Lots of IT people cut in Columbus
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The company turned toxic. It did not happen over night. I belive this is why most of the executives left. The executives that are still here are more than likely toxic and think this is how a company should operate.
For the most part AEP can get away with running a toxic culture. They just go for a rate increase. The governments shoukd or have caught on. AEPs customers desrve better leadership or have a better utility to provide them their essential electricity.
I truly believe neopotism, favoritism, tockenism, machelism are all tge reasons AEP has turned out this way. It became obvious to me what was occuring around 2021 and 2022. No business can operate in the way leadership was leading. They just assumed they had a golden ticket and could get away with it. Senior leaders at AEP are not the answer for the company. If Bill wants to right the ship he has to do what DOGE is doing in the government. Who are the corrupt leaders at AEP that are in positions they should not be in and are these the type of leaders that would exploit their employees. Find those leaders and get rid of the. Then you can start building a team that serves their communties. Its is nit that hard to run an organization on merit, must companies have to, they cant continue to raise customet prices.
To the no-buyout guy, you made the right choice. This place is going downhill fast. Fear-uncertainty-doubt combined with declining living standards, what a dream for the employees. Qualified people leaving left and right, new hires getting such poor training they don't even know what questions to ask, let alone the answers. Blind leading the blind. No answers except admonishments to "tough it out." Bill is an id--t and has unleashed a wave of chaos. But as long as he gets his millions, who cares, life's good.
AEP is horrible at leadership. Broken promises, lies and manipulation are just a few things I have experienced. I dont know how some of the leaders can get up and talk about leadership and team. You literally have trampled over people to be in your position. Its a title. Keep lying to your self. It shows, leadership failures can not be hidden. It will show. High turnover, accidents or overbudged projects. It shows.
I'm one of those that left without a buyout because we were told our group didn't qualify for it I actually wanted to stay but at the end of the day I couldn't see myself lasting another few years when the company was treating employees differently at the core level. You couldn't pay me enough to come back as a contractor so there was issue there.
AEP in the past has always had the buyout open to every single person and this time not. For a lot of folks this was a once in a life time event that was taken from them by a company that no longer felt a need to be fair and honest with ALL employees. So, I packed up my bags, took my last ICP and left
I would have taken the buyout last year but again, was not allowed to do so. With that, I'm not doing the company any favors and they can deal with the loss.
Post from TheLayoff.com
It is shocking to me the number of employees with legacy knowledge who were known as experts in the company who have left since the voluntary severance. Things have to be pretty bad from a culture perspective if you passed on taking a buy out and then simply resigned with no added incentive less than a year later. I keep thinking I’ve seen it all and then a week later some other talented long-tenured employee leaves. Hard to believe this is what’s become of the company I used to brag about. It didn’t have to be this way.
I'm going to retire one day and I will downsize like a lot of people. Wife and I never had kids so there is no hold on us besides friends and some distance relatives. Looking at different parts of the US, when you remove all of the ill-run blue states, there are some really nice sections of the US. From a dollar standpoint, looking at no tax on SS benefits and low property taxes. Food costs and health care access are next up. Give me a walking trail at a state park and camping and we're set. You don't have to go overseas to find it.
A lot of small towns are hurting for people right here in the US so finding a new home is actually pretty easy if you're not around big cities
I’m not going back but I’m waiting until actual RTO. Then I’m just taking my equipment back. As of right now, I’m playing along and acting like all is ok. I was told I’m a “key person” but if that were true the company hasn’t shown it.
Aging adults with the kids gone downsize to a smaller footprint. The company needs to do the same. They need to get rid of the 32 story monolith downtown and move to a 6-7 story modern building outside of I270. WFH should be standard with only the essential folks and executives in the office. ROI by moving will pay for itself in time. We don't need a 32 story building downtown, who are we trying to impress? Same goes for Tulsa, South Bend and Roanoke. Downsize to smaller buildings with a design centered around WFH workforce, not a cubicle workforce. Can only dream until I leave.
