Lots of IT people cut in Columbus
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anyone got a link to the Reddit "leak" post that has been mentioned here a couple times? I can't seem to find the post.
Wonder what it’s like knowing someone in your inner circle is leaking confidential information? Must be maddening - poor Bill
AEP employees are an army that marches to war against the destruction wrought by mother nature to rebuild the transmission and distribution systems she has repeatedly attempted to destroy. Our strength is our ability to unite in the face of overwhelming adversity and destruction and vanquish our enemy. Failure to succeed is not an option. If our CEO chooses to be our enemy, then he has sealed his fate and he shall know the full measure of our wrath. We shall not surrender our American Dream, our virtuous Legacy and our families' futures to Hedge Fund tyrants. We do not serve, sacrifice and struggle to better the lives of major shareholders and their CEO henchman, we do so to better the lives of our customers and our families. Shall we go quietly into the darkness of defeat imposed upon us by a traitorous virtue-less tyrant or shall we march to war to triumphantly restore the light of virtue to our noble endeavors and selfless enterprise.
I remember when Bill was first hired they had one of those pseudo-folksy interviews where they try to make executive leadership seem personable. One of the questions that came in was something like "What do you think about being at AEP?" His answer was pretty short and was something like "This will be a nice capstone to my career." At the time I thought it was oddly self-centered but now it makes sense. His plan is to come in, do a pump and dump demolition job for his master Ichan, and then ride off into the sunset with one last big payday. This guy doesn't give a flip about AEP, the people we serve, and certainly not about you the employee.
to the person below asking why Bill left his previous job after 6 months... he was placed at AEP by Carl Ichan. They have worked together plenty in the pass. Bill is Carl's hachet man. They raided the board. Planted Bill, now they will cut the company to the bare bones and make flashy headlines (Small Moduler Reactors announcement). Attract investors to pump up the stock in the short term. This short sighted and artificial stock inflation will make Carl billions and Bill millions. They will be gone in 2 years. Do some research and you'll see this is the same script they play at every company they raid. While you're researching, find the SEC filling that details Bill's compensation package. Bill forfeited his previous employers sign on bonus and ICP. AEP paid that back for him. The two amounted to roughly 4 million. But the hard working employees that have made the company great, are clearly the problem. Also I'm hearing he's doing away with the ICP after this coming payout...
https://inbusinessphx.com/positions/centuri-announces-leadership-transition
Anyone know why the last gig last 6 months?
Tyranny flourishes in the absence of resolute virtue. The C-suite has repeatedly demonstrated it's lack of virtue i.e. January 17, 2025: The SEC announced that American Electric Power—which has managed to fly under the radar until now—has agreed to pay $19 million because of their $1.2 million dark money payments in the corruption scheme as well as lies to investors. Two shell companies solely funded by AEP were the vehicles for dark money payments. Our resolute virtue is a beard for a bunch of corporate criminals, who all belong in prison for their crimes committed against employees, customers and tax payers. Lock them up!
Rather than all calling off - we should all show up on the same day. They wouldn’t know what to do.
Here’s the plan. IT is exempt because it is slowly being outsourced. TCS is coming back strong. A few projects have already been restaffed with TCS “partners.” By stating IT is exempt now, there will be no need to justify IT being off shore, aka, remote.
Bill is a man well into his 60s, who is a formerly retired multimillionaire. Instead of spending time with his wife, who lives in another state, Bill would rather spend his time in a city he’s never lived in, and make the lives of us regular 9-5ers more difficult than it has been in quite some time. Apologies, but I happen to find that extraordinarily weird. The guy could be doing anything with his life and the coins he’s earned, and this is the lot he’s chosen. Running a utility business and groveling with investors.
It’s quite obvious the Board brought Bill onboard to strip the company down to the bare minimum needed to function and to extract every single penny possible from its value. He wasn’t brought on as some longterm innovative leader. As someone else said, he’s a Hatchet Man. Seems to me this is all the result of the Carl Icahn fallout. Have to believe he was recommended by the profit-oriented new board members.
