#toxicenvironment

While global HQ preaches corporate ethics and announces structured layoffs with severance packages, the reality at one of its major international subsidiaries is a textbook disaster of cronyism, severe toxic management, and unlawful practices.
If you are considering joining this company (either in sales or other), read this first.

1. Cronyism & Extreme Toxic Environment Following a change in leadership, the regional entity was overtaken by an ex-competitor clique that privatized the organization. The pressure and chaotic direction became unbearable: within a single regional technical department, two young engineers collapsed due to severe vascular crises (myocardial infarction and cerebral hemorrhage). Unsurprisingly, both systems engineers and sales reps have been fleeing the subsidiary in droves, with multiple new hires quitting during their probation or taking medical leave immediately after.

2. Severance Evasion via We-ponized PIP To avoid paying official restructuring/severance packages, local management we-ponized PIPs against selected targets. Despite prior recognized contributions, impossible targets were imposed to manufacture failure. Legitimate rights to medical leave were concealed from stressed employees, leaving them no choice but to resign under extreme duress.

3. The Ridiculous "60pt Font" Forced Resignation In one flagrant instance of constructive dismissal, management presented a resignation template that had already pre-printed the text "Personal Reasons" in an absurd 60-point bold font—forcing the employee to sign away their rights to company-initiated severance. The sheer amateurism and intimidation tactics of local management are beyond belief.

4. Official Government Regulatory Intervention The negligence didn't stop at forced departures. Former employees attempting to process legal post-employment documentation were met with an automated bounce-back stating the HR inbox was "no longer monitored" and completely neglected for months. This explicit violation of statutory labor regulations triggered a formal inquiry and corrective action by the local government's labor regulatory agency.
   Local leadership is desperately trying to hide these catastrophic failures from San Jose. HQ Compliance, Rajiv, and the Audit Committee need to investigate the toxic clique running this subsidiary before further legal liabilities and brand damage hit the global press.

The environment is tainted with toxicity, fear and ugliness, including the behavior and communication from the leaders and colleagues.

As thankful as I am to be employed, the nightmare here never ends. It isn’t the work itself that is stressful, it’s the culture. There’s too little focus on competence and too much focus on sycophancy. Some senior “leaders” know nothing, don’t listen and make baseless, bullsh-t decisions (ahem Lise). I don’t know how people with zero technical acumen can make technical decisions. Furthermore, they are too bull-headed and busy kissing ELT a** to even take practical, technical advice. Additionally, they are trying to manage people out; even employees who have been high-performing are getting slammed across the board, pretty much out of nowhere. If ever there was a toxic environment, this is it!

I can't say this strongly enough: if you have any skills, any talent, any ambition...leave this place. It's a dumpster fire that will only drag you down. Get out and don't look back.

So I am currently at Cigna, Social worker role in medical department, our entire department is being let go as Cigna is exiting the IFP/Affordable Healthcare act market. I'm currently trying to beef up my private practice in hopes of going full time so I can avoid corporate world again- BUT I have noticed openings for BH roles at Aetna. I want to hear from anyone in the BH deparment- what's it like? outrageous caseload? toxic environment? poor management? Because Cigna BH department took a massive nose dive into he-l in the last year and there is nothing in the universe that would make me go back to the BH department of Cigna. I fear it's much the same at Aetna, but if I can't get my private practice to full time then I need to have a job.

Hard work and skill won't get you ahead. Flatter your boss and trash-talk the competition. That's the winning combination.

Walked out a year ago and the weight lifted immediately. I'm a completely different person now. I can't tell you how much my life has improved now that I don't spend more than a third of each day stressing and surrounded by a toxic environment. If you can, leave. It'll make all the difference.

