#corporateculture

So, what's the scoop and how many will be laid off? Who do they target.

This article came out in 2018 after a VSP. It is surprisingly accurate on how things would go at Verizon.

https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/open-letter-to-44000-verizon-employees.html

Who thinks Dell is America's greatest company?

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mdell_newsweek-americas-greatest-companies-2025-activity-7391601479037509632-SWLt?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAABWyZkBBjjl_sgcgalJESE5nRysw80KbVs

I spent over 10 years in vSphere. Now that Broadcom bundled vSphere 9.0 and you can never buy alone, many alternatives are coming up. Proxmox is outdated. These guys are out of their mind.

But I am seeing a few players. Some are ex-vmware employees. It is very very very interesting to see one of them takeover vSphere in a few years.

Of course, the top enterprise customers are stuck but anyone less than 1000 servers should be an immediate target.

I am very looking forward to see vSphere displacement in action.

19,000 employees were kicked out due to greed and destruction.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/03/exxon-funded-thinktanks-to-spread-climate-denial-in-latin-america-documents-reveal

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mohamedamer_retailstrategy-organizationaltransformation-activity-7392217719959396353-hAdx?utm_medium=ios_app&rcm=ACoAAAgtY3sBYDFnclM5iLdHkOCfHOYJbmAQVAQ&utm_source=social_share_send&utm_campaign=copy_link

Does anyone else laugh as hard as I do when SB calls J.E.G., Jag? Dude doesn't know how to pronounce a high ranking member of the EC nor does anyone on EC care to correct him.

Log into LinkedIn and decide which of these apply to your colleagues.
The drum beaters are growing by the day.

A field guide for the modern professional jungle. Bring your coffee and your sense of irony.

⸻

The Drum Beater
“Achievement unlocked: updated my email signature.”
Celebrates everything — from finishing a webinar to surviving Monday. If self-promotion were cardio, this one would be marathon-ready.

⸻

The “Humbled” Achiever
“So humbled to announce that I’m basically amazing.”
Masters the ancient art of bragging while pretending not to. Their posts start with false modesty and end with 1,200 likes.

⸻

The Thought Leader
“Innovation is just passion wearing a tie.”
Part philosopher, part buzzword generator. Communicates exclusively in abstract nouns — synergy, authenticity, disruption — as if they’re paid by the syllable.

⸻

The Motivational Evangelist
“I spilled coffee on myself — and learned a valuable lesson about leadership.”
Turns every life event into an inspirational parable. A broken laptop? A metaphor for resilience. A delayed flight? Proof that patience is a skill set.

⸻

The Corporate Citizen
“Proud to be part of a company that’s making the world slightly better — at least in our press release.”
Their posts are indistinguishable from the HR department’s. They clap for every culture initiative like it’s the Super Bowl halftime show.

⸻

The Sycophant
“Brilliant insight, boss! (Please notice me.)”
The algorithm’s most loyal servant. Likes, comments, and reposts with the precision of a political campaign. Never misses a chance to congratulate management for “inspiring leadership.”

⸻

The Silent Lurker
“Just here for the sociology experiment.”
Never posts. Never likes. Knows everyone’s promotion history and engagement stats by heart. The digital equivalent of the person at a party who stands by the snack table quietly judging everyone.

For many years getting paged out to P1/P2 even P3 warrooms outside of work hours in the evenings, overnights, at movies, at dinner, getting groceries, at the gym, anywhere you go your phone would constantly go off. Not to mention the contanst group chats for work to respond to. All for no extra pay, layed off 1 year ago and no make way more money, work only 40 hours a week M-F. Get out while you can, they don't care about customers, definitely not employees, only the bottom line and the good ol boys at the top. Find a private company to work for.

ESG seems to be the most popular division at Broadcom. I don’t see any other division discussions here.
Quarter after quarter, shameless ESG is always below the line of doom, like a parasite hogging the host.

