#culture

I am writing this to explain to the rest of Verizon about a pervasive and ongoing culture of discrimination, hostility, and bias within our workplace that directly violates standard conduct and zero-tolerance policies. Throughout my tenure, I have routinely witnessed and been subjected to an unsustainable environment where discussions surrounding race are treated contentiously and divisively. Furthermore, the workplace culture frequently involves highly offensive and inappropriate language, including racial slurs, antisemitic remarks, and derogatory comments targeted at various ethnic and cultural groups, specifically Black, Italian, Irish, Hispanic, and immigrant communities. This toxicity is further compounded by frequent misogynistic behavior and a fundamental lack of respect for employee dignity.

The persistence of this behavior is directly tied to the current management team, who have demonstrated a continuous failure to enforce company policies, address ongoing misconduct, or implement corrective actions. By refusing to intervene, leadership has effectively condoned a toxic workplace culture, damaging employee morale and exposing the organization to significant liability. Because the current management has shown they will not foster a safe, inclusive, and respectful environment, I request that higher leadership step in immediately. To resolve these systemic issues and ensure the safety and well-being of the staff, I strongly urge a formal review of the current management team, up to and including demotion or termination, alongside the immediate implementation of strict accountability measures.

NY CSSC Brooklyn. All the offices in NY.

Has anyone else noticed that Joe Parks came from Pizza Hut (technically the IT affiliate) and when he was there he oversaw the implementation of AI. In May 2026 a NY franchise owner opened a $100M lawsuit against Pizza Hut because they forced AI to be used and it was a disaster. Service tanked and sales dropped. Ironically Joe left them 6 or so months before the lawsuit. Hmmmm seems to me like he might have had a feeling something ugly was coming.

Now my real concern is the same exact thing is happening at SF. I work in ET and I can confirm 100% that the use of AI is getting crammed down our throats. We are being monitored to see how often we use it (being encouraged it should be daily) and leadership is pushing hard for use cases that make no sense. Sounds like Pizza Hut 2.0

Most managers and up at Verizon would not make the cut in today’s landscape. A lot of them were simply at the right place at the right time. They would buckle under today’s pressure, scrutiny, and expectations. Many got there because they knew someone, checked a DEI box, metrics were easier, opportunities were abundant, and the market practically carried people upward.

Today you have to fight for every sale, every customer, every opportunity, while dealing with shrinking compensation, unrealistic expectations from people who had it easier, and bootlickers with Stockholm syndrome who are just happy to finally be a baby shark in the corporate tank. Different era entirely. A lot of the people preaching “adaptability” never actually had to survive in the environment they created.

when management only cares about checking the box and how fast they can get out of belle chasse instead of fixing the real issues morale tanks and the plant goes downhill.

LL5's and LL6's are going to be pushed out for L1A's. It has been happening already slowly.

Wake up Mike. Wake up

Anyone else getting tired of the circus in NV?

Every day there’s a new priority, a new direction, a new “this is the most important thing we need to focus on.” What was said one day will conveniently forgotten next day as if it happened by next day… By tomorrow it’ll be something else. At this point I don’t think the issue is execution. The issue is nobody can keep up with commercial leadership changing its mind every 24 hrs on some projects…

What really gets me though is the gap between what gets reported up from middle management and what’s actually happening. Somehow unfinished work becomes “complete,” confusion becomes “alignment,” and chaos becomes “momentum.” If you only listened to leadership updates, you’d think everything was running perfectly. How can people trust the managers who lie blatantly in front of you (knowing you know the truth)
The culture in marketing has taken a nosedive too. Feels like we’ve replaced professional leadership with a bunch of guys trying to out-macho each other. Lots of swagger. Lots of talking. Very little listening. Questions are treated like challenges. Different opinions get dismissed. The loudest person in the room wins.

People aren’t afraid of hard work. They’re tired of the constant spin, ego, and mixed messages.

The sad part is people have stopped speaking up. When employees stop asking questions and stop bringing ideas, that’s not alignment. That’s people checking out

Maybe leadership sees it and doesn’t care. Maybe they don’t see it at all… sometimes they are the problem. Neither answer is particularly reassuring.….

Read this: https://wccftech.com/verizon-replacing-humans-with-ai-for-live-chat-is-lowering-response-quality/amp/

Glad InfoSys and Accenture are so talented at building AI solutions for our customers. Not to mention our awesome and talented Verizon India teams and GTS leaders. Let’s keep spending Billions to make our customers hate us and AI more than they already do!

Does anyone else endure bad behavior by H-1Bs in the office? My office is chock full of them and they routinely speak at volumes that are more suitable for an NFL game. They also stare at me way too long and it makes me uncomfortable.

Chevron is extremely poorly ran...

Chevron leaders have massive egos, little substance and are shockingly unimpressive. This collective leadership has convinced themselves they are top tier. Behind closed doors, if you are not a C Level executive... You are nothing.

Culture and moral are garbage...

My time is done and I'm glad to be out. What a po-p show.

Not layoff related, but here is another example of why UHG is so hated. Couple denied coverage by UHC for preemie twins in NICU.

