#badmanager

"Some bosses aren’t leaders.
They’re bullies with titles.
And pretending otherwise only protects the wrong people.

A bad boss doesn’t just make work annoying.
They make people doubt themselves.
They drain confidence.
They turn Sunday night into a stress spiral.

They make good employees wonder if they’re the problem.
They usually aren’t.

DDI found that employees with leaders who genuinely care about their well‑being are 3x more likely to be engaged — which is the least surprising statistic on earth.

People do better work when their leader actually gives a damn.

And you can hear the difference instantly.

A boss says:
“Figure it out.”
“That’s your problem.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“You’re lucky to have a job.”
“I don’t pay you to think.”

A leader says:
“Let’s work through it.”
“What do you need?”
“Let’s prioritize.”
“I appreciate what you bring.”
“Tell me what you think.”

That’s not “soft.”
That’s real leadership.

People remember how you acted when things got hard.
They remember who had their back.
And they absolutely remember the person who used authority to make them feel small.

A title makes you a boss.
How you treat people decides whether anyone follows you."

After successfully passing my PIP and last meeting with my manager yesterday. Today IBM sent me a termination letter. No severance. Nothing. Just take your stuff and bye.
My advice your you guys. Do not trust any manager at IBM.

its a sh---y place to work, its a sweat shop where employees are treated badly. H1b workers/contractors be careful before joining, you will be under constant threat, fear and micro-management. Be very careul from the indian managers they are the worst, and extremely incompetent, constant org politics goes on here and constantly different teams are fighting with each oher, also constant outsourcing to India is another part of the story, be very careful beore joining unless the work cuture improves.

As long as you're not on the Gainwell account and not within the contentiental U.S. You have it made compared to the other.

Working on the Gainwell account is as if you're never left Gainwell. As you still have to put up with all the B*S, gas lighting, etc. Now you have the benefit of experiencing from both Gainwell and the NTT leadership directly over you.

Good luck trying to find another position within the company, unless you're off-shore. Most of the available positions for what I do or want to do are based over in India/Asia.
Basically, the hype about you building a career and being who you want to be at NTT, is just that hype, as it baised towards the cheaper labor overseas.

Training that isn't skillsoft. I payed out of pocket myself. It was the only way to get decent training opportunites.

The only upside is I work remote. Which eliminates me having to pay for home visit healthcare that I otherwise would have to pay for , if I had to go into an office. (The wife is disabled and wheelchair bound)

As you can tell, I don't have a high opinion of NTT and my immediate managers. Everyday is like being thrown into a pool with your hands and feet tied to a concrete block, as you try to wade water and catch your breath whenever possible. And they just keep dumping water over your head.

This place taught me that couldn't be further from the truth. I have been a high performer, always available, never complaining, and yet I got miserable raises and no promotion. Elevance is the one that did everything wrong and accepting that has been so liberating. That was confirmed to me when my manager panicked when I told him I was leaving. They even wanted to counter the offer I got. Too little too late.

I lasted just over six months at CDW. The red flags were there from the start, from disrespectful culture, to no innovation, to managers who couldn't manage. I stopped caring how it would look on my resume. I needed out. More power to the people who can handle this place, but that's not me.

We had a great manager who was knowledgeable, supportive, and respected. They forced him out and now we have a credit-stealing dolt. Can somebody explain to me why this was done? Because I certainly can't figure this stupidity out.

Manager is not able to provide justification for the ratings he has given. he is 64 years old survived multiple layoffs , he is in same department for 26 years stil did not know basic stuff what the product his team has development.

Funny how when I was giving my supervisor advice on crypto and trading strategies we were the best of friends the second money stopped coming in my audits picked up and that “friendship” faded and I was switched off the current team

Bad Visit yesterday . My store just had a horrible corporate visit. Focus areas were mainly STH and center core. Failing score card, store manager put on action plan final warning. Day after visit store manager is conspicuously absent from store.

Arizona being run into the ground. Mining cable in the underground. Not fixing cut or damaged cables. Disqualifying customers due to bad section and bad cable. No f1s, cr-ppy f2s,dslams always down. Apps that don’t work, 30 plus days out on installs,10 days out on cable repair,give me my buyout This place su-ks. #Lumen8.