Mega props to the guy that posted the Jimmy Fallon thumbs down gif to the JW announcement on the Facebookesque IOL homepage.

💥 “Too many layers. Too much overlap.” That’s the official reason Target just gave for cutting 1,800 corporate jobs — right before the holidays.

Let’s call it what it is:
A corporate hangover from years of over-hiring, over-layering, and under-leading.

While executives play musical chairs and consultants whisper “simplify” into boardrooms, real people — talented, loyal humans — are getting blindsided with a “Team Huddle” calendar invite that changes their lives.

Target says this isn’t about cost cutting.
But when you eliminate nearly 8% of your HQ workforce and scrap another 800 vacant roles, it sure looks like an “optimization” deck dressed in empathy fonts.

The saddest part?

They didn’t just lose roles. They lost trust, culture, and identity — piece by piece, meeting by meeting, memo by memo — until “Joy!” became a tagline instead of a truth.

And now, the same leaders who created the layers are holding “listening sessions” about the pain they caused.

Make it make sense.

If you’re still standing in retail or corporate America, take notes.
👉 Bloat is the first step toward bloodletting.
👉 “Simplify” means someone’s about to be sacrificed.
👉 And “we value our team” usually ends with a legal disclaimer.

The real headline isn’t that Target laid off 1,800 people.

It’s that every major company could be one reorg away from calling it “progress.”

I might not have liked all of Dan’s message but at least it was spoken plainly and honestly. What is really annoying and a little disturbing is that a lot of our leaders now seem to operate like politicians. They ignore anything negative or challenging and only look to talk about the positives. This is totally insulting to employees intelligence and emphasises the gulf between senior leaders with what is happening on the front line

I haven’t been here very long, but have had nothing but issues since I started here. The ageism, cronyism, favoritism, nepotism, s-xism is off the charts. Sprinkle in widespread ineffective management who do not give a sh-t about developing out your career if they view you as a challenge…yep, this is corporate he-l. Suggestion for survival is to completely disconnect your identity from what you do here, if you haven’t already. Good luck.

What in the world is a Senior President?

DW making up new titles now?

Our team in Data and AI was recently pushed hard to complete the OHS survey. Initially, only about 45% had responded, but then management started chasing everyone who hadn’t filled it out yet.

At this point, I’m really starting to wonder — is it actually voluntary and anonymous?

Anyone else getting the same pressure or feeling the same way?

https://techrights.org/n/2025/11/04/Corporate_Media_That_Fails_to_Report_Cocaine_at_EPO_is_Totally_.shtml

We’ve reached out to every news station, letting them know what’s really going on with Chevron. It’s only a matter of time before the truth comes out.
Chevron has spent millions on advertising, painting themselves as the heroes of our community. You’ve seen it: the feel-good commercials, the Facebook and Instagram posts, the Nextdoor updates showing their “volunteer work.” They want everyone to believe they’re here to support Northern Colorado.
But behind the scenes, they’ve quietly pushed out the very people who built this industry. They’ve replaced local, hardworking men and women—many with decades of experience—with workers brought in from out of state or out of the country. Families who once had stable, good-paying jobs are now struggling, while Chevron counts record profits.
Call it capitalism if you want. I call it what it really is—a monopoly and absolute bullsh-t.
Another billion-dollar corporation swoops in, buys out smaller companies, and leaves local workers in the dust. It’s not about community. It’s not about sustainability. It’s about control and profit, and it’s time people start seeing it for what it is.
The truth always comes out. And it’s only a matter of time before Chevron’s shiny PR mask starts to crack.

Ready to retire after 30 years at Shell and don't plan to ever look back. Corporate life nearly ki-led me slowly, but at least I’m financially secure. I know many are not as lucky. One thing's for sure, I'm never going back to that grind. The office politics can stay behind me forever.

