Thread regarding American Electric Power Co. Inc. layoffs

The inferior presume to be the superior and therefor are superior at being inferior.

Maybe we should start acting more like them and put our wants before theirs. Are they not supposed to be setting the example, not us?

The only reason Bill and the shareholders are still here is because of the moral and ethical constraints we impose upon ourselves.

I for one was hybrid from 2008 on, two days a week. Filled out the telecommuting form, had my boss and the director sign it. No Columbus income tax all those years. Covid hit and still only paid 3 days to Columbus while working from home until Ohio finally passed a law to cut the cities from collecting taxes they were not entitled to. Jump to 2025, basically back to my old schedule for now, come June will be back in the office 5 days a week. At some point after the dust settles, figure I'll be back to 3 or 4 days in the office and 1 day at home. Do I like it, not really but it is what it is. The job pays the bills and my wife is a stay at home Mom so we do have that going for us. We take a vacation every 3rd year and 1 stay vacation and another just camping for a week at a state park. You can still have a life after work, you just have to work at it. I will say I turn my phone off as soon as I get home and my family gets 100% from me till Sunday at 10 pm. Do what is best for you but I'm staying and will work around the cr-p they throw at us

Want to know why RTO is happening and is inevitable for IT? Not responding to emails and TEAMS chats while your calendar is empty and your status says “last seen several hours ago.” You think you’re sticking to the man, but you’re ultimately sticking it to yourself and your coworkers. But that will teach them. If you don’t like your job or don’t want to perform your job duties, move on.

There’s a bootlicker or two here who never heard of Future of Work, which existed BEFORE the pandemic. It’s amazing the lengths some will go to dismiss other people.

Remote and hybrid work did not start during the pandemic at AEP. We’ve got a couple folks who have effectively been brainwashed by the current leadership team,

I highly suspect quiet firing. I think they know who they want out. Those individuals will be targeted with increased work, etc. etc. All designed to frustrate the person to make them leave on their own. I’m not falling for it. They can fire me.

Some of you are just scared to leave or something. There are jobs out there. Maybe change fields if you have to. Just be open to new things. Su-k it up and enjoy the ride or gtfo good grief.

Sheer delusion seems to be animating many of Bill's decisions.
He says we have not delivered adequate shareholder return compared to the overall market, but this ignores the different nature of the companies being compared and the type of speculation that has been going on. We aren't some tech company generating wild returns based on a looming AI bubble. We're a public utility, which are commonly used as "defensive investments." All we do as a company is hold assets. That's it. The purpose of buying AEP stock has never been to get wild returns, it's to protect investments in times of uncertainly. Would Bill really compare AEP stock performance to something like Nvidia? The 10-15% we have been providing to investors YoY is very reasonable.
Then there is Bill's "perfect power" concept, where even a light flicker counts as a failure. Bill wants 100% reliability, literally perfect performance, not even a flicker. It's the kind of vision some boardroom egghead would dream up, completely detached from reality.
Unattainable goals aren't inspiring Bill, they're demoralizing. Especially when they are accompanied by decisions that most employees view as punitive.

Bill is a fcking tyrant. He doesn’t give two shts about us. It’s all about the bottom line and the shareholders. We are going back to 5 days in the office because he really could not care less about work life balance. He literally has no life outside of work. No hobbies. He thinks we are overpaid and under performing.

Work from home is now a relic of the past pandemic era. Live with this fact. Your whining is patent pomposity, wrapped in the "working families" woke talk. Many should remember that MUCH of your work can be accomplished by an AI computer. You need to come to work for no other reason than to defend your job. AEP Shareholder.

What I can tell you is Bill feels like the company is underperforming. He feels this way based on shareholder returns. He thinks we should be providing the shareholders with a much greater return on investment. Also, he thinks our ICP amounts were not warranted based on shareholder returns. He thinks the previous leaderships were basically just cruising on autopilot and giving us ICP payouts that we didn't deserve. That's basically why he wants us in office. He thinks we haven't performed and that our performance is somehow reflected in shareholder returns.

5 days a week just feels spiteful.
I thought 3 days a week was more than enough "collaboration time" in the office.

RTO has laid bare that everything is secondary to the traditional corporate structure. Here’s my perspective.

Let’s say Bill somehow actually believes people need to be together 5 days a week to do their best work (I know, it’s absurd. Hypothetically speaking.)

If that’s truly the case, AEP isn’t willing to sacrifice one red penny on their bottom line for the betterment of working families. They will not embrace a work model that is significantly better for families, employee safety and your bottom line, if it costs the company a dime on the hypothetical bottom line. It’s a very sobering thought. We’re being asked to sacrifice an improved life for ourselves and our families, literally…for a company. I think it’s immoral.

It’s very unfortunate for working parents of young kids. Wfh days don’t feel like a total rat race. Rush in the morning to drop the kids off, rush in the evening to get them fed and bathed before bed. It’s honestly very depressing to go back to that every day.

