Lots of IT people cut in Columbus
2658 replies (most recent on top)
It’s about the damn control. Billy needs it because he has nothing else to do at home.
A new survey from FlexJobs noted that 68% of people who recently quit their jobs did so without having another job lined up. What’s more, the number one reason people cited for resigning is toxic company culture. I left an organization six years ago without another job lined up for this very reason.
Similarly, a report from MIT Sloan Management Review stated, “A toxic corporate culture is 10.4 times more powerful than compensation in predicting a company’s attrition rate compared with its industry.”
Toxic company cultures aren’t just unpleasant, they can take a serious toll on your physical and mental health.
YOU just lost your plausible deniability and are vulnerable to an employee initiated class action lawsuit. We will be taking back the wealth and piece of mind we earned and you stole.
Don't let self-induced stress and the stress caused by "OTHERS" become the safety event you are held accountable for. Take a moment when you feel overwhelmed to REFOCUS on the task at hand, even if it means not achieving all you planned to get accomplished today. We are all working with a tremendous handicap and we all have to recognize our new limitations in the current workplace environment. Stay safe for each other and our families.
Sounds to me like they just found their reason to deny all 4/10 requests.
This whole RTO is nonsense. Why does it matter when every dept might be on different schedules? Like the person before me said, we will all most likely be in the office Tuesday - Thursday. How is that any different than 3 days hybrid schedule? face palm
What are a reasonable number of years to work at Legacy AEP?
What are a reasonable number of years to work at Hedge Fund AEP?
Here’s something to crystallize the absurdity of RTO.
My team is all going to do four 10’s with about half of us doing Monday to Thurs and the rest Tuesday through Friday.
We’ll all be downtown Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Three days a week.
Just like we currently are in the hybrid model!!
Overall morale is poor at best. First COVID, then RE-ORG, then organizational chaos and now impoverishing inflation has exhausted our patience and resilience. We all know, who is to blame and who is to be held accountable. Our discontent becomes more destructive with each passing day.
People got to look at what leadership is at AEP. The leadership team does not have the ability to look at themselves and the environment they created. Instead of acknowlegeing that their is a problem with retaliation, they will get mad and blame the employees. This is dysfunctional behavior. Just look at the response they gave on Glassdoor. They took no ownership of the problem, that states it all.
A few others need to be shown the door for bringing TCS in. Everyone in management above 1st line needs to be shown the door if they came in with Therace. They have shown no support for the in-house folks. It su-ks to be part of Operations. They only upside, Therace gets a new gig, she'll pull her a-s kissers with her.
The relationship between AEP corporate and customers and employees is no longer symbiotic but rather ravenously parasitic and therefore unsustainable. Leadership unable to recognize this irrefutable truth and reality is unfit to govern and criminal in intent and purpose, the hallmark of hedge funds,
Archaic, antiquated, obsolete, out of touch, authoritarian, self-absorbed, lickspittle leadership has succeeded in enraging the source of their wealth and the employees that deliver it to them. Their fortunes are going to decline rapidly and permanently. As permanent as a grave.
Retaliation for us was greatly reduced when they fired Therace. She didn't leave to spend time with family, nor did Sanjay, they were fired. They just didn't want to have a lawsuit on their hands so I'm sure she got a nice golden parachute. Sanjay, most likely the same even though he did some dirty dealing with TCS. At least that sad chapter is coming to an end in the next year or so. Took us 5 months to show them everything and years of follow ups and they still can't do the job. I'm sure they'll be out of here on the final day of the contract no matter what.
I know a few guys that left, couple retired, wish they were up to coming back for a few years after TCS leaves but that's wishful thinking. This place will be a sh-t show for a while but at least we won't have to deal with people in India and I can stop pretending I care about them.