The real issue isn’t whether the Vawn assets are “material” to Cenovus — it’s whether the special compensation or arrangements Strathcona received from Cenovus are material to other MEG shareholders. That’s the question investors deserve answered.

If certain insiders or counterparties benefited from discounted asset valuations or side-terms, why shouldn’t ordinary shareholders receive an equivalent uplift in share value?

The Board’s defense — that the Vawn assets represent only a small percentage of Cenovus production — completely misses the point. Materiality is judged by what matters to MEG shareholders, not by what’s convenient for Cenovus or its advisors.

The optics here are troubling. The absence of transparent disclosure around valuation assumptions, fairness opinions, and board deliberations raises serious questions about whether all shareholders were treated equally.

Worse, the MEG Board attempts to justify its decision by hiding behind the advice of its financial advisors, BMO and RBC. Outsourcing judgment is not fulfilling fiduciary duty — it’s the opposite. Shareholders rely on the Board to defend their interests, not to delegate accountability.

It’s time for the Alberta Securities Commission and the SEC to take a hard look at whether this process truly met the standards of fairness, independence, and equal treatment that public shareholders are owed.

Do the VPs and directors get those special packages in their contracts, so they don’t have to worry at all after the merger while everyone else feels uncertain?

Just look at the view counts, no other company has so many views and we are much smaller than other banks. I am suspecting they are sending bots to monitor everything that's being said here and they are reporting this up. It's sick just like everything else this exec group does.

Uh-oh!

It's probably the EC figuring out a new time for meetings, but what do any of us learn at these? Rah rah b.s. and lies.

Story by Justin Lahart

Corporate America has ended its firing freeze.

Companies scrambled for years after the pandemic to build back their workforces, learning a simple lesson along the way: Keep the workers you’ve got, because if you lose them you will have a hard time getting them back.

The job market has softened in recent months, however, marking a safer environment for companies to start streamlining their workforces. A host of them have pounced, including Amazon.com, UPS, Target and Meta Platforms, which have announced tens of thousands of layoffs in recent weeks.

It is a shift that could have major repercussions for U.S. workers. Over the past two years, U.S. businesses have become increasingly reluctant to bring new employees on, especially as more recent uncertainty over the direction of tariffs made it harder to plan ahead. But they have also been hesitant to cut the employees they already have, an example of what economists term “labor hoarding.”

The result has been a low-hire, low-fire environment, in which recent graduates and others trying to break into the job market have struggled, but workers who are already employed have been largely insulated.

Now things are looking a bit more like the 1990s, when many big companies were focused on eliminating workers they felt were no longer needed, according to Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM.

Back then, “we used to reward companies for letting people go,” he said

A number of things could be at play in companies’ increasing comfort with layoffs, including optimism over artificial intelligence, but they all come down to the bottom line. Labor is a major cost, and cutting it is one way to bolster profit margins. Tariffs could be adding to the urgency, especially for companies weighing whether and how to pass through the higher costs they are paying for goods on to consumers.

Some companies also added to their payrolls as they moved to keep up with the surge in demand that came in the pandemic’s wake, and may now feel that they are bloated. Amazon had about 800,000 employees at the end of 2019, and about 1.5 million at the end of last year.

In a memo to staff last week explaining Target’s plan to cut 1,800 corporate roles, incoming chief executive Michael Fiddelke said, “Too many layers and overlapping work have slowed decisions, making it harder to bring ideas to life.”

It probably helps, too, that investors have appeared to welcome job cuts. Target’s stock edged up on the day it announced layoffs. When Amazon on Tuesday said it was laying off 14,000 workers, with more to come, its stock rose 1%. When UPS disclosed it had cut 48,000 management and operations positions when it reported earnings on Tuesday, Wall Street’s focus was on its strong results, and its stock rallied 8%.

Nor are companies any more in an environment where hiring back workers would be anything like the struggle it was after the economy began to reopen from the Covid crisis. Then, workers could largely pick and choose between competing offers.