I never understood people in a comfy retirement who aren't content being retired, having hobbies, enjoying family and pets and pleasurable activities, and here we are. I understand that I have a hard time seeing eye-to-eye with them. I am not impressed with anything so far. On the contrary, I am less than impressed. I'll have to think about what to do after the ICP distribution. I'm close enough to retirement that I'm not in the market for another job, although I do not feel ready to retire for another 3 years. I could ride it out, though I'd rather get out if possible.
It would be great if June 1st rolled around and all employees just refused to go in and kept working remotely. Unfortunately you can't get that kind of solidarity from people who are up to their eyeballs in debt.
What did you expect? Empathy from a man who doesn’t like animals? That 1st call made it clear what we were in for.
We should pick a day to call off in protest. The higher-ups are aware of this site. They will know why. Just have a reason for plausible deniability if you are asked why you took the day off. Should this day be before June 1st or after?
Just heard Therace announced to IT management that everyone has to be on camera all the time. What a joke. Get in any meeting with multiple people sharing and our network drags. Now try screen sharing. Get ready for the fun times of screens freezing and screens/docs bring shared to take excruciatingly long to render.
Seems like this decision was in place for a while, but I wonder when they were actually planning to announce this? Looks like the Reddit leak sped up this announcement… and why May 1 what’s so magical about that date? Have they even thought about people will have to scramble to find childcare for the summer? I’m really lucky that I don’t have children and have to worry about this, but it’s a real issue for a lot to find quality childcare - especially short term for the summer.
Why would a millionaire CEO want to make things easier for the working class?
How can anyone blame Bill for this?
Remember - Bill didn't want to do this. We FORCED him to do this to us because we were such bad employees.
I’m glad someone mentioned Future of Work. That program predates several of our current leaders and was a widely accepted initiative across the organization. Many people dedicated time and resources to bringing this program to life and the fact is, COVID only expedited the work AEP had already been investing in.
Fast forward a few years, now we have leaders who are pushing a narrative that remote and hybrid work is a relic of the pandemic when those of us who have been around long enough, know the exact opposite to be true. Teams, departments and business units discussed and planned for Future of Work. BEFORE COVID. Everyone bought into Future of Work recognizing that our company was not successful because of 1RP or any other building. It was built through the connectivity and hard work of our teams, which has been significantly enhanced by the collaborative tools designed to make our work feasible from anywhere. We even used to discuss this program with those interviewing to join the company, as evidence of how innovative and forward-thinking AEP was.
Now, we are being told that remote work is detrimental to the company and I’m already starting to hear some sycophants in the org who were FULLY supportive of Future of Work, bend over backwards to give Bill the benefit of the doubt as it relates to his 5 days in office effort. It’s truly nauseating to watch this play out. It’s like Future of Work never existed. Bill and Phil deserve as much blame for what has happened to AEP as anyone else.
‘The Future of Work’ had been a thing for at least a decade prior to Covid, in which various disciplines were planning the very near future where most ‘knowledge workers’ or office workers would work from home all or some of the time. We would use web and cloud based collaborative tools. We would go into the office as needed or part time on a set schedule to collaborate in person. We would share ‘touch down’ and ‘hotel’ workspaces when in office. As a result: workers would be mobilized to be more resilient (remote/hybrid workers can more easily work when there is a level 2 snow emergency or they have a cold); organizations would consume less office space/energy for operating offices/roadways and fuel/emissions for commuting (there had been multiple orders for increasing telework in the federal government for years for these efficiency reasons especially). AEP had teams working on Future of Work prior to Covid. What changed? What changed during the pandemic and following years that made people say hybrid and remote should be rare or nonexistent? It was the future, now it’s the past we can’t go back to. That is one thing that is very odd to me. Most people impacted by this are at-will employees, AEP can change the terms of our employment when they want to and we can leave when we want to. I’m prepared to su-k it up and adapt and ‘just do my job’ until I find a better opportunity. But it does really put the nail in the coffin of my opinion (already on life support) of the company, its leadership, its culture. Because it is a reversal making past commitments a lie. I don’t know if all managers were as transparent with their teams, but I remember quite clearly in 2021 my manager (and my daily work is very closely tied to this, so maybe that’s why we were given this info) told us that individual departments were being permitted to decide how each position type would be classified moving forward; on-site, hybrid, remote. Moving forward. As in, this will be how we operate from now on. And I believe it was expressed that this would be permanent for the foreseeable future. The future of work was here. We signed telework agreements codifying these classifications. And now we are going backward.