I’m so bummed how toxic everything seems to be at the moment all over the company. Almost like a fever dream on how positive everyone once was.
I get really frustrated when people argue against something just because it wasn’t available to them, or because they personally don’t need it. The reality is—everyone is different. We’re all in different stages of life with different needs. Just because something doesn’t suit you, or you made it work a different way, doesn’t mean that should be the standard for everyone.
Every generation has had access to tools and opportunities the previous one didn’t. We don’t reject progress simply because someone else didn’t have the same advantages. If COVID had never happened, we probably would’ve all kept accepting the status quo—commuting daily, working 8+ hours at a desk, and dealing with all the inefficiencies that came with it. But it did happen, and now we know what’s possible. We KNOW the benefits and have been living them daily for 5 years. You can’t unring that bell.
We’ve also seen the impact of forward-thinking, collaborative, and flexible leadership. That’s another bell you can’t unring. The truth is, the newer generations entering the workforce aren’t going to tolerate rigid, closed-minded, command-and-control leadership. That style has rightfully earned a reputation as toxic, and many of us are no longer willing to pretend it’s the only way.
Some will leave immediately. Others will retire. Many are quietly quitting or quietly planning their exit while waiting for the right opportunity. The people I talk to are burned out, disheartened, and demoralized by the recent changes.
Yes, there will always be bad apples—whether you’re working from home or in the office. If someone’s going to game the system, they’ll find a way regardless of where they are. And yes, managing remote or hybrid teams takes effort. But that’s the work leadership should be doing—instead of taking the easy shortcut back to the 1980s to avoid the discomfort of necessary change.
Let’s be honest: this return-to-office mandate is happening because one person decided it should. And that decision makes sense—if the only leadership style you know is controlling and based on the need to see people to believe they’re working. It also makes sense if you don’t believe people deserve the benefits of hybrid or remote work simply because you didn’t have them.
When outcomes are the inverse of the accomplishments achieved, one need not ask how these frauds became leaders. Nepotism, cronyism, the ole boy network, promote those who do not threaten you or starkly contrast your comfortable mediocrity. It is damn hard to soar like an eagle in a company run by peacocks and strutting banty roosters. All plumage and no heart or intellect. Now I get it, we are run by a bunch of frat boys, who never achieved adolescence.
Ya can’t spell CheAEP or be CheAEP without the letters A-E-P
It is pretty sad that you have to leave AEP to reach your dreams or have oppurtunity. Leadership really needs to ask themselves whst has happened to our company.
While employees high standards have never wavered the standards corporate leadership exhibits clearly diminishes the image and reputation of AEP.
Average Cost of Daycare in Ohio:
Infant Care: $12,351 per year for center-based care.
Toddler Care: $11,125 per year for center-based care.
Preschool Care: $9,580 per year for center-based care.
School-Age Care: $5,643 per year for center-based care.
Average Cost of Daycare in Columbus, Ohio:
In Columbus, Ohio, the average monthly daycare cost for infants can reach around $1,000, while for toddlers, it's around $850, making it one of the highest in the state.
Here's a more detailed breakdown:
Infant Care:
Average monthly cost: Around $1,000
Average hourly rate: $18.32
Average weekly cost: $733
Toddler Care:
Average monthly cost: Around $850
Average hourly rate: $17.60
Average weekly cost: $704
General Daycare:
Average monthly cost: Around $825
Preschool:
Average monthly cost: Around $775
Factors Influencing Costs:
Location: Columbus is considered a more expensive area for childcare than rural areas in Ohio.
Type of Care: Center-based care tends to be more expensive than in-home care.
Age of Child: Infant care is generally more expensive than toddler care.
State and National Comparison:
Columbus's childcare costs are higher than the state average and the national average.
Ohio's childcare costs are among the highest in the nation.
Assistance Programs:
Ohio offers several assistance programs, such as the Child Care Assistance Program, Early Head Start, and Step Up to Quality, to help families afford childcare.