I know this is the wrong take but back in 2022, everyone should have seen this coming. AEP was sitting on a ton of empty office space. If they sold off a bunch of it I would have a different take but they didn't. I'm surprised we didn't go back in 2023. Do I wish I could work from home for the next 12-14 years, yes I do. Did I expect to be able to wfh for the rest of my career, nope. I'm lucky, all my kids are grown, I do feel for everyone with kids but I remember paying $500 a week for babysitting on an income far less than what I'm making now so I feel your pain but only so much because I already had to do it. Cut out junk you don't need, save where you can and you'll get by until you can move to a new company.

Every employee needs to rush out and sell everything they own to please Bill and the shareholders. Sad thing is they still wouldn't be satisfied till our families sold our internal organs and they got that money too. I guess he and the shareholders need to learn to lower their expectations like everyone else, who suffers their abominable existence. Your wants won't ki-l you, but your needs will.

I'm in an all-hands meeting right now about what executive leadership is talking about and let me tell you, the fact that you want to work remote is the last thing on their mind.
It's all about austerity and shareholder expectations and how our ICP payouts were too high and how the company is failing.

I'm sorry but did they not think how much us Hybrids and Remote workers are going to be spending on new location, rent, gas and baby sitting/school for the kids when they are off for this Summer!? Love Bill threw in the "no compensation" for going back . I guess there goes my ICP. I wish AEP gave us more than 5 months of saving and preparing to get ready and head back...

Saw the end of the tunnel closing right when Icahn's guys came on board. Luckily, I was able to get out with the severance. After 3 days in office being badge swap monitored/enforced, then now 5 days in office starting in June, then future ICP metrics getting harder, then 0.88 ICP factor which is one of the lowest in the last 10-13 yrs, and lastly all the top talent leaving for better jobs, I can say with certainty, leaving was the best decision. Praying for you all, and hoping that you will stumble across an even better opportunity. AEP is not the place it used to be. The changes and turnover are just getting started.

AEP leadership loss its way before Bill. I left the company last year before he was hired. I left because I did not feel AEP was doing right by there employees. I saw many young inexperienced workers get promoted over the experienced employees. Most the times jobs were not even posted, just an announcent that the son or daughter of a hire up will be the new leader. Yoy did not even have a chance. I thought it was just me, but many more have left since. In my opinion AEP was being mismanaged and this missmanagement caught the eye of certain investors like Ichan. AEP did not keep its promises to its employees and people promoted into leadership positions did or do nit have the experience. This has fallen back onto the customers. It was hard to leave and I went through some serious depression. However, i have increased my salary by 20K and been given the oppurtunities I was denied at AEP for decade and a half. Nothing is for certain in this world except change. There are oppurtunities out there you just have to be honest with yourswlf and realize AEP will never be the same again. Take a risk take a chance or stay. Its up to you.

Please take your psyops posts and go to an antifa page and post there. It has no bearing on the discussion here. Most people are interested in the possible effects that will hit the company in the short term, ie... RTO and ICP. Additional cuts are most likely done until we see real growth in GDP in our service area. Getting WVA to approve most of the rate request is the next battle. People are done with just blindly approving rate increases and every dollar is going to be a fight and I don't blame the states for the push back. I know my monthly bill has doubled in 5 years but my pay has not kept up. So to the person trying to do write his manifesto in posts, do it somewhere else.

Non-conformists threaten the establishment and the unearned, undeserved and vaingloriously comfortable lifestyle they have stolen for themselves through corruption, collusion and deception with a healthy dose of kissassery. The Founding Fathers empowered questioning and opposing abject and abominable immense wealth authoritarian tyranny. You can't defend your lavish lifestyle that customers and employees are forced to subsidize because you are incapable of honestly earning it for yourself.

There aren’t any more sales in the pipeline. The group that does those transactions doesn’t even exist anymore since Haynes retired in February

Besides, AEP is trying to hire more.

Not sure who you are but nobody is going to read your post and think, he's spot on. Every one just thinks what an id--t.

Corporate PSYOPS to keep employees off balance and fearful. Wonder why so many employees are unfocused at work and having accidents and injuries? Lack of certainty and security makes employees more compliant. The political commissars are working overtime to keep the workers in line.

Post ID: @1t4e+1qB6FXi3

Agree on needing more context...AEP is regulated so any sales have to be approved by regulators.

Can you provide more context or details around this comment? "Big changes coming this fall, to be announced by June if not before. Many divisions and locations to be sold and many departments left to be eliminated or outsourced."

Big changes coming this fall, to be announced by June if not before. Many divisions and locations to be sold and many departments left to be eliminated or outsourced.

We the people in the preamble of the United States Constitution is one of the most significant phrases in American history. Written over 200 years ago, the phrase symbolizes the very foundation of American democracy and the power of citizens to govern themselves. What you mock and defile as communism is we the people. You are a slave to your hubris and insatiable greed. Unworthy and unfit of the American way of life you contaminate and dilute.

I'm tired of the guy roleplaying as a communist revolutionary treating this page as his personal blog. We need to get back to centering the discussion about AEP specific updates.