The unemployment rate, which fell to a multidecade low of 3.4% in April 2023, was 4.3% as of August. Many Americans are operating under the assumption that the jobs picture will get worse: 64% of consumers polled by the University of Michigan this month said they expected higher unemployment over the next 12 months, compared with 32% in October 2024.

One risk for the broader economy: In an environment where employment growth is already low, any increase in layoffs could lead the economy to start shedding jobs. In August—the last month of available data before the government shutdown delayed Labor Department economic releases—the U.S. added just 22,000 jobs.

Whether the recent run of layoff announcements augurs a downturn in the job market isn’t clear, said Jed Kolko, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. While those layoff numbers are eye-catching, they don’t necessarily reflect what is going on in a labor force of over 170 million people, he said.

“You need the whole picture, and that whole picture comes from data that are not being released during the shutdown,” Kolko said.

For companies, enthusiasm over the possibility to automate more work with AI is also playing a role. The Federal Reserve’s latest beige book, which compiles economic anecdotes from the 12 regional Fed banks, reported that more employers were reducing head counts through layoffs and attrition “with contacts citing weaker demand, elevated economic uncertainty, and, in some cases, increased investment in artificial intelligence technologies.”

While there is evidence that AI is cutting into demand for certain jobs, such as software development, the degree to which it is more broadly automating away jobs is difficult to tease out, points out Kolko.

But even if they haven’t been able to widely implement AI yet, a belief that they someday will could increase some employers’ comfort with abandoning labor hoarding. Companies including Walmart, Ford, JPMorgan Chase and Amazon have said that they expect AI will allow them to eliminate jobs.

“Labor hoarding was especially pronounced in higher-wage jobs, where employees are harder to find and therefore more costly to lose,” he said. “Those tended to be tech industries and other professional industries, and those overlap with some of the industries that could be most affected by AI.”

Write to Justin Lahart at Justin.Lahart@wsj.com

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/why-companies-are-no-longer-hanging-on-to-employees/ar-AA1PDQy6?ocid=msedgntp&pc=W230&cvid=9d7c22f078db4c4cad85cabf269b82b1&ei=11

All the member-centric, one team/one dream and right care/right time/right place blather can pay the bills. But you realize what a charade it all really is after it resurfaces for the third or fourth time at the same starting point.

Doesn’t lend itself to fulfillment through meaningful work, that’s for sure.

Whitacre Tower isn’t just where we work — it’s where our future is being built. Every day inside these walls, we’re driving innovation, reimagining how people connect, and setting bold goals for what comes next. It’s where new ideas are tested, challenges are met with creativity, and collaboration turns ambition into action.

As we look ahead, Whitacre Tower stands as a reminder of what we’ve accomplished — and what we’re still striving for. Our mission is to lead with purpose, invest in technology that empowers communities, and create experiences that move the world forward. The future of our company starts here, in the heart of Dallas, where progress never stops. Whitacre Tower is more than our home — it’s our foundation for what’s next as we strive to be the leader in convergence.

The Seven Species of LinkedIn

A field guide for the modern professional jungle. Bring your coffee and your sense of irony.

⸻

1. The Drum Beater

“Achievement unlocked: updated my email signature.”
Celebrates everything — from finishing a webinar to surviving Monday. If self-promotion were cardio, this one would be marathon-ready.

⸻

1. The “Humbled” Achiever

“So humbled to announce that I’m basically amazing.”
Masters the ancient art of bragging while pretending not to. Their posts start with false modesty and end with 1,200 likes.

⸻

1. The Thought Leader

“Innovation is just passion wearing a tie.”
Part philosopher, part buzzword generator. Communicates exclusively in abstract nouns — synergy, authenticity, disruption — as if they’re paid by the syllable.

⸻

1. The Motivational Evangelist

“I spilled coffee on myself — and learned a valuable lesson about leadership.”
Turns every life event into an inspirational parable. A broken laptop? A metaphor for resilience. A delayed flight? Proof that patience is a skill set.

