Thread regarding American Electric Power Co. Inc. layoffs

More middle-aged white male executives… joy.

If history holds true look for more BH executives heading to AEP. Therace brought all of her cronies with her and if she is forced out for a new CTO, look for some of her cronies start to leave but it won't happen overnight. At least they won't have her to save them. At least that's the hope.

Fehrman bringing his own guys on board with the Joe Moore hire. Those awaiting Therace’s exit might not have to wait too long once he finds a CTO he’s familiar with.

It’s funny that AEP got rid of the old process improvement org with the layoffs in Q1, and now they will need to staff an org to do much of the same.

Wait, there may be hope! Joe Moore has been named VP Business Transformation! Hope he starts with Technology group! We have a huge process mess to clean up. And, our BSA's and PM's are educated on process improvement and process documentation. Start with us!!! Please....

If AEP were a movie? Would it be like Wall Street or more like The Office? My take would be closer to the Night of the Living Dead. Any other suggestions?

In simple terms, leadership su-ks, they only look out for themselves and are rewarded an obscene amount of money with nothing to show for it. They make decisions that add no value to the community they serve. I will say one thing you got wrong, if you don't like the pay as an employee or contractor, leave. Go somewhere else that you feel actually takes you and their customers into account. Nothing and no one is keeping you here. I left and it's the best thing that has happened to me. You may get to see how a company should operate somewhere else. If you stay, good luck to you but don't hold your breath things will change. Bill is not the white knight everyone thinks he is.

Corporate governance has become a value extractor, not a value creator. If we ran our lives the way they run the company, we would all be bankrupt because we do not have employees and customers to treat like a cash cow to replace revenue squandered on bad business decisions and unethical practices. Our determination to overcome adversity and succeed is being mocked, defiled and squandered by self-absorbed fools, who swear allegiance only to themselves and betray our republic.

I see working at AEP as the movie wonderful life. Potterville has taken over Bedfordfalls. People are tools and cattle to this leadership team. We need more people like the Baileys. Speak up and hold bad leadership accountable.

The leadership problem is not a Republican/Democrat, liberal/conservative, fascism/socialism problem. The leadership problem is virtue-less leadership has abandoned the Founding Principles that enabled and empowered the possibility of the American dream. Leadership is obsessed with their unearned, undeserved and obscene self-aggrandizement. They are extracting immense amounts of wealth (prosperity) from communities and returning none of it in the form of raises for loyal employees and contractors. They are raising rates and siphoning off the increased revenue into their own pockets instead of funding the additional expenditures they used to justify the rate increases. This is the economic equivalent of strip mining communities which is not a sustainable business model. This is a hedge fund strategy that transfers immense wealth to the virtue-less un-American globalist corporate oligarchs by destroying our nation and our way of life because they can not deny their virtue-less self-serving base desires. Immense wealth authoritarian tyranny our forefathers rebelled against, absent the British accent, not the haughty arrogance. If I am being completely honest, I would swear we are working at Enron or WorldCom.

Some more quotes for the Therace site....

I personally increased the income tax base for the state of Minnesota through nepotism.

I take my conference calls in front of a bull painting as a subliminal way of conveying what I say is Bull *#%

My keyboard is broken and TCS told me to turn it over and try again.

I gave Steve a 99% discount on black Tee Shirts at the JCPenny fire sale.

I can't comprehend capitol accounting so I bankrupted O&M.

At Cook Nuclear power plant they have a gentlemans hanshaje with a nuclear plant just up the street. Tge leaders at Cook are blocking employees from intervuewing with the other plant. They are holding people back from oppurtunity. How can someone do this to an individual (family) and be happy with themselves. If this is not anti American tgen what is. Workers are not slaves and should have the right to choose where they work and have oppurtunity. If Cooks leadership is scared they will loose to many workers, look in the mirror, you are responsible for the culture, employee engagement and retention.

So what you're saying is we're run by a bunch of Democrats! They want to put us back in chains. They want to bring back the Jim Crowe laws and have the K-k ride again. And then separate everyone based on skin color. Yeah that sounds like something the Democrats would do. They say history will repeat itself. But can we get back to the layoffs?