Bill is not just playing the hand he has been dealt, he is actively making it worse.
Between his arbitrary "flattening the organization" plan that has engineering in complete disarray, with groups being shuffled around to the point that no one even knows what their responsibilities are anymore, to now this completely inscrutable RTO thing that no one can even figure out the purpose of, he's on track to be the worst CEO in some time. He talks a big game but what has he actually done other than introduce a ton of chaos and uncertainty into the organization?
I guess his big "win" is securing rate increases, so that the man on the street hates AEP even more and can only think of his $900 electric bill when he's talking to you.
Asking employees to RTO is not inherently unreasonable. While hybrid has been a benefit for many of us, it's been 5 years since the pandemic began and I, for one, never expected this to continue forever. Where I have an issue is in the suggestion that coming back 5 days will improve work culture and present more career development opportunities. This argument would carry a lot more weight had organizations not just been required to flatten and eliminate management roles and reporting structures. If there are opportunities to be had, it would be nice to know where. As it stands, I'm not seeing any.
As for IT, RTO would be a wakeup for a number of folks. What use to be spread across 3-4 floors could be consolidated down to 1 or 2. I know teams that went from 10 to 2 with a remote manager. Other teams went from 18 to 5 and a local manager. It's a common story in IT, between the outsourcing on the Ops side, the hiring freeze, the layoffs last year at this time, there's no one left. Working in IT use to means something, now it's just another line job in a factory. Nick, the Board and Therace are all at fault. Bill is just playing the hand he's been dealt. Don't expect it to get better any time soon.
Who else here is now looking for a new job? Once I land a new position, I'm not even giving two weeks. I'll give 24 hours out of respect to my supervisor and I'm gone. AEP would let me go in a heartbeat. They deserve the same from me.
Let’s keep it positive. We finally paid the sec $19 million to settle the householder case, so there are no longer potential sec settlements hanging out there!
Gallup "93% of employees in remote-capable jobs prefer to work remotely at least some of the week." For those employees who sit at a computer to work all day long (not just IT), what is the company gaining by making its employees unhappy? Why return to 5 days a week instead of remote employees becoming hybrid? Prior to the pandemic, some departments allowed WFH on Fridays. Also, people took more sick/mental health days. And how many sallaried employees work an hour or two more everyday just because they don't have to commute, don't have to leave work on time/early because everything from doctors to kids' schools are closer to home than work and a 20 minute drive home is doubled or trippled during rush hour? Work-life balance. Having a window open in the spring versus a stuffy old building with sealed windows is healthier. Having your cat or dog nearby for stress relief. You control the temperature (hello hot flashes!), you have a standing desk at home. PowerPoint presentations using MS Teams is a wonderful WFH tool! The old rich retired male executives cannot change, grow...their way or the highway...
I think the reason IT isn't coming back is they don't want everyone to see how many were cut. We all kind of know.. But Floors that are only 1/4 full or has 4x the teams on it that it used to would be a wake up call.
Carving out IT says so much, speaks louder than the RTO announcement itself. I get it that some functions are offshore, but why can’t the rest of the IT group come in office? If this is truly about collaboration, aren’t they the people that need to be in office with everyone else?