The whole company became a joke once Greed took over. Bad decision, horrible promotions to many young woman that were not competent to assume those roles, but Greed like his pretty young women around. Also he loved to have his "yes" men by his side. What a mess this company has spiraled into. Management used to brag about how they never laid anyone off, now its a common every other year occurrence. So top heavy with incompetent leadership that should have been the first to go, not the front line workers that actually did things. Many EVP's and VP on the sale force should have been shown the door with their useless sales tactics... and if you did not go along or drink the toxic cool aid they were handing out, you were an outcast and would never go any where in the company. I thought it would get better with a change of leadership- no because they were hyper focused on DEI and over paid HR leadership that wanted to shove their agenda down the employees throat when they should have been getting rid of most of the sales leaders in the field. Tom M. would be so disgusted with what has happened to this once great company over the last 11 years. Stay away from this toxic place, stay far away!

I'm serious, if you can find a job anywhere else, do it. At NCR, being good at your job makes you a threat. Everybody will see you as competition, and any chance of advancement will vanish. You'll end up working for someone who, in any sane organization, would be your assistant. It's a system designed to crush ambition.

The best employees get blamed and cut while the lazy, gossipy, rude ones get protected. Why does it work this way?

The toxicity is so bad, they are BURNING people's reputations with SLANDER for FTE & Consultants. Avoid this place at all costs!!

Every day we have to deal with gaslighting, intimidation, and bullying. It's not occasional. It's every single day. No wonder morale is in the gutter.

I feel like I've drank some poisoned coolaid at the FY27 kickoff. Ever since the last round of restructuring, layoffs, optimisation or whatever the fu-k else you wanna call it the company processes have ground to a screeching maniacal halt. Sales? Unexistant. Licensing? Can't provide you with a license, can't tell a license for two completely different products apart, need to involve 50 people to provide a client with anything. Developers? Now part of Support?! Support? Can't hear a squeal out of them unless you invoke an ancient Latin spell - oh wait thats just all of their senior management's names im writing in the CC of this email, not Ancient Latin. Do they have the clients locked up with a g-n pointed to their head to keep signing up for these dorky a-s shifty products or something??? Every day in this company is like a Benadryl trip where any issue I have needs to be solved by the hat man I keep seeing with the corner of my eye that apparently doesnt fu--ing exist. Absolute misery.

I really hope everyone is able to leave this toxic af company. Can you imagine working somewhere where earnings calls are a place to celebrate the value the company has delivered? Every earnings call here, the more numb I’ve become to wondering when the next LR will hit.

Unfortunately, I did not choose to work at Siemens- Siemens acquired the company I worked for. Since the acquisition, I’ve found the overall environment incredibly difficult. There is very little genuine collaboration, and many interactions feel unnecessarily abrasive or outright rude. The overall energy often feels adversarial rather than like people are working toward the same goals.
The organizational silos seem to reinforce a culture of protecting individual realms instead of collaborating across teams.
This has been the most frustrating company environment I’ve experienced, and I've worked at multiple big tech companies. It is not an organization I would personally consider a 'best place to work'.

I gave Nike 25 years. In the end, I had to leave a job I loved because the systems built to protect employees chose to protect the company instead.

The culture has become toxic, and Nike wants employees to just accept it as the norm.I wasn’t willing to. And I don’t think you should be either.

Speaking up was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I knew there was a real chance I’d be retaliated against and discriminated against in the very environment I was reporting on. I did it anyway. I filed three formal complaints. Each one can be more than substantiated. Each one was overlooked and ignored — because my boss believes she’s untouchable, protected by the VP she reports to.

Here’s what I’ve learned: addressing problems at Nike isn’t actually possible from the inside. HR, ER, People Solutions, Legal — they exist to protect Nike. Not the employees who trust them enough to come forward. All of these teams report into EH. And when they ignore and disregard Speak Up complaints, they aren’t addressing the real problem — they’re protecting it. The real issue was never me. It was leadership.
People shouldn’t have to leave the job they built a career on.

I had no choice but to leave. And now I’m working with the EEOC to fight for my rights. The rights that Nike didn’t protect. Nike is paying outside lawyers to do damage control — a cost to their bottom line, and a cost to what they claim to stand for. That’s the price of ignoring the truth instead of addressing it.