The virtue-less leadership have proven themselves unworthy of their virtuous employees and customers, who they have failed to faithfully serve. They are an abominable darkness conspiring to eclipse the light of the American dream so they may extinguish our beacon of freedom. Their allegiance is only to themselves and their major shareholders insatiable greed. We must not allow them to indoctrinate, assimilate and subjugate us to their virtue-less un-American globalist corporate oligarchy for their unearned, undeserved and obscene self-aggrandizement. We the virtuous people shall prevail over virtue-less immense wealth authoritarian tyranny as did our colonial forefathers. We are not descended from fearful men. Embody Virtue, Defend Liberty, Demand Equality, Define Justice, Vanquish Tyranny thus Live the Virtuous American Dream. We are one nation and we are free.

Based on the outcome of the outsourcing, either someone got a lot of money in terms of a kick back to give TCS the contract or Therace is really stupid. I guess there is a 3rd option, both. She got something in return and is stupid to give TCS the contact. My understanding Sanjay took one for the team. He made sure TCS got the contact instead of Capgemini or Accenture. Where is he now?

You would think at some point the clowns running this three ring circus would come to their senses and cut their losses but that would require admitting to making a mistake. No self respecting senior executive could ever suffer that humiliation so we all just have to keep publicly smiling and drinking the kool-aid. God knows you can’t ever admit to not toeing the party line about how we all love our cherished “co-sourced labor partners” that struggle figure out which side of the keyboard they are supposed to mash their fingers against. Sure does make everything cheaper though, getting rid of those damn Americans that demand decent wages.

It will also be interesting to see how they spin the latest culture survey into being a positive since of course the last Gallup poll “didn’t accurately express” the message they wanted to send.

Another Glorious Day at Outsourced Electric Power comrades! Long love the Dear Leader!

American Electric Power (AEP)
No. of Employees to be Laid off: 1500
Industry: Energy & Utilities
July 2024
About 1,000 American Electric Power employees have taken the company’s voluntary severance offer, which it says is necessary to reduce costs. The company recorded a one-time charge of $94 million, or 18 cents per share, during the April 1-June 30 quarter to pay for the severance program

Hope it was worth it.

It is "Incredible" how close that looks like her. She is a little weasel on how she runs things into the ground. I wonder what people who actually worked for her in her early days as a manager actually think of her. Rating all of the CIOs that we've had, she would be on the bottom for me and not just for the outsourcing, but the whole package.

Yes it’s beyond perfect.

Maybe everyone can submit their own to get added to that. Here’s one

I use a corded Apple headset and hold the microphone because I can’t figure out bluetooth.

That is absolutely perfect

https://theracerisch.com/

Same goes for the buy outs. For some it would have been a once in a life changing event that was snatched from a very large group of folks because Therace had her head up her rear for the past year and couldn't afford to let anyone go. We all know TCS is and will continue to be a royal cluster f&@+! That is all on Therace and her mafia buddies. I am sure they will get a nice payout when they leave for another company after she gets her golden chute. The rest of us will be here to pick up the pieces because we couldn't afford to leave without the buy out. I do hope for those that are at or close to retirement, leave sooner than later if you can. Give your 2 weeks and walk. Don't look back and I hope all the best for you. Those that have to stay, welcome to h3ll for awhile.

One thing I learned over the years at AEP. Working hard and trusting the wrong leaders xan wipe out a whole generation of wealth. There is no equity at AEP. Dreams of sending my kids to college are gone. They will have to join the military like me.

Over 4 years into the new organization and work is still chaotic. Simply put, there are too many 'chiefs' and not enough 'Indians'. Resources are stretched thin, priorities are coming from all over the place, AEP knowledge has been steadily walking out the door and there is no end in site. Planning is not working, still jumping through hoops to expedite funding approvals, routing and meet deadlines. I was hoping the new CEO would hit the ground running. If he has, the communication isn't making down through the vast number of middle-management layers.