They really underestimate the effect of RTO. There are a significant amount of people with significant knowledge that will just retire. I’m not at retirement age but fully prepared to walk out the day after ICP and with nothing else lined up. But maybe that’s what they want
Not sure what pushed up the timeline but as others have said, this had been the worst kept secret for some time. I overheard a few fellow old-timers saying today that they hoped Bill knew what he was doing and it that it seemed this decision was recently made.
This decision was not was made recently and anyone that tells you otherwise is uninformed or a kool-aid drinker. Happened months ago. Hard to believe the CEO thought he could keep the lid on it this long. This rollout has been nothing short of an abject failure at the very top of the organization. Brutal.
When were they ACTUALLY planning to announce this RTO? Seems like a timeline was pushed up by the Reddit posts today…..
Therace and her managers must feel they are untouchable. Everyone is coming back in except for IT and a few other smaller groups. They've cut IT to the bone with all of the outsourcing, they can't afford to lose anymore state side. The guys in India are not up to the task to keep the lights on, even after 4 yrs, they're still barely able to keep up.
This RTO may break the camel's back if and when IT has to go back. There will be a lot of people that will leave, retire, quit, give up and resign to the fact they have to start the grind all over again. The added expense of Columbus taking 2.5% of my pay for nothing in return, cost of gas, insurance higher, wear and tear on the car. You name it, everything goes up except for the pay. I'll bet we get 2.5% avg pay raise this year but it won't keep up with inflation that's been higher for the past 4 years.
Thanks Bill (sarcasm)
Unionize.
I think it's safe to say that Bill and everyone at the top anticipated overwhelming negative reaction to this decision, and it's something that they are prepared for. You don't make an announcement like this just to fold at the first sign of unrest. They're ready for the employee dissatisfaction and anger.
Stop crying big babies, oh and welcome back to work, the rest of us have been here keeping the lights and infrastructure working while you were gone.
I’d almost be willing to go in - and throw a party while doing it - if we could roll back the co-sourcing.
Also, why is it that grocery store workers are savvy enough to unionized but IT shops are not. We certainly have the tech skills to do this. What is wrong with us?
The weight of negative public opinion is like a rising tsunami, if it continues unabated the corporate board, major shareholders and hedge fund raiders are going to realize that no amount of wealth or political campaign financing can save you from the consequences of your sins against a virtuous society. Members of the Virginia General Assembly are so concerned they are considering a bill to freeze APCO electric rates for 2 years.
In addition to all the other mess, AEP left 17000 people without power on the coldest night of the year due to poor infrastructure. The public is angry. The employees are furious about many things. Applause to the poor guys that had to go out in -10 wind chills and restore power, but it should have been ready for that load. It was no secret that subzero cold was coming. Now we have confirmed proof of leadership lying to employees. In my annual review of the company (I wish), to use a quote, "I'm very disappointed."
Psh. Unreal.
Personal context on why this move is so devastating. For me. A few years ago, my ailing sister moved into my home. Her options were either a longterm facility, or to live with someone who could help to care for her throughout the day.
Working remotely, then hybrid has allowed me to make her breakfast before I start working, take her to the bathroom a few times during the day when she needed, and check in on her. A caregiver supports her the other days I’m in office.
I’ve also been able to avoid after school costs for my child two days a week, which amounts to about $500 in savings a month. She just comes home and quietly does her homework while I plug away at work, or she helps her aunt out if needed. This entire time, I’ve done my job and done it very well. My team doesn’t even know my personal circumstances which is an indicator of how successful I’ve been at managing this wonderfully challenging life of mine.
So now, I’m out of the $500 for childcare , and I have the choice of spending more than I make each month to pay for daily in-home care for my sibling, or to put her into a facility. I’m devastated that AEP did this. This cannot be the company I’ve given so many years to. I feel like this is no longer the AEP we built.