A bunch of buddies who were politically selected walking around campus pretending they own the company in Belgrade and laughing and walking around all day protecting each other and posting pictures on LinkedIn where each sends a like to one another within 5 minutes. Typical drzavna frima behavior, where the general manager has yet to speak with his employees on the floor .. and not to mention the HR Director that has no clue what she is doing, because basically she is doing what she is told lol, but as everyone can see they cant raise food allowance for employees for 10 dollars in 10 years, but what they can do is post pictures how they are going out to diner with very important people ...

Re: Today is your last day as my employer.

You have underperformed and not met expectations. All of the promises you made to lure me to this role, were never kept.

Normally I would give you a 14-day PIP (2 weeks’ notice) before canning you, but you are not worthy, and I am ending your opportunity to employ me effective immediately.

In the middle of reading this note, I have blocked you from all ways of communicating with me. If you have any questions, please submit them to my portal, which I will never look at.

Please return anything of value you have received from my employ or I will have to send you threatening legal notes that I have no intent to pursue. Just to cause you more anxiety than I already have.

I will also send you automated messages in the middle of the night reminding you of how unwanted and unproductive you are, and to sign my correspondence or you will lose the chance to.

If you play your cards rights, I may give you a good reference, to help you take advantage of and sc--w over other employees, but you know I really have no intention of doing so. I just tell you that to make you think I care. You know I don’t.

Signed,

How Does It Feel.

Getting tired of the Teflon BS coming from MD and his staff on social media. Look over here at my spoiled son who amazingly got a billion dollars of funding to put batteries(?) in people’s back yards. D-mb as f*ck idea. But daddy promotes it like crazy. Every nation needs sovereign AI, build more data centers, meanwhile in the real world his company is falling apart. He’s laying off 10’s of thousands of people. His presidents are mo--ns and his SVPs are even worse. They’re just “yes men” who would sell their own kids for a buck. Greedy ba----ds. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that they have money, it’s pathetic and sad that their entire life IS about money. Pathetic human beings and ba----ds who do nothing but su-k America dry and don’t give anything back. They’re the problem and they need to get out.

Hearing ex manager and one time supervisor conniving together to backstab [falsely] employees on the floor to K .Happily this led to their downfall.

I never know what to expect. One week very friendly the next week short and dismissive almost seeming angry.

They stage the whole cycle so they can manufacture nonsense feedback. The entire year I kept asking my manager for a real project because I was under‑utilized and stuck doing basic data analysis. I even reached out to others for work, but he blocked everything and insisted that all assignments had to come “directly from him.” Then in the PA meeting he claimed I “didn’t build credibility.” How exactly was I supposed to do that when he deliberately prevented me from taking on meaningful work?

I keep hearing the manager are thieves at this bank? No point in working to have your commissions stolen? Anyone have feedback on this? Particularly in the Charlotte region?

I’ve never seen this many heartless creatures concentrated in one workplace. Compassion? Don’t make me laugh. They recite corporate buzzwords like malfunctioning robots ,repeating “values” and “culture” they clearly don’t understand. And the managers… delivering the same recycled ice‑breaker lines like they’re reading from a script written in 1998. “It’s nice seeing your smiling face again.” Really? Try actually looking at people’s faces before you sp-t out that nonsense.
And for the love of basic honesty, stop putting words like culture, team, or mentorship anywhere near the name ExxonMobil. Those words don’t belong in the same galaxy.

I've seen great employees kept in place because their managers didn't want to lose them. They make their department looks good, manager looks good, but they end up stuck because their manager sabotages their advancement for their own gain. If you've been stuck in the same position for a while and don't know why, this might be it.

Since he wants to sc--w Americans out of jobs and keep laying off with false performance, stop helping set them up for success. Do not put your notes out there, do not share them, do not update procedures with all steps. Quit doing it! Let this pr--k and all the mini pricks below helping to ruin everyones lives, get what they deserve. A team full of id--ts who cannot fight their way out of an open paper bag

Long story short, employee sent complaint about their manager (ED) to HR. MD doesn't gaf. End of story.