All of the job cuts done for maybe a few pennies on the EPS but getting rid of one SVP is some how going to turn this ship around. Going to take a lot more EVP/SVP/VPs to get canned before things turn around. I will nominate Therace to be ITs lamb. They can also have Martin, Murphy, Kim F and Heather V. As bonus cuts. Did I miss anyone?

Oh, like Therace.

Leadership that only thinks they should have oppurtunity. Everyone else is to serve them.

AEP has failed at leadership. Lnew leaders have forgotten leadership is about people not them. I have seen someleaders fail upwards in the company. Thet are lousy leaders and the things the would do to their employees make them horrible people. Fix the leadership and you fix the problems at AEP.

If 10% of the front line was let go, 10% of the EVPs should be let go

Peggy was in charge of utilities for two years, and AEP lost some rate cases. It’s mostly the reason Fehrman wanted the OpCo presidents to report directly to him: winning rate cases is the most important thing at AEP. The company made commitment to and deployed so much capital without any real plan for how to get that into rates. It cost Julie her job. The entire regulatory org needs to be re-worked.

It’s obvious the board sees some leadership potential in Peggy. Just not right now. She’s still a relatively young woman, so maybe when Fehrman settles the org down, she’ll be next up.

Just heard they fired the SVP of Regulatory yesterday and now Peggy Simmons will head that group. I feel sorry for them bc you can tell she has no idea what she’s doing. If you listen to her talk you’d think she was a politician just talking in circles avoiding any question that would expose her as a fraud. She probably got rid of the SVP so she doesn’t look like an id--t when trying to talk Regulatory bc the SVP was pretty impressive from what I saw. Her new position was a made up position by the new CEO bc we can’t seem get rid of incompetent id--ts, we just move them around. It’s just another s#it move that will drive the company further into the basement.

The bonuses are for everyone but it was obvious 10 or so yrs ago the focus was getting more money to the upper end than the lower end when they moved the goal post. If you were an 8, you use to get 15 % before they dropped it to 10%. I forget the reasoning behind it but it did take a lot of money out of the pockets of a lot of people. When you know EVPs are getting 75% or higher on their base pay, you can't tell me they couldn't have dropped their bonus to 60%, or 50% and still keep the 8 at 15%. I understand there has to be a cut off but once you set that line, you shouldn't move it. You ac cry me a river if someone has to give up $100k when their bonus still comes in at 400k.

Those bonuses and pension plans were supposed to be for field employees toiling day and night and NOT for office employees especially those who go to meetings and promote themselves and their friends by taking credit work done by contract employees. Most employers got rid of pension plans.

Trust is built on mutual respect. Leadership has no clue they caused the lost of respect in their decisions. Once respect and trust is lost, it takes years to get it back. Their only focus is on the EPS and nothing else matters. Anything they say has to be seen through those lens. What can I do to increase the EPS. If it hurts the employees so be it.

My life would be better off if I did not trust AEP leadership as I did. I believed in the culture, and in the end it was a lie.

On top of the last comment, they are thinking about raising the retirement age to 70 since today's jobs are not as demanding as those in the past. I'm pretty sure more folks at AEP pass from heart attacks than from being fried on a pole, sorry lineman. I know your job is dangerous but I've heard more people dying in the year from heart attacks than you guys getting fried. Raising the retirement age will just increase that number.

Occupational exhaustion is setting in as employees are stressed about job security, financial security, political strife and rising economic inequality when AEP's 2023 profits were $2.2 billion. Inflation, carrot at the end of a long stick ICP, inadequate cost of living increases and rising benefit costs are dragging down employee enthusiasm while CEOs brag about record profits that only they enjoy.

Maybe they should start with all of the EVPs and work down? Amazon is doing something very similar and bringing everyone back into the office 5 days a week. May only be a matter of time at AEP.

Word is they’ll have another round- this time discharging some managers and lower level supervisors. To eliminate some fat and o and m costs.

If engineering is not a core part of the business, then what is? Shareholder value.

A few months back I was in a meeting and a director-level mentioned that around 70% of our transmission engineering is outsourced. Now if transmission engineering isn't our core competency then what is?