I keep reading these posts about Verizon having once been a utopian workplace and a pure meritocracy. I joined in 2010 and it was anything but. It was more profitable and had a better network than its competitors but it was no meritocracy. There were lots of incompetent "leaders" and DEI had nothing to do with it because they were not minorities. It was also very cliquey.
So when was this mythical golden age that I missed out on?
I joined in 2013 and it was such a great company and then in around 2019 - it went down the drain. It is so sad to see the company in the shape it’s in.luckily for me I will retire next year. It’s time. I’ve been holding on to see if things got better…nope. The leadership is just awful - especially in my department…
Before you were born.
@OP Maybe you're just not as good as you think
You only experienced about three years of the real golden age. I started in 2000 and enjoyed 13 incredible years with Verizon Wireless before Verizon bought out Vodafone's 45% stake and infected VZW with their bureaucracy. That’s when the layoffs started, and they never stopped. Before that buyout, the only people who left were either terrible at their jobs or leaving on their own terms. You might want to reevaluate your timeline for the "golden age" because you missed the best of it. Now...it's a dying company.
The golden age was the time that we made money in spite of ourselves. Those days are over and its a race to bottom on service pricing offset by headcount cuts. If they ever cut the dividend the bottom falls out on the stock.
Joined in 2009 and quickly recognized the paranoia, information hiding and the petty fiefdoms.
The pay was solid and the bonuses were great—at least early on, before they were cut back in later years.
The culture was a constant snake pit. If your boss was good, the experience was tolerable; if your boss was average or worse, it became terrible.
I genuinely wish the place the best, but it wasn’t a setting that supported mental peace.
@OP Same timeline here and all too true. They were incompetent but were awash in so much cash that they could just spend their way out of it. Fast forward to today and the incompetence is still here (and compounding) but they don't have to cash to cover it up now.
GTE was a fantastic place to work, once it became Verizon it all went downhill but people on LinkedIn love to brown nose each other about Verizon for the past 20+ years
@OP old folks having a nostalgia bias. Nevertheless, it is definitely a toxic place nowadays led by a narcissistic psychopath.