⸻

1. The Corporate Citizen

“Proud to be part of a company that’s making the world slightly better — at least in our press release.”
Their posts are indistinguishable from the HR department’s. They clap for every culture initiative like it’s the Super Bowl halftime show.

⸻

1. The Sycophant

“Brilliant insight, boss! (Please notice me.)”
The algorithm’s most loyal servant. Likes, comments, and reposts with the precision of a political campaign. Never misses a chance to congratulate management for “inspiring leadership.”

⸻

1. The Silent Lurker

“Just here for the sociology experiment.”
Never posts. Never likes. Knows everyone’s promotion history and engagement stats by heart. The digital equivalent of the person at a party who stands by the snack table quietly judging everyone.

Would be a great cost saving and I don’t think they add much when there are already managers,senior managers,ADs and Directors

Get rid of some of the fat and Verizon might have a chance

It is crazy hearing about RIFs when we have so many executives and most people have no idea what they even do. CEO has a meeting, then the SVP has a meeting, then the VP, then the Sr director, etc. All just say the same things and ask what did you think about what the ceo said. If they want to cut costs start with upper and middle management.

Due to the current economic climate and the future efficiency of AI all major companies are making cuts to keep up with the rising costs to do business. Even if AI isn't a realistic strategy companies are all in because the potential is too great to ignore. Vote for leadership not party affiliation. We are experiencing the impacts of almost 10 years of horrible leadership decisions at the top that trickle down to companies across America.

What adds insult to injury?

1. My last day after well over 30 years is Nov 20, no two day Thanksgiving pay.

2. Max severance is 182 days, only getting severance pay for less than 1/2 of my tenure.

3. C suite automatically get 2 full years severance unrelated to their years of service.

4. The previous layoff in January 25 everyone received max 182 days PLUS $10K. No $10K this time around. Seems like precedent was set and taken away.

This level of greed, cronyism (BH hiring family and friends) and the consistent ADDITIONAL C SUITE hires should speak to the dark soul leaders of this company.

Let’s start with the heart of it: their employees. Chevron loves to slap “safety first” on their ads, but the reality? It’s a revolving door of near-misses turning into nightmares. Just this year, in June 2025, their own CEO, Mike Wirth, had to send out an internal video basically admitting safety’s going to he-l in a handbasket—rising injuries, close calls piling up, and he’s begging staff to “reinforce standards.” Like, dude, that’s your job! But here’s the gut punch: This isn’t new. Back in 2013, a massive explosion at their Richmond, California refinery ki-led a 46-year-old worker because Chevron straight-up failed to train him properly on the hazards.  And in 2014? A gas well blowout in Pennsylvania fried 27-year-old contract worker Ian McKee alive—OSHA slapped them with a $940K fine, but who cares when profits are rolling in?  Fast-forward to now: Their El Segundo refinery racked up 46 environmental safety violations in just the last five years, and over a decade? It’s a laundry list of leaks, fires, and fines totaling millions.  They even coughed up $160 million in 2018 to settle claims over refinery accidents that could’ve been prevented with basic oversight.  If you’re clocking in at Chevron, you’re not valued—you’re expendable. One wrong valve, one skipped safety check, and poof, you’re a statistic. They preach “people before profits,” but the bodies say otherwise.
And don’t get me started on the communities they’re “blessing” with their operations. Chevron’s track record is a horror show… Take Ecuador: For decades, they dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon rainforest, wiping out Indigenous communities and leaving a cancer cluster the size of a small country. A court hit them with a $9.5 billion judgment in 2011, but Chevron dragged it out for years, accusing everyone else of fraud while dodging payment.   They finally “won” an appeal in 2018 by crying foul, but the damage? Irreversible—kids born with birth defects, rivers that glow at night, entire villages relocated.  Or look at California: They’re fueling Israel’s gas ops, propping up what critics call apartheid and war crimes while communities back home deal with refinery flares belching carcinogens into the air.  A 2021 report clocked dozens of unresolved environmental lawsuits against them, with Chevron ghosting fines and cleanup costs like it’s optional.  These aren’t accidents; it’s a pattern. They swoop in, extract, pollute, and bounce—leaving locals to foot the health bills. Communities aren’t partners; they’re collateral damage.
Oh, and the lies? Chevron’s greenwashing game is Olympic-level. They’ve been caught peddling this “climate-friendly” BS while funding denial campaigns for 50 years. California AG sued them in 2023 for decades of deception—hiding how their fossil fuels torch the planet while smiling for ads about “net-zero” dreams that are pure smoke.   In 2021, watchdogs filed an unprecedented FTC complaint: Chevron’s ads claim they’re slashing emissions, but their plans? A measly 5-10% cut that’s basically a rounding error while they drill like tomorrow’s canceled.  And just last month, October 2025, they’re in court again, falsely smearing a lawyer in a $51B climate fraud case as the bad guy—Oregon county called it out as baseless BS.  Even in New Mexico, they got busted allegedly faking remediation reports on oil wells, lying about cleanup to keep fracking unchecked.  Shady? This is criminal. They lie to regulators, to you at the pump, to Wall Street—anything to keep the cash flowing.
Look, if you’re a Chevron employee watching this—I’ve seen the X posts, the layoffs hitting 8,000 of you this year alone, the burnout stories from rigs to refineries—you’re not “essential.” You’re a number on a spreadsheet, squeezed for overtime, exposed to hazards, then pink-slipped when oil prices dip.  They use you daily, wear you down, and when you’re broken? Next applicant. It’s not a job; it’s exploitation wrapped in a uniform.