When you and your manager have an obviously broken working dynamic, when some people who dislike you influence your manager, when you’re deliberately given assignments designed to rank you , PIP communication itself is firm from day one and their body language shows zero positivity, when they hand you a long list of vague expectations, monitor every move, invade your privacy, and openly discuss your situation with others, and when they assign “coaches” to you just to build a case ... you’re being set up to fail.

But when a manager tells you it’s okay that you were ranked in a new CL and that you can work through it together, when expectations are clear, when documentation is minimal or none, when they protect your privacy, put you on visible projects, give you meaningful roles, and advocate for you .... they’re preparing to pass you.

An email was sent out last night that went to a lot of B2B

Managers are to target reps who “lean” on them to much. This is a grossly obvious tactic to weed out people who ask for help a lot.

We also find it odd that the manager that sent it out is never around. Some employees don’t even know who he is but yet he is their AD

Must be nice to have a job where you don’t have to talk to your reps but want them targeted for asking for help

A TL just transferred to my store - dude has been with the company for 13 years and has been in 12 different stores. If that's not a red flag, I don't know what is. In his last store he went out on "stress leave" for three months because he said he couldn't "handle the job". If he couldn't handle it there then what makes store leadership think he can handle it here? He's currently on a PIP. He sits in the office on his phone all day. Pals around with his ATL, who also sits in the office with him and they watch Tiktoks together. Why do they keep these kind of people and oust the hard workers by changing their schedules and putting the teams entire work on those people that actually work instead of holding failed leadership accountable?

After back-to-back meetings about the same things we had meetings about last week and a passive-aggressive ping from a director who can't articulate what he wants, yesterday I was tempted to google "fast food hiring near me." I'm honestly at the point where the simplicity of flipping burgers seems superior to this mess.

Didn't speak to me for the entire 10 business days. I already knew I made the right decision to leave, but that just cemented it. Been away for two months and never been happier. Folks, there are places with normal managers and better culture if you're willing to leave your comfort zone.

IBM will silently laying people off after the stock crash... From what I've seen, this is how they do it:

They suddenly label people as "low performers" (making up stories if they have to) and try to push them into quitting.

They put people on PIPs (1–3 month Performance Improvement Plans) and then fire them. The goal seems to be avoiding severance.

They make your work life miserable until you leave on your own.

If you're thinking about joining IBM, I'd honestly look somewhere else. In my experience, the company doesn't have many interesting projects anymore, and management is pretty bad. Most managers have no clue how to lead or manage teams.

Just my opinion based on what I've seen in this company over the years.

Middle Aged white male. No tech skills. No leadership skills. Incompetent and ill advised. Lap dog of VP.
Middle Aged middle eastern woman. No tech skills. She lasted 3 mos in our unit after some type of lying to senior management.
Middle Aged middle eastern man. He had skills. He was competent. He was complimentary. He used my work, commended me on it and than stiffed me for a raise when I got promoted. Not even 1%. Said “talk to HR”.
Middle Aged black woman. No tech skills. Really no computer skills at all. Very much delegated. Loud talker. Tried to be a people person, but that was hard when you’re discriminated against other races.
Middle Aged asian woman. Zero tech skills. Got her job cause she was friends with VP. Had no idea what the role entailed. Literally just stole a check. Did nothing but give friends roles and get friends promoted. Left Oracle to work for start-up.
Middle Aged white male. Came from acquisition. No real tech skills. Only knew the one app that we bought his company for. Totally arrogant. Thought he was more important than everyone and everything. I was light years ahead of him, but our GBU promoted new acquired people over people who had been there. Put him in his place several times and finally was able to get away from him. He actually got promoted. Totally incompetent.
Middle Aged white male. Got promoted to his team. He was on my old team and actually came to Oracle about 11 years after I did. Like many other managers, towed the company line. Absolutely no tech skills. No real skills other than being a yes man and not being healthy. Got promoted to his team, about to accept offer and then ask about the raise and he said there was no raise. “VP wouldn’t approve it….” Sorry, I can’t help you.