What ever happened to “do the right thing”? Instead, it’s “know the right people.”
I documented everything. I stood up for myself. And the truth doesn’t lie — even if it takes a judge, jury and a courtroom to prove it. I won’t back down. That’s what Nike wants all of you to do. Don’t be weak!

To anyone inside this culture reading this: not speaking up is also part of the problem. I know it’s scary. I know the odds can feel stacked against you. Do it scared. Report it anonymously if you have to. Go to the EEOC when the internal channels fail you — because they will.

One complaint is easy to bury (mine is not buried) But if enough of you are willing to be vulnerable and speak up, the EEOC will see the trend. Patterns are harder to dismiss than individuals. That’s how systemic problems get proven — not by one voice, but by many pointing at the same thing.

And stop expecting Nike to do the right thing on its own. They’ve already shown you they won’t. That’s not an expectation you should be holding onto anymore. This isn’t about fairness — life isn’t fair, and I’ve stopped waiting for it to be. It’s about something more basic: the right to work in an environment free of hostility, where you aren’t being discriminated against or retaliated against for telling the truth. That’s not too much to ask for. It’s the bare minimum. How low can Nike go?

EH knows this is systemic. TH knows. LT knows. RL knows.

I’m one person. But this toxic culture has become the norm, and it is not okay. I’ll keep fighting until justice is served — because I did the right thing and I don’t have to stay silent about it anymore.

Just do it. Speak up. I see you!

Hey all.

Anyone else get an email today saying they were "randomly selected" (one of 5000) to take this "GPTW" survey? Perhaps not so coincidentally, it's arriving on 8/14 and is due to be completed 8/28. They say it's "voluntary" and "confidential," but we all know how that second thing goes. 😂 Any thoughts? Should I bother?

Although my time was short with Discover/Crapital One, I have come to believe that it was a blessing in disguise! Not living day to day in a toxic environment where management lies and you wait for the hatchet any minute and knowing you are a hardworking, valuable employee, is a blessing. I hope the best for the good folks they "Crapped" on this week. Regarding the severance - take the money and run! They have surely already crafted your job posting for LinkedIn, and possibly interviewed your much younger, less costly, on-site, replacement! Crapital One is just that - One Cr-ppy Company that does not care about any employees...

EH is destroying this place, and nobody seems to give a damn outside of us, since we're the only ones truly affected by it. We have to do more work, we have to deal with lost benefits, we have to handle the increasingly toxic culture. I don't know how much longer I can take it.

Worked here some time ago, the management was terrible. Their so called 1, 2, and 3rd level leaders were extremely terrible human beings. They treated people poorly and there was no recourse for the staff. The higher level management just believed their lies, no accountability, it was a really terrible gruling experience.

I've been scanning other banks on this site, and it's discouraging. Everyone seems to be dealing with the same issues, from layoffs, to toxicity, to bad leadership. I want out, but I don't want to jump from one dumpster fire to another. Is there actually a better alternative out there, or is this just what the industry has become?

We grind, we sacrifice, we build just to have them step on us and move on like nothing happened. Cisco has lost whatever soul it once had.

I wasted three years in Nike's fear-based culture that drained everything from me. My new job is far from ideal, but it's still ten times better than Nike. The biggest mistake of my career was joining that place.

I'm stuck in this weird space where I can't bring myself to quit, but I secretly hope they lay me off. It would feel like being released from prison, finally free. I love the actual work, but the environment makes it unbearable. Half of me is terrified of getting cut. The other half is waiting for it.