Another 10yr employee, who happens to be in a manager position, is leaving the company from my team. Talent is leaving and not looking back!
How is RTO a big deal? Just fly in to work every week on your private jet like Bill does. Duh!
Well it does not help our case when people's main complaint about RTO is they will have to pay for child care now. Even if they are only talking about commute time or whatever, it still sounds bad. You remember the id--ts on AEPnow before they turned off comments complaining about childcare when we went back to hybrid. All it does is make us look bad and make it easy for leaders like Bill to jump on the RTO bandwagon.
I’m going to give the daycare poster the benefit of the doubt and assume that they meant that the kids wouldn’t need to be at daycare for a full 12 hours (which could be necessary in order to fit in the commute, etc.) but that some childcare was being provided during those hours working from home. Otherwise, I agree that if kids are at the age where they need constant supervision, you should be making arrangements for their care while you work even if you’re working from your home office. You really can’t do both at the same time except maybe during some limited circumstances, such as when the child is ill and has to stay home.
Just to be clear, I wasn’t talking about AEP linemen but what I suspect are non-AEP employees bitter about their lot in life and resentful of office workers. And, my post specifically says ‘drop the kids off’ meaning at daycare, so I’m not talking about kids being home during work hours. I’m talking about kids being home during the time it would take to commute and get ready to commute.
Stop ragging on people who want to WFH who happen to have daycare aged children. There are 1000's of examples of poorly raised kids on YouTube and tic Tok. If being able to see your kids for a few minutes here and there during the day causes you heartburn, maybe your the problem. My kids are grown and out of the house. They were off to college when Covid hit so I have no skin in the game but I won't slam someone for losing a benefit from WFH.
I have Managing Directors living out of state that do not have to return and I have a worse time getting them to respond to emails than I do some first line employee WFH. Typically, if I look at someone's calendar I'll call 15 minutes into the next free hour and they pick up. I call a Mgn Dir, lucky if I get them after 2 days of trying
Simple question to one Mgn Dir, should have been a yes or no, took 2 weeks to get a maybe and another month to get a let's wait and see.
So to all of the young parents, I fully understand your concern about RTO, we never had that option when our kids were little and it would have been nice to see their first time walking instead of sitting in a meeting that had absolutely no effect on anyone's life
I expect a number of negative replies but give this generation a break, we don't have to continue to do something just because it's always been done like that in the past.
As a new engineer, the RTO has been very demoralizing, I have had to watch so many experienced and great employees leave. That being said, the other poster calling our field employees "high school drop outs and menial laborers" is either an id--t or a bad actor. The only thing you do is make yourself sound completely unsympathetic by attacking our linemen who are hard working and highly competent experts. If there is a culture problem at AEP then you that poster are part of it.
Honestly I would say the last poster is probably why Bill made the decision for us to RTO. You have kid"S" that are under 5 and you are working from home with them there? So WFH allows you to not have a baby sitter.
You're not working, you're babysitting. You are the reason the rest of us have to go back. Thanks.
I started my family during COVID/WFH times. Before that, I figured that when we had kids we would just do the grind like everybody else: drop precious babies off at the crack of dawn, fight soul crushing traffic for an hour, put in a 9-10 hour day, fight traffic for another hour, pick up kids, and get home with barely enough time to eat dinner before bed and doing it all again the next day . And I wasn’t happy about that, but what else was I going to do? It was either that or don’t work. And then Covid happened, and our whole world was shut down. And honestly I wish that none of that had happened . I didnt ask for it, I didn’t choose it. And we were asked to WFH, and we did. And it worked. And I was shocked, honestly, that I could do my job well but not have to sit in traffic for 2 hours every day. And my kids don’t have to be at daycare for 12 hours every day. Except, starting June 1 now they do, and I do. And that is truly a real and devastating loss. And I don’t really care if the high school dropouts and menial laborers on this board want to call me a snowflake for complaining about it.