Nobody is going to the castle gate and kick them in. Everyone is going to mutter cuss words as they drive in for their shift, LIKE they did a thousand times before Covid. They'll sit in their cube and do the work assigned to them a little bit unhappy that working in sweatpants is no longer a thing. In 5 years this will be a desistance memory. You'll be back to TGIF feelings pretty quick. You'll be pi---d off every time you talk to an IT guy knowing they are most likely still remote. Don't blame them, blame the CITO not the guys helping you. As for me, this is my last yr at AEP so I can put up with this sh-t for 7 months. GL to all come next year.

Some of you “revolutionaries” and wanna be pontificators are out of your minds.

There is no fighting against the bourgeois, just leave and stop complaining on the internet. I was terminated in the first cut last year and while it su-ked to lose my job, not dealing with the remaining insanity at AEP is a nice benefit.

I have decided that for the most part, corporate bureaucracies su-k but it’s a part of white collar work. I just learned to deal with it and leave it at work.

Woefully inadequate and insulting. The peasants are at the door of the castle with a battering ram. The door cannot bear the force of their rage. When the cross bar fails the peasants shall storm the castle. The corporate tyrants shall be thrown from the ramparts to impaled upon the pikes positioned beneath their launching points. This is how a just and virtuous rebellion plays out. Robin Hood beats the Sheriff of Nottingham every time because he has the superior numbers and righteousness on his side.

I know someone that just got a 5% raise but they are the last knowledgeable person in what use to be a decent department. That is an outlaying raise, mine was 2.8%

How are you all feeling about raises? Is 2% about where everyone is going?

AEP has all but forfeited the revenue from its OPCOs as state assemblies and commissions move forward with legislation to strip AEP of its state granted monopolies to stop the economic strip mining of their states' economies and subjugation of their constituencies by hedge fund corporate te------ts and out of state major shareholder tyrants.

Legacy employees have seen this same song and dance time and time again. Tell employees what they want to hear to shut them up and string them along while deliberately failing to execute what is promised. That is why corporate wants to get rid of legacy employees, so they can exploit yet another generation of young and naïve employees, who do not know better and do not have anyone to tell them the irrefutable truth. Listen to your elders that aren't in C-suites, they will not lie to you.

I'm not sure anyone should do anything other than collect your paycheck and go home. Weekends will be off limits to the company after June 1st and I will not have a problem telling my supervisor that As for the week, I'll give them 40 hours and that's it.

Hopelessness setting in? I know I am not the only one. We are all backed by a conglomerate of silence with zero direction and feeling lostI I get it! I’m in the same boat, and THIS boat is leaking. No matter the amount of furious bailing, THE boat is sinking. The sinking is only the beginning and what came before will seem easy while what comes after, will likely be worse.

There has not been a break in the wall in the last 6+ months with announcement after announcement being progressively worse than the next. Picking up where legacy knowledge was FORCED out the door with zero consideration of what things would look like once they “left” while they were screaming, I MATTER!

Those left standing in the aftermath of “the purge” in the name of “flattening” picked up the slack and pushed themselves to a breaking point at times and are still doing so. Only to have this CEO put out initial messaging of “collaboration”, which is now a clear desperate excuse for RTO.

Next message was SOLIDARITY…. Your butt + GPS coordinates of an unknown location or undefined number of miles that makes you except from a mandate = showing the “frontline” employees they matter to you. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Scratch that, it wasn’t really about showing SOLIDARITY, now it is really about SAFETY, and guess what? SAFETY WAS ABYSMAL last year, and those of you that were NOT in the field, and continued plugging away doing more with less, are at fault! You are horrible at your jobs, have done NOTHING, and you cannot be trusted! The only way to right this ship is to move your derrière (after Reddit said so before I could) to new, yet to be defined GPS coordinates, no matter the cost to efficiency, productivity, talent acquisition/retention, or employee acceptance/satisfaction.

However, DO NOT FEAR these are exciting times! (Insert sarcasm). Oh… and…. we are also changing the 2025 incentive structure s o that you will LITERALLY have no chance of achieving. YES, EXCITING TIMES INDEED!! Get PUMPED!! Pumped to suffer together in a yet to be disclosed location, not of your choice or convenience, because we want you to mentally break or rage quit!

The problem could NOT have simply been due to the decision of the CEO to obliterate people from groups across the entire company with no regard, thus placing more stress across the entire organization that lead to distractions and exhaustion, right? Nah!

Additionally, groups of people that have NO bearing on the SAFETY metrics are NOW the NEW reason (or scapegoats) for upending everything! They are somehow responsible for that “abysmal” performance as well! Does the mean that those on the “front-lines” are ONLY ever able focus and remain safe when someone else’s rear-end is stationed at specific GPS coordinates?

More likely, and logically it is that the job of someone in the field is already inherently unsafe, but when you create additional undue stress it is almost certain to manifest in the form of injuries or worse.

Does AEP really care about their employees? Additionally, if you don’t care for employees, can you really care for customers as you claim? After all, charity starts at home, right?