Especially since the card carrying members of Mensa who run Truist can't even articulate what it's supposed to mean. Incredibly insulting to your employees. You've failed us all.

So glad that in this time of need Amazon has decided that my salary would be better suited going towards the big beautiful ballroom, than me and my family. Thanks corporate overlords.

These corporations seem to have no idea how to address any of their issues other than to lay people off. They do it to please the shareholders, however everyone else is stressed out. They wonder why employees have no loyalty to their company anymore? It's because corporations don't care about them. Shop local, buy local. Buy as much as possible from small businesses in your community. That money stays in your community and doesn't line a shareholders pocket. Sc--w them. Take your power back. Between robotics and AI, nobody is going to have jobs in a few years unless it's serving at the feet of the rich.

Seeing lots of corporate level posts but what about the situation at your station? All quiet at mine so far (being vague in case Sonny Boy is lurking here).

Part of corp risk

Let’s be honest. They don’t care about quality or people, only about cutting costs. If they can outsource us all, they will. The work will definitely suffer, but that won’t matter to them. As long as the numbers look good on paper, they’ll call it a success. That’s the sad truth of where we are now.

General update: US Silica was purchased by the Apollo Group ("wealth management firm") in August 2024.
Almost immediately layoffs in the corporate structure (not surpising, given a buyout)
Company is now ULTRA focused on cash - so very little capital spending, really digging into every bit of money spent.
Rumor is that they're trying to sell the Oil & Gas plants.
ISP - They laid off all of the mining employees at the Lovelock, NV plant. (Most of them got rehired by the contractor that they hired to run the mine now.) Several plant employees also laid off, not sure how many.
Decisions being made at the corporate level without regard/knowledge of how the DE plants run are going to make it impossible to keep the plants open. Orders in general on the DE side have been low since Nov 2024.
I'd stay away from US Silica. They also have a history of laying people off right after performance reviews (in November) . That way they don't have to pay any bonuses, since you have to be employed in March of the next year to collect the bonus from the year before.

Please be advised that the “Enter weather information here Direction for E&PS”

So much winning!! I feel so safe!! PSMS rules anyway, who needs corporate level safety?