Thread regarding American Electric Power Co. Inc. layoffs

Oh, like Therace.

Leadership that only thinks they should have oppurtunity. Everyone else is to serve them.

AEP has failed at leadership. Lnew leaders have forgotten leadership is about people not them. I have seen someleaders fail upwards in the company. Thet are lousy leaders and the things the would do to their employees make them horrible people. Fix the leadership and you fix the problems at AEP.

If 10% of the front line was let go, 10% of the EVPs should be let go

Peggy was in charge of utilities for two years, and AEP lost some rate cases. It’s mostly the reason Fehrman wanted the OpCo presidents to report directly to him: winning rate cases is the most important thing at AEP. The company made commitment to and deployed so much capital without any real plan for how to get that into rates. It cost Julie her job. The entire regulatory org needs to be re-worked.

It’s obvious the board sees some leadership potential in Peggy. Just not right now. She’s still a relatively young woman, so maybe when Fehrman settles the org down, she’ll be next up.

Just heard they fired the SVP of Regulatory yesterday and now Peggy Simmons will head that group. I feel sorry for them bc you can tell she has no idea what she’s doing. If you listen to her talk you’d think she was a politician just talking in circles avoiding any question that would expose her as a fraud. She probably got rid of the SVP so she doesn’t look like an id--t when trying to talk Regulatory bc the SVP was pretty impressive from what I saw. Her new position was a made up position by the new CEO bc we can’t seem get rid of incompetent id--ts, we just move them around. It’s just another s#it move that will drive the company further into the basement.

The bonuses are for everyone but it was obvious 10 or so yrs ago the focus was getting more money to the upper end than the lower end when they moved the goal post. If you were an 8, you use to get 15 % before they dropped it to 10%. I forget the reasoning behind it but it did take a lot of money out of the pockets of a lot of people. When you know EVPs are getting 75% or higher on their base pay, you can't tell me they couldn't have dropped their bonus to 60%, or 50% and still keep the 8 at 15%. I understand there has to be a cut off but once you set that line, you shouldn't move it. You ac cry me a river if someone has to give up $100k when their bonus still comes in at 400k.

Those bonuses and pension plans were supposed to be for field employees toiling day and night and NOT for office employees especially those who go to meetings and promote themselves and their friends by taking credit work done by contract employees. Most employers got rid of pension plans.

Trust is built on mutual respect. Leadership has no clue they caused the lost of respect in their decisions. Once respect and trust is lost, it takes years to get it back. Their only focus is on the EPS and nothing else matters. Anything they say has to be seen through those lens. What can I do to increase the EPS. If it hurts the employees so be it.

My life would be better off if I did not trust AEP leadership as I did. I believed in the culture, and in the end it was a lie.

On top of the last comment, they are thinking about raising the retirement age to 70 since today's jobs are not as demanding as those in the past. I'm pretty sure more folks at AEP pass from heart attacks than from being fried on a pole, sorry lineman. I know your job is dangerous but I've heard more people dying in the year from heart attacks than you guys getting fried. Raising the retirement age will just increase that number.

Occupational exhaustion is setting in as employees are stressed about job security, financial security, political strife and rising economic inequality when AEP's 2023 profits were $2.2 billion. Inflation, carrot at the end of a long stick ICP, inadequate cost of living increases and rising benefit costs are dragging down employee enthusiasm while CEOs brag about record profits that only they enjoy.

Maybe they should start with all of the EVPs and work down? Amazon is doing something very similar and bringing everyone back into the office 5 days a week. May only be a matter of time at AEP.

Word is they’ll have another round- this time discharging some managers and lower level supervisors. To eliminate some fat and o and m costs.

If engineering is not a core part of the business, then what is? Shareholder value.

A few months back I was in a meeting and a director-level mentioned that around 70% of our transmission engineering is outsourced. Now if transmission engineering isn't our core competency then what is?

It seems clear AEP is outsourcing work that are not in their core competencies. I’m not sure what the true core competencies are any more, but by outsourcing you don’t have to pay people to retire every 5 years. AEP is a huge organization, it seems leadership feels they can’t manage all back office groups effectively so they are shipping some out. In the long run, it may pay off or there could be risk that is bubbling up.

I'd work multiple jobs too if I could, good for those guys. Being overemployed is just about the only way to stay afloat of our hyper inflating funny money. Daily reminder that the US dollar has lost over 97% of its purchasing power since the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. This is how they steal your wealth.

Contractors don't get any buy-out. That's the entire point of outsourcing contractors. No benefits, no retirement, no severance, not even unemployment pay when they get cut.

They need to shed the overemployed people. I personally know of 4 in cyber alone that work multiple jobs.

Good for them if they're given the chance to take the buyout. As for IT being told you couldn't take it when it was open to almost everyone else was BS. That is all on TR. She wants total control and she got it. She gets to run IT as she sees fit and we she how well that has worked out. How someone so incompetent has gotten as high as she has is beyond me.

