products, resolving issues that are encountered, or being available when the customer needed help.

I have had the pleasure/joy over my career of having worked at companies that had this same value set. It was vital that the customer knew that he could trust us to do him right

While at F5, I continued the value set of advocating for the customer, however I soon learned that this was not the value set of F5. I continually encountered strong resistance. Premature release of software, software that was buggy and customer sub cases that were ignored to name a few.

Since my RIF, I have interviewed with many companies and to date haven’t found one that places the customer first. It’s about stock price and revenue. And after F5, I choose not to work in that type of environment again.

That’s what I understood, but I just want to be sure. You’ll have to forgive my skepticism and distrust.

Are employee surveys anonimous and confidential for real or are they just lying to us?

Apologies if this is another sad post, but can someone clarify how in-office attendance is actually tracked? Are we talking badge swipes, IP addresses, or just whatever the reporting AI spits out each week?

I keep landing on these “magical” lists that show I’m not here even though I’m in the office 8.5 hours a day, three days a week. Meanwhile, there are folks coffee badging or popping in for a few hours who never seem to make the cut. I’m not trying to police anybody else (what they do is not my business), but this system does not line up with reality.

We used to be able to check our own badge records, now it’s “ask your manager”. I believe my manager’s is advocating for me, but honestly, at this point I feel like I have to advocate for myself, too. If this is really about looking for reasons not to give bonuses or reasons to push people out just say that. Don’t lie on me.

Just venting, but also genuinely asking for some transparency.

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.

It's not as if we haven't been lied to by the leadership before.

Engagement Pulse Survey (employee satisfaction survey) is going to be sent out early in November. The result of this thing seems to be nr. 1 priority of our management around here...

Our overlords care the most about two questions in particular in the survey:

1. Do you trust the management?
2. Would you reccomend Kyndryl as a company to work for?

The rest of the questions is fluff and they even admitted it openly the other day...

The last time most people did not bother filling it in and some of those few who did submitted answers that were less than praise (since it is an anonymous survey).

Consequently, there was a mandatory follow-up investigation session where one of the FLM's loyal minions was tasked to find out who the troubkemakers are... They went about it by saying on a Teams call: "raise your hand if you trust the manager"...

This time around we are all asked to go into a prep-session where we will be instructed on "how to properly understand the questions" prior to filling in the survey and we are encouraged to then fill it in together...

So - I expect we will go from the lowest employee happiness ever which (was the last survey's result to the highest employee happiness ever) and then there will be rounds of applause and patting on shoulders circling around in newsletters and the local talking heads will have stuff to talk about till the christmass and will be thanking each other and nominating each other for employees of the quarter based on this while we will be witnessing more stealthy firings, clients leaving, teams & roles blending and so on.

And this stuff is orchestrated by individuals who also send out non-anonymous feedback requests about their performance to their subordinates and then they read out loud the praise they get in front of all who had to participate.

CEE in a nutshell for all y'all.