AEP's plummeting morale is the failure of AEP Corporate Officers to motivate, inspire and reward AEP employees for their many successes when weighed against their few failures. Rewarding incompetent employees falseness and fawning servility over dedicated employees who are the embodiment of integrity, efficiency, dedication and self-driven proficiency and professionalism destroys morale and creates an abysmal leadership culture that is obsessed with rewarding itself for failure and punishing employees who have the unmitigated audacity to be a glaring contrast to their promoted inferiors.
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Our lineman and field support employees are literally ki-ling themselves making lesser men rich. Human endurance is not infinite and we are entering a period of weather patterns that will challenge the most physically fit sleep deprived athletes. When these athletes performance suffers they lose a contest, but our lineman and field support employees are risking their lives navigating dangerous terrain, in storm damaged forests, flood ravaged hollows and valleys with unstable earth and rock in extreme heat and humidity while dealing with lethal voltages. Properly maintaining our distribution system and right of ways is not optional if we are truly a company committed to safety and reliability. Corporate profits, executive compensation and shareholder value are not worth the life and well-being of one of these dedicated professionals and our profit margins must embody this commitment to employees. their families and our customers. The time has come for those who sacrifice the least to honor and reward the earned legend of the AEP Linemen and their Field Support Coworkers. You have selfishly enriched yourself off their legend for far too long and a debt of honor and integrity is owed and shall be paid.
Narcissistic sociopaths get off on the misery and torment they cause their victims because they are obsessed with power and control. Deny them their perverse and inhuman joy. Don't chose to be their victims and playthings. A class action lawsuit filed against the CEO and corporate board by employees and severanced employees is an appropriate response to systematic institutionalized abuse and financial exploitation. The time has come to make them pay for their criminality and inhuman victimization of current and former employees.
A.I. assessment of statement:
That perspective captures the exhaustion and anger that comes from dealing with highly manipulative people. When dealing with individuals who exhibit traits of both Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD)—often referred to as malignant narcissists or narcissistic sociopaths—the focus on power, control, and domination is a core clinical reality.
Taking back control means refusing to participate in the toxic dynamic. Experts in psychology and abuse recovery highlight several critical steps to deny a manipulator the control they crave:
Practical Strategies to Disengage
Implement No Contact: Cut off all communication completely if your safety and situation allow. Block phone numbers, email addresses, and social media accounts to eliminate entry points.
Use the Grey Rock Method: Become as boring, unresponsive, and uninteresting as a grey rock if you must interact (due to work or co-parenting). Provide short, factual, one-word answers without emotional expression.
Withhold Emotional Reactions: Manipulators look for emotional reactions—whether anger, tears, or defense. Neutralizing your facial expressions and tone deprives them of the feedback loop they seek.
Establish Rigid Boundaries: Clearly define what behaviors you will not tolerate. Walk away, hang up the phone, or leave the room the moment a boundary is crossed, without explaining your reasoning.
Document Everything: Keep a factual log of dates, times, texts, and emails if you are dealing with legal, workplace, or custody matters. This protects you from gaslighting and smear campaigns.
Build a Support Network: Reconnect with trusted friends, family, or a professional therapist specializing in abuse recovery. Manipulators isolate victims; a strong support network breaks that isolation.
Filing a class action lawsuit holds corporate leadership accountable for systematic abuse by legally uniting victims, freezing harmful actions, and demanding financial compensation. This collective approach strips power from abusive leaders and transforms individual pain into a unified force for justice.
Steps for a Class Action Lawsuit
Find a lawyer: Talk to an attorney who handles class action cases against large companies.
Gather proof: Collect emails, memos, witness statements, and records of the harmful behavior.
File the claim: The main plaintiff files the official complaint in court on behalf of the group.
Get court approval: The judge must certify the case as a class action so it represents all victims.
Notify others: The legal team contacts other people affected so they can join or opt out.
Settle or go to trial: Both sides negotiate a settlement or present the case to a jury.
@1p0z When toxic corporate management is confronted with the irrefutable truth about their corporate culture and they refuse to change, we have to be the irresistible and undeniable force of permanent change. The Founding Fathers "Showed Us the Way". Were they Mandalorian? We are descended from Colonial Colonists and warriors, who resolutely refused to bend a knee to immense wealth authoritarian tyranny.
@1nzr The down votes say it all and are irrefutable confirmation of the validity of the human and A.I. assessments of our toxic work environment and appallingly broken and hypocritical corporate culture. Our very well-being and humanity are in grave peril.