Last year they let go a large number of contractors October 1st. minus TCS for the most part. Could start to become an annual thing. Did not hear what the number was last year but it was up there. Easy was to verify, look at the postings online to see if there is only a handful. I'm sure there is no shortage of people that would take the buy out of only they were allowed.

Holy smokes, 40 million more?
Where's all the money going?
Is there even going to be anyone left standing or when all of this is over will it just be a boardroom of c-levels lording over an army of outsourced contractors?

The latest word on the street is all currently posted job openings are terminated, hiring freeze for the next 2 months, and a severance is forthcoming for the union employees. 40 million needs to come off O&M budget.

I had a great laugh with that last one, made my day.

Hey man if you want to risk fiery death in traffic just to go sit in an office every day no one is stopping you. Trying to drag the rest of us down with you is just sadistic.

The one thing that might accelerate a change in management is a return to the office. I know it stinks but if you look at the big picture most of the id--ts that TR brought with her are out of state and have no interest in moving to Columbus. They can't even do hybrid and would be forced out earlier than waiting for her to leave and to drag them with her. To get rid of them, we have to start putting it in Bill's ear that at least 3 days a week in the office is a necessary evil. The other BUs have too and IT should follow suit as a good example. I will hate going back downtown with the added expense but to get rid of the Minnesota Mafia, it might be worth it.

It takes everything I have just to go to work these days. It takes evening I have to just make it to lunch. And it takes everything I have not to vomit up that lunch by 2pm.

Never have the many suffered and sacrificed so much so the undeserving few could lavish themselves with unearned and undeserved rewards for their obscene self-aggrandizement.

I know, it feels like a meat grinder and they just don't care.

I feel so broken.

Most people just want a job yo pay bills, save for retirement, get the kids through college or better yet, trade school and go on vacation every year. Nothing major or out of the ordinary. Just your typical path in life. Keep the drama down to a minimum at work and home and everything is good. Then we start getting new managers in from the outside who think they know everything about the utility business and ruin it for everyone but themselves. Any failures are placed on the old guard or the employees just are not buying into the new method of doing something. Doesn't matter if it's a complete failure, has to be the employees fault for it not working out, has to be, it can't be my fault. Well it is, you su-k as a manager. You broke something that didn't need to be fixed.

Don't hold your breath. Looking back, you only see buy outs about every 8-10 year. Would be nice to know what the average age of company employees is.

I will be taking the next severence offered, no longer a place good to work/ career. Worst managed company I have ever seen- top to bottom. Hopefully they’ll offer again soon

Sounds exactly what our Managing Director did to our group. Told us to treat the TCS guys like co-workers and not contractors. Told us our jobs were not in jeopardy. TCS was there to make the entire support process better. She said with a straight face, it was not about cutting jobs. Told us we had to train all of them as part of the Co-sourcing program. Well, 6 months later, the majority of the team was let go because of costs. Take the year salary and sign a NDA or no $$$ and unemployment benefits. They knew from day one it was all about the job cuts. Go back and read what they did at Target, JCP, Country Financial, it's always been about cutting jobs for TCS. Wonder how much of a kick back TR is getting from TCS. Sanjay took one for Team Therace when he got caught putting his thumb on the scale for TCS.
To Therace, you and all of your cronies su-k but at some point karma is a bi--h. I just hope I'm around to see you fired for what you did to this company.

So I’m one of those who was laid off back in January. Really cordial how lice resident, Bruce Jenner, shotg-nned the impersonal “as of now your position has been eliminated” cr-p. No thank you for making AEP successful through the many years of hard work and free overtime. Me, I was a su---r and believed training new people that came to the team, following up on their progress, making sure they were becoming productive to make AEP successful was a good thing and just made us better to serve our customers with the delivery of work at reasonable costs and the utmost quality. No, that was a mistake. Anyone out there now who thinks training new people to your team will make you valuable to your company is a su---r. They will just take the new guy / your replacement and keep them while they dump you. Lesson learned. Keep all your work secrets to yourself. Do not train new people/ your future replacement. Life is better after AEP. Hopefully the dark cloud of trolls running things there is sent away soon.

Poll...
Thumbs up if you think IT is BETTER off now than before TR?
Thumbs down if you think we're WORSE off!

The severances will continue until morale improves. Crony corporate management just cannot understand why they are out of a job. When only the sycophantic cronies are left no work gets done but corporate management's egos have never been so well stroked. Virtuous professional leadership would have never allowed it to come to this. Go to college to get drunk and engage in debauchery does not instill values, discipline or a resolute determination to succeed. Enlist in the military, serve your nation, learn what it takes to be an American patriot and learn that values, responsibility, shared sacrifice, cohesiveness, selflessness and discipline are essential to be professional and succeed as a team. In the absence of resolute virtue, self aggrandizing tyranny flourishes and failure becomes reality.

Everyone complaining about TR but all the directors+ got nice ICP this year. They ate while the rest of us got scraps.

You may be right, I think most people just want the company to return to some sense of normalcy. The cuts, the lack of direction, the lack of leadership, outsourcing with offshore people that could care less about our company.