What a day for Dell! they subjected the entire sb in round rock to a pie eating contest like the Mandingo fights from Django unchained. while they put the entire sales force on a draw. MD would've walked in like a plantation master and started throwing his coins at us like beggars

Exxon is a dysfunctional hellhole that is like bizarro world. Everything is run absurdly at exxon. Employees that are connected and favorites are given promotions. Supervisors are the types that would ki-l their own mother to get ahead. Think about your true performance compared to others in the company and is it true? Are you truly as worthless as exxon deems you to be? The answer is most cases is no. Exxon tries to motivate and scare its employees by fear tactics and intimidation. Employees are encouraged to outdo and tell on other employees. Gossip is rampant and perception is paramount. The friends and families are all connected and well protected at exxon. Exxon will try to break you down and destroy your self-esteem and dignity. Once you escape and leave this horrible place you can finally see the truth. It is like being trapped in prison or a bad relationship because it is all you know. If you can find a normal company to work for where you can excel and be your best you can see the difference. What kind of crazy company would hold an employee back and not use them to their fullest potential just because they were not a favorite or chosen? Would it not make sense for exxon to use the talents of its employees to their fullest potential? This is the true evil of exxon and the dysfunction. The ranking system is fixed and hardworking talented employees are destroyed and piped every year. Exxon is not a good place to work and is detrimental to your health. Escape if you can before you are in to deep and ruined.

https://youtu.be/R_kp_MghEgQ?si=pgAV_u2Mcmp_JJBT

I've never worked somewhere with worse working environment than L3H.

Anyone dealing with Indian offshore manager and .not including you in meetings and chats? My director is now offshore and she has all the meetings during India times which is after midnight for me. I am not even on the invites, no communication nothing. She's spreading toxicity by dividing the teams deliberately. Business team is pi---d nothing is getting done correctly. Quality is sh-t but I am not able to do anything as they are doing whatever they want without consulting anyone onshore. Business told me indirectly that they will cut the funding and go back to their old process. This means layoffs both onshore and offshore. I can't believe a director can be such plain stupid and toxic to a point where she'll ship the sink and drag everyone down. And oh btw, neither she nor any of the engineering she hired are technical yet make all the decisions on their own with no documentation.

Hey fellow riders of the wonderful hellish stage coach. I had been feeling hopeful again where I had been applying for thousands of jobs and after countless rejections. I’m finally getting offers for jobs. I had been feeling so hopeless up until these last few weeks and I appreciate you guys here. Despite the horrible situation we are in, it feels somewhat somber to have some comrades in the trenches.

The executives in charge are the worst and the toxic environment they are making where there is mistrust, total chaos in the name of efficiency and total lack of professionalism from forced in office, biweekly layoffs of good people, peanut 2% raises and the refurbished POS laptops that they gave out. I’m wanting others to also feel hope and to hang on.

recently got a very toxic manager—an Indian guy. He has serious trust issues and creates a highly toxic work environment. I’ve had Exceeds Expectations ratings for the last five years. Should I continue here or start looking for opportunities outside?

You are just a drone that exists to serve the Corporate Elites. Will the last bot out please code an AI agent to fraudulently open some accounts.

Not sure I understand how this happened. I’ve only been here 5 years, but the Sport Research Lab seems to have crazy low morale. A lot of people are abusing the workplace complaints system to attack bosses and colleagues. It didn’t always seem like this. Now leadership is doing these silly culture exercises to try and solve this huge problem because everyone is afraid of being targeted by their own co-workers.

Is it like this in other departments? Because it’s really bad over here in NSRL.

Why, as a leader in the field, am I now having to do the work of this team? The math is strange - I generate revenue, the firm allocates my revenue for this home office work yet I’m the one doing their work. From what I hear - the GP running it is inadequate and the directors are incompetent and have created a toxic environment where their staff left their area leaving us to do their roles. How are they still employed?

This company is the worst ever. They have no clue what they are doing. SMBC is for sale, probably sold already. Just let us go already. I'm not giving in though; they are going to pay me severance. Treating people like sh!t is going to work, and they aren't going to voluntarily leave.

Most of the people already working here are trying to escape. Yet somehow, people are still applying. I honestly can't figure out what would make someone want to join this mess. It's a mystery to me.

If you care about your mental health, stay far away. They'll tell you they care about employees, but it's all talk. You're just a number to them and they treat you as such.

Time to share, who is the most toxic boss or department in Saudi Aramco. This should be interesting