Not sure where to start, seems Bill might not be the right person with the right personality for the company. He might have been 30 years ago but not now. At his age, i expect to see him gone in 5 years based on his age. It will also depend who over that time stands out as his replacement. Who is being brought in with him that stands out and is a lot younger. There's a reason why there is an age limit for the CEO. I know the Board can exempt that as they have but I don't think you want to get in a habit of doing it. I'd like to see someone younger who is not a boomers (no offense to the boomers out there, I'm one) but we do need someone who is not tired to the old ways of doing things. There are better ways of doing things. I have a few years to go and will not be around for the next leader change but I'd like to have the company reflect the employees a bit more than this mo--n does.
I concur with the retaliation comment. I’m currently experiencing it and within HR. It’s alive and well around here. I’ve worked here 9 years and loved what I do until a year or so ago when we got a new leader. There’s a lot of hate for Bill, but it’s not Bill. He was handed a mess that needs fixed my new leader is constantly blaming Bill and throwing him under the bus. She is constantly throwing around assumptions and comments like “white males” “I noticed you are registered republican” and most recently “I know you’re the one posting on the layoff site when we find out it won’t be good for you” I can’t even make this up. What she doesn’t know is that there a lot of us posting on here cause it’s the only place we have to get this off our chest. I’m going to have to find a new job if this continues. can’t call the concerns line I know it will be tracked back and I will experience more retaliation. The surveys are a joke. We inflate the scores to avoid retaliation from her. If you notice former top performers are all of a sudden quiet then talk to us/those folks. We didn’t change, our “leader” did and we’re just protecting ourselves at this point. I’m not the problem here. Bill, please look into HR especially areas with high survey scores. It’s time to clean the HR closet so we can actually help the employees like we used to. Phil is aware but chooses to do nothing about it and hide in his office. Haven’t heard from or seen him in months.
Retaliation exists at the highest levels. Complain to the concerns line you are done. Nothing is annonymous.
Dreading Mondays used to begin at 8 p.m. on Sunday night. Now it begins at 8 p.m. on Saturday night. Maybe, that is a sign it is time to retire.
Amazing that they are citing the cafeteria as a benefit.
I wonder how much AEP is making off the top of that little operation.
What's the first thing you guys are excited to collaborate on when we get back to the >> office?
Exchanging tips on the fastest route to the parking garage and coffee badging techniques.
HR just started responding to negative reviews on Glassdoor to save face.
"American Electric Power Response
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences. We value honest feedback from employees. It is essential for our growth and improvement. We understand that the changing workplace landscape has been challenging for many employees, and we are committed to fostering an open dialogue and creating a supportive atmosphere. We also love to see when employees appreciate the benefits we offer, such as the pension plan, 401K match and health and wellness programs and the cafeteria. We consistently strive to balance the needs of our employees with the goals and opportunities in front of AEP. Glassdoor reviews are anonymous, and that empowers honesty. If you'd like to discuss your experience in greater depth, consider reaching out to our internal Concerns Line. It is also anonymous. Let's work together to create a better work environment for everyone."
What's the first thing you guys are excited to collaborate on when we get back to the office?
“We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.” — I used to passively laugh at this quote made into a social media reel. Now the irony is almost physically painful!
At New Albany the top glass is opaque. If you are taller than 3 apples high you can see over the top. There is like a 5' wide opening so it is not like the glass really matters anyway. They are pretty much the standard cube I have seen across AEP at service centers too.
The top panel, about 12" is glass in the cubicle at 1RP, the other 4-5' was solid. There were some folks on 14 that had desks that faced each other with a small glass panel between them but that was for the traders I believe.Get yourself a large white board and put it up over the glass panel, problem solved.
Cubicles? That's posh. There are floors with nothing but rows of workspaces. No partitions. It's impossible to have a productive Teams meeting. It's like Whack-a-Mole with the mute button. No place to retreat for privacy if needed (even for management, 1on1s, etc.). It's a bullpen set up a la IBM 1975. Or picture a 1950s typing pool. I'm eager to see the turnover rates come June.