You know it’s pretty bad when you come here first for headlines and upcoming changes rather than asking leadership because you’re simply tired of the corporate smoke screen and okie doke! At least I know I’m not actually crazy. It is truly as bad as everyone says it is! No amount of plastic positivity is going to be enough.
No one cares how WE feel until the next election cycle and then for a few months they pretend to pay attention. If you don't like the way things are think long and hard about who you vote for in the mid-term elections. Voting for what is in the "Company's" best interest has nothing to do with what is in our best interests. Case and point, RTO after presidential election. The difference between a president and a dictator is not so ambiguous now.
If I get one more email about the AEP PAC I’m going to vomit 🤮
I just want to add to what was said a couple comments below. Why does leadership even compare lineworkers and field teams to office workers? As an office worker, I often open my computer at night and on weekends to catch up with the massive amount of work. I’m salary, not hourly, so I’m not getting OT for that time. If we have to be in the office to make things “fair”, then let’s put the field folks on salary. It’s just all so stupid and not a one size fits all solution.
I’m raking in my checks until I find a better option.
Ask all of linemen and most will have nothing to do with a desk job. There is a sense of freedom away from the office. It's like some people love working 3rd shift because no one is around to bother them about cr-p. WFH is like that as well, you don't have to put up with the garbage at work when in person. When I get my bills and savings to a level where I can live on half of what I make now, I'll just retire early and be done with all of it. I don't need a 3k sqft home on 5 acres, I can live anywhere and then don't get a sh..t what happens to the company.
My pet peeve with all this is how leadership constantly ask us for feedback, yet, nothing is considered. Why even ask? Gaslighting at its best…
Absolutely agree. Managers have a better grasp on what is needed and how things work in their teams. Bill is so detached to what we individual contributors do on the daily that a blanket decision is not appropriate for everyone. I hate that Bill and the company use linemen and field teams working through everything including Covid as something we should somehow feel bad about. They were out there while we were working remote. Boohoo…
THEY chose to work in the field. A lot of us spent countless hours learning our subjects to be working INDOORS hence the flexibility on where we can do our work.
Before Covid out team was on 4-10s, half the team was on Monday and the other half was on Friday. So we only saw each other on T-T. 3 days, no different than the 3 day hybrid we are giving up in June. You're right, makes no sense. Most of what we do is independent of each other, granted the processes are the same but if something new comes up, you have to write it up in detail because telling someone about it in a 30 minute meeting for 3-5 minutes doesn't cut it. If you do, someone will ask, can you send that to me in an email. The RTO should have bred left up to the 1st line manager, he/she will have a better idea of what jobs can handle it Better still who can handle it.
Everyone knows there is no company culture left. I am not going to volunteer my time or money to anything associated with the company, nothing, not a dime, not a minute. I will give my time and money to my local church and my kids school.
To IT, can you let us please change the default home page so we can get rid of AEPNow, I could care less what goes on with the company as a whole. Mine keeps reverting back to it.
F-Bill, he has ruined this company.
Bill and Donald must be friends…
The rationale they gave for RTO makes no sense. It's full of holes and is actually an insult to employee intelligence. However, they know that most of you won't be able to find another job in this market, especially not a remote one, so you'll just have to grin and bear it. You know it and they know it. It is what it is. That's the "company culture" they are so proud of, employees and management lying to each other with grimaces on their faces.
nothing on that FAQ changed what they have been saying before
I keep questioning how in the world RTO makes sense when there’s 3 different options for schedules 8-5,4-9 1-4, and 4-10s
If people will be on different schedules, how is that different than hybrid schedules that have a set schedule of days in the office and provides “collaboration time”?
Enron was a great investment, until it wasn't.
Nick was on his show at least once a year, curious if Bill will take his BS show on the road and visit Cramer.
Cramer is so bad that for a while there was an inverse Cramer ETF that invested the opposite of what Cramer recommended. He is a running joke. His opinion and $0.80 will get you a small coffee at McDonald's if you are a senior.