On my last day at Oracle, I scheduled an email to go to the VP, my manager and the stiff director of our department. Telling them all what I thought. For the VP, I broke her off a huge piece. She was a lousy VP for many years, stealing money, overbilled the federal govt, stole, and was an even lousier human being. I said, “how pathetic of a person are you to not even give me a 1% raise after I have put in 15 years at this company for you?...you are truly pathetic….you don’t care about anyone but yourself and your little circle.

That woman will leave a company she worked at for like 40 years with no friends and no one who will be sorry she is gone. In fact, many have a number of interesting stories on how she “climbed” her way to the top.

It’s sad. It really is never about the product or the processes…it’s solely about the people and those that are morally and mentally corrupt and should not be around other human beings as they are a direct threat to their well-being.

...did this on an external AI too but translated all of my annual reviews into files, told it to parse them, told it my salary, & asked how hosed & stifled I am here compared to market. It told me not only to leave immediately (both Claude & Grok) but that while delivering more & more every year & outworking everyone else around me I've been deliberately sidelined, pushed around, & my personality used against me by my bosses in their responses to hold me down. That i'm leaving $50k/yr on the table & over the time I've been here have missed-out on $200k in earnings. No wonder I've felt so squeezed by this place & am barely surviving. Everyone else in my role & field is ki-ling it compared to me. This place su-ks & has stolen almost 10 years of career & growth from me.

I can't even get my boss on a regularly scheduled 1:1 for 15min to ESTABLISH a 1:3:5 for me after 2 years. He flaked yesterday while 'working' from India.

Combined with recently being told by my director to fudge numbers on Clarity & that my SSL usage is being tracked & used against me for (carrot dangle) prospective promotions - fu-k this place.

Let's not even discuss how I'm being split between two teams this year & how exhausting that is. They LOVE to keep me dangling in the wind moving from team to team to team - because I'll do it & can do it, I don't push back (thinking eventually SURELY some good has to come of this for me). I never get anything, all I get is hosed & progressively poorer, stolen from in lost earnings by this place. Sc--wed over at EOY in bonus while these shady executives hoard it all for themselves.

Anywhere else I'd be a senior engineer IC or manager by now. My loyalty has cost me a real career & major earnings.

I'm a swe earning under 100k after 8 fu--ing years. I'm done sulking & being a loser about it though. Now I'm on a mission.

Good job blowing me off manager, you just lost an employee.

Is there any company in the world that has a worse ratio of good engineers to sh---y managers?

I don't think it's possible. I've never seen a company treat its employees so poorly in my career. Dell is a despicable company.

Manager told us no 1/2 day pto (looks bad) and if we cancel a PTO day (even if we haven’t taken it yet) we need to let them know why. Oh yeah PTO days, wants to know what we are doing and why we are taking it. Do I call HR or this allowed?

We have managers who have no idea what they're doing yet they insist on micromanaging every step of our work. You can just imagine how well that works out. To say it's counterproductive would be an understatement. Lay off all the useless managers and see productivity skyrocket.

I came across this site and want to share the situation in FIS.
Our office reports to managers in Bangaluru India.

The managers are very rude with our teams. They talk very loudly in the team meetings.
The FIS Managers lack basic management skills. They want us to call them sir and madam.
No one is willing to join FIS here in Philippines, though there are open positions. I have worked for 3-4 years and looking for job outside FIS.

On my he-l. This new Mid-Year review ratings system is an absolute joke! I’ve never seen a more subjective rating system. You can put all the evidence and ecards and global recognition you want in your favor and if your manager wants to take a dump on your career this is a great hall pass! When the evidence listed by the manager points to an exceeds or at the least a meets and the manager just discriminates because they’re an ableist narcissist. Good lord… never in my long career have I ever seen a company circle the drain like this. The bank is asking to be sued via class action AGAIN for discrimination! They treat certain people differently than others based on their own intrinsic biases and never has it been clearer!

The people who rise through the ranks aren't the ones who know what they're doing. They're the ones who barely understand their own jobs. It would be funny to watch if it wasn't so infuriating. Competence isn't valued, ignorance and good a-s-kissing skills are.

I'm wondering if there are any decent managers still around. Mine barely rates a 2 out of 10. What about yours?