Can you tell us more about the see through cubicles? For example, the location where this occurred. Is it certain panels that were replaced? For what supposed purpose? I work in New Albany and they are starting to make changes to cubes but I haven't seen anything like that.
Supplementing the RTO punishment with new see-through cubicles was really a stroke of genius, Bill. The sensation of constantly being watched is great for my concentration.
As a former AEP employee, the only thing I miss is my coworkers, nothing else. Not the pay, the benefits, the work, nothing but the people I worked with. The work, pay, and benefits can all be replaced but replacing years of friendships cannot be replaced overnight.
Do you guys ever read an old AEP News article and click on the names in the comments? Every single time it's "former or inactive employee"
Quite spooky.
I sure hope the 1RP cafe gets its act together soon. They’re out of everything (turkey, sweet potato fries, lettuce). The staff is put out of you go down there after 1pm and the wait is at least 10 minutes. The staff is yelling at each other and complaining about how hard they have to work and why it matters between Coke Zero and Diet Coke. It really makes you not want to go there and give sodexho my money. I’ll just bring my lunch or walk up the street.
My VP was talking about hiring new employees in cohorts and sending them to some training seminar. I've worked at other companies that do this. The capstone presentation could be Bill making a surprise guest appearance and giving a talk about the tremendous opportunity of RTO. Imagine how inspiring that would be. Makes me want to quit and try to get rehired just to experience that.
I recently hired a new employee and assumed (my fault) the new employee onboarding was what it was when I joined several years back. It’s not!! It’s very bare bones and a basic sharepoint site that we share with the employer. There’s no discussion guide for the leader and the information about the company vision and core principles is new. Apparently this was all unveiled at an executive meeting earlier this year, but it never made its way to me. Unfortunately, I feel like this is another example of the degradation of AEP. There’s no pride in things. I’m happy to onboard my own employee, but prepare me to do it well. So embarrassing!
On top of the poignant last name, Shane’s aura is vaguely threatening and unsettling. I think he’s a great selection for any executive leadership position! Congrats to him!
Shane Lies named to board of directors of EPRI. Once you make it to the top the six-figure cushy no-show jobs just roll in I guess.
It feels like choosing Sauvage means that there will be more equity issuances in the future. With that huge capital plan and Trump’s tariffs pushing inflation up, interest rates will be too high to fund a lot of the plan with debt.
The new board member previously was vice chairman at Lehman Brothers yikes
To the comments about the blackout of the Iberian peninsula: It will likely be some time before enough is known about the actual triggering events and contributing factors (it's rarely just one thing) to explain this blackout. The FERC final report of the August 2003 Northeast blackout wasn't issued until April 2004. The initial reports of "induced atmospheric vibration." appear (at best) to be an attempt to translate a complicated technical event into language more widely understood. The result is unintelligible. While it's way too simplistic to just blame it on renewables, with the subsequent reports that the Iberian grid experienced a sudden loss of 15GW of generation, it is possible that the characteristics of the generation mix operating at the time played a role in the event. A previous event in the US may be relevant: https://www.nerc.com/pa/rrm/ea/Documents/1200_MW_Fault_Induced_Solar_Photovoltaic_Resource_Interruption_Final.pdf
To the person blaming of the generation source for Spain's outage,
The investigation so far looks more like a massive backbone delivery failure or sabotage from within.
That whole story sounds way too much like the Northeast Blackout of 2003 over here, and ours was not caused by renewables, just bad equipment and a quite a bit of stupidity.
new guy named to the board of directors. not sure if that means anything to anyone here.
It can depend on OEC and Opco. Some OpCos have higher standards for quality. AEP Ohio for example has not very high standards for quality compared to say I&M. I've been told by AEP Ohio linemen that a lot of the internal work is trash compared to some of the contractors. As far as the OECs go, they each have reputation, some are good, some are bad. Some have a lot of very experienced people and some are staffed by mostly fresh college grads.