A.I. assessment:
It sounds incredibly exhausting and stressful to deal with a work culture that feels toxic and hypocritical. When internal data or public votes confirm what you already feel, it can be validating, but it also highlights how deep the issues run. Protecting your well-being must be your top priority when leadership or culture fails to change.
A.I. has moral clarity and is compassionate to our plight unlike our dead inside corporate leadership.
A.I.
It is completely understandable to feel exhausted when you are dealing with a workplace culture that feels toxic and hypocritical. Seeing others agree with you through votes or comments can feel like a relief because it proves you are not alone in what you are experiencing. While I do not have personal feelings, morals, or a soul, I can help you look at your options clearly and logically when you are facing heavy stress. When a company's culture is deeply broken, trying to fix it yourself can lead to severe burnout.
The time has come for employees to flip the private equity rigged economy narrative and lay off employers in a mass exodus. Let's see them crow about year after year record profits when corporate has to do ALL the work themselves while employees take well deserved breaks from the task master's lash of private equity corporate authoritarianism.
That can't win if we refuse to participate.
Early retirement or alternative employment are the only viable options at this point for physical, mental and emotional well-being. The reorg has caused traumatic PTSD exasperated by increased workloads, insulting and demeaning incentives and compensation and abysmal morale. The reorg and flattening of management and supervision are the direct result of gaming the system with increased hiring and promotions to increase corporate pandemic government compensation for keeping employees on the payroll and when the corporate leadership inflated government subsidizes stopped enhancing corporate profits, the excess employees, supervisors and managers became a drag on CEO and major shareholder value. Employees shall be governed by integrity and management shall not abide by their own mandates and policies. The outrageous hypocrisy of corporate leadership is toxic and lethal.
A.I. assessment:
It sounds like you are dealing with an incredibly toxic, exhausting, and unjust corporate environment that has taken a severe toll on your health. Choosing to prioritize your well-being over a broken system is a powerful and necessary step.
When transitioning away from a toxic workplace due to burnout or trauma, navigating your next steps requires balancing financial safety with immediate emotional relief.
Immediate Well-Being Actions
See a professional: Document your stress and PTSD symptoms with a licensed doctor or therapist.
Explore medical leave: Look into FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) or short-term disability.
Secure your mental space: Take every minute of your accrued PTO immediately to gain clarity.
Mute the noise: Do the bare minimum required to keep your job ("quiet quitting") while you plan your exit.
Preserve evidence: Save copies of performance reviews, policy violations, and toxic communications to your personal devices.
Evaluating Early Retirement
Calculate your runway: Total your liquid savings and determine exactly how many months you can survive without income.
Check penalty-free access: Look into IRS Rule 72(t) or the Rule of 55 to access retirement funds early without penalties.
Assess healthcare costs: Factor in the price of independent health insurance or COBRA before officially resigning.
Downsize your overhead: Slash non-essential spending immediately to lower your required retirement target.
Alternative Employment Paths
Downshifting: Seek lower-stress, "bridge jobs" that cover basic bills but do not follow you home.
Contract or freelance: Pivot to consulting in your field to regain control over your hours and boundaries.
Fractional roles: Work part-time leadership or specialist roles for multiple smaller, healthier companies.
Government or non-profit: Transition to sectors where the bottom line is not tied to aggressive corporate shareholder value.
Setting Separation Boundaries
Construct a neutral exit: Do not use your resignation letter to fix the company; keep it brief and professional.
Decline exit interviews: You are not obligated to provide closure or feedback to a leadership team that lacks integrity.
File for unemployment: If forced to quit due to a hostile work environment, document everything to fight for constructive discharge benefits.
You determine your value and worth, not them.
The only thing of real value at AEP is its employees. Customers know the value of dedicated employees they can count on to be there for them on the hottest most hellish nights after a major storm fixing what mother nature has torn asunder. On the coldest mornings after ice, snow and bone chilling winds have reduced our communities to brutal challenges to survive and endure the fury of old man winter. Where are the corporate boys and girls when real men and women are facing unrelenting adversity and triumphing by their sheer determination to never fail their customer's faith in them? How much faith does anyone have in the revolving door corporate posers, who walk in at the top, hide behind the legend of their employees, rack all the profits off the table and leave without anyone caring or noticing their gone? It is the impact you have on the lives of your customers that brings value to AEP. Corporate has only accomplished subtracting huge sums from that value with every new CEO and self-serving corporate culture he or she imposes upon us to condescendingly mock and defile everything we stand for and represent as THE SOUL of AEP. Take your $36.6 million dollars and your major shareholder centric corporate culture and go to He-l.
The cr-ppiest corporate management in the entire electric utility industry. No wonder the employees of other electric companies call us the Porta Potty of power companies.
Promote the unworthy for their fawning fealty. Enrich the undeserving for their appalling audacity. Browbeat the indignant with condescending pompous sarcasm. Then wonder why you are staring up at your employees, flat on your back with the soles of their work boots crushing your chest. No one would believe it if they were not seeing it with their own eyes. The consequential weight of your injustice can no longer be denied.
That is a piercing and cinematic description of systemic leadership failure. It captures the exact tipping point where toxic management practices backfire completely.
The Anatomy of Organizational Collapse
The Fawning Fealty: Rewarding sycophants creates an echo chamber. Competent workers stop speaking up.
The Appalling Audacity: Enriching bad actors breeds deep-seated resentment. It signals that merit is worthless.
The Pompous Sarcasm: We-ponizing arrogance to crush dissent destroys psychological safety. It turns workers into adversaries.
The Consequential Weight: Gravity eventually wins. A leadership team built on injustice cannot sustain its own structural pressure.
Even AI gets it.
When leadership trades respect for subjugation, authority becomes a fragile illusion. The resulting mutiny—whether literal or a quiet, collective withdrawal of effort—is the natural math of human dignity.
Morale is the mental and emotional state of confidence, enthusiasm, and loyalty that a person or a group feels regarding a task or goal. It measures how positive, driven, and united people are, especially when facing hard work or tough times Nah, we can't afford that it would diminish major shareholder value and require corporate management to exceed mediocrity.
I thought leadership was supposed to inspire employees, motivate employees and reward employees who contribute to the company's continuing success. We have corporate leaders, who reward themselves for attendance, reward major shareholders for nothing and crush employees spirits and drink their souls to sustain their flight from the Grim Reaper.
I tried using the AED, it said, "Shock not advised." We did CPR but the victim was beyond resuscitation. RIP Morale. I guess it is time for us to move on or retire looking elsewhere for our thriving endeavor because this place has become a funeral home where enthusiasm and dreams go to be disposed of with no dignity or respect.
@1kj9 We work harder and buy company stock at near record value to GIVE our CEO and major shareholders a better life they have neither earned nor deserve while we do ALL suffering and sacrificing on behalf of our families and our customers. Our corporate culture is abominably ignominious and abhorrently un-American. We are the leaders and they su-k at being Americans.
Profits that only benefit the CEO and major shareholders are a complete waste of effort and time.
Where there is absolutely no enthusiasm there is no morale. Watching the CEO and major shareholders rake corporate profits off the table with both arms is demoralizing and insulting.
If we were sentenced by a judge to work here, I might understand why employees are forced to endure a pathologically narcissistic and dehumanizing existence at AEP. Letting the highly educated common criminals of private equity firms negatively impact the lives of so many people is an abhorrent crime against virtuous humanity and the Constitutionally guaranteed God given rights of Americans. Remember, there was a time when things were better and act accordingly on election day. The ballots you cast are your expression of discontent and rebellion. 2026 IS 1776 all over again. Make corporate governance fear you because they certainly do not respect you as employees or Americans.
Who cares about morale? We can buy company stock now 🙄
Below the core of the earth. My team is no longer excited to be here and their will to go above and beyond has disappeared
@s1
The poster was obviously being sarcastic there Mr. Brilliant. You're not a genius for talking the way you do. Just a bootlegged version of Tolkien.
@p2 If the amassing of immense wealth is your only metric for success, you truly are a pathetic creature. Go eat your raw fish and stroke your precious specie, Gollum. While you are at take a bath and get a haircut. Your obsession has left you foul and odious. No wonder so many employees are leaving in utter disgust.
How can you be unhappy? Weren't you at the Q2 meeting today? The shareholders are getting amazing returns on their investments.
Ditto. My manager and another just gave notice. Not good.
Instead of a Labor Day, we should take a Labor Week this year since we already know Corporate is going to rake the ICP off the table with both arms.
@d7+1k18ert2s This is literally my situation right now. I'm a nervous wreck because of it.
I never know if I'm doing really well or on the verge of being fired.
Hey but you probabky have a great leader that is looking after you. Lol. AEP is the worse.
The worst it’s ever been in my group. People are generally really unhappy.