Help this go viral:
youtube.com/shorts/4VVE-GO4cbg?si=I0OWMbq7qc5jzxea

Because isolated C suite (sycophants for slick consulting salesman) clowns have no idea what tech really is, even if they are tech C suite. They are spending million on tech they have never seen, haven't touched, and have only read about or seen a sterile lab environment proof of concept.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3JHuoLD468

This sums up many people here. Luckily most of the people I work with aren’t into this
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2025/jan/29/silicon-valley-rightwing-technofascism

The best direction from above this week is we need to work better as a TEAM!! From the same people who demand that everyone on that team be split into specific categories by specific percentages where some of them must be rated as needs improvement regardless of how that team performed. LMAO, that's the way to get people to work together. I used to feel like I was part of a team, now it is everyone for themselves, not the bigger goal, just survive another layoff.

HANS . humans achieving nothing strategically

Mike, board, SVP etc do a search on Google for example.....fiserv su-ks.
Take a look at how bad the opinions are of you, your performance and company. Look at all the complaints, absurd fees, lies, etc.. You are Terrible!
This should be VERY Sobering and you should All be Ashamed!

These co-worker feedbacks really make no sense. I chose people I thought liked me. I gave everyone 5’s regardless of how I felt because I’m not doing BNY’s dirty work. But dang this thing has really made hostile feelings amongst the group and lots of gossip about who we think said what. My reviews were above average in total. I don’t like a couple things that were said, but now I’m thinking if I get the person who I’m suspecting said certain things, I need to be a little more honest for the next round. The top says “anytime feedback.” Can I add gripes all year long?

Another Friday email about MCP. The fifth? Tenth? Who knows anymore. The topic changes slightly, but the result is always the same: lots of buzzwords, very little substance, and almost nothing employees actually care about. Same goes for Radio FactSet.

Meanwhile, layoffs happened this week and didn’t deserve a single mention. Is the CEO genuinely aware of what’s happening inside the company, or is he too busy writing thought pieces about AI? The disconnect is becoming impossible to ignore.

Just keep Sr managers directly reporting to Sr Directors. We are top heavy with people being managers only with one person reporting to them. it’s a joke

Fixing this would take visionary leadership with courage, long-term commitment, and out-of-the-box thinking. Nothing even close is on the horizon. Fiserv will continue until there's nothing left to shovel over to leadership and shareholders. We'll keep existing in an ever-deteriorating culture until we're incapable of managing the cuts, handling the ever-increasing workload, or are replaced by offshore labor.

To the point that I don't know if we'll be able to get anything done.

I'm seeing some linked in posts where people are 'so excited to announce I'm taking a new position as a director in Fidelity blah blah ' where they were formerly VPs. Of course one in particular I saw scrubbed that gleeful vp announcement from 3 years ago from his linked in page. Are there people who took demotions to stay in lieu of getting $hit canned or is this some sort of universe correcting reorg?

It’s 2:30 here at HQ. I’ve met my 40 hour requirement for the week so it’s time to head home. Man I love Summer Fridays!

Last week my tram was told that they are monitoring our AI usage and those that are not using it at are risk. We were shown a dashboard that tracks general ChatGPT usage and Codex usage.

This week an email comes out instructing us on the proper use of AI, which model to select based on usage cost.

So wait, you want us to use it but in the same breath you are worried about the usage cost?

Id--ts

FU-K OPENTEXT

Not like management has hands on experience in telecom but this guy is trying to ride the AI hype train so hard it’s embarrassing. Very clear he has no idea what he’s talking about. When is the board going to do something about him?

I've worked closely with a few core systems for years and always believed that made me valuable to Cisco. Recently I've watched people with deep knowledge get pushed aside during layoffs and it's changed the way a lot of us look at long term stability here. We still work hard, but there's definitely less confidence that loyalty or expertise will matter when decisions get made. So many of us have started looking. Loyalty has to be a two way street or it simply disappears.

They're just glorified managers, and they're not even good at that. Citi is spiraling downward because there's a complete lack of real leadership.

Not a damn thing. No innovation. Horrible take on human capital. Stay away from these mushroom clouds

It's harder to stay focused because nobody seems sure what the plan is anymore. We're still doing the work, but we're being kept in the dark on so many things. I'm getting really, really tired of it.

I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that our new purpose slogans are all these military esq phrases “take the hill” “run together” etc. who told them these were inspiring phrases that were going to get us all excited about our purpose?

And I work in Robinson where leaders have to say “glad to be here” in meetings The morale at my plant is the absolute worst I have ever seen it in my career!!!!!! What is happening to this company? Glad to be here, take the hill, run together. What’s next?

Q: How does it feel to be one of the ones who was LR harvested, whilst the Bread and Circuses of CiscoLive! commences?

A: It feels pretty sh£tty.

What a joke this all had been. To the old teammates who won't reply to texts, emails, or LinkedIn messaging...F-off, the lot of you.

And everything reflects it. The group is not open to new ideas, or new tech or new methods. And we are supposed to be a "cutting edge" IT group. We have projects that started a decade ago that cant move forward because we have not done our "due diligence". We are using tech from 2015.

10 out of 14 people will retire in next 3 years. Hopefully we can get some smarter people in. Although most likely we will be offshored.

No really, why?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/verizon-vz-stock-trades-down-here-is-why/ar-AA24RnGp Bottom line Verizon sold customer location data and was fined $47 Million. Wonder how many employees Dan will lay off to cover this bone head move?

Lots of posts deleted. Surely now everyone (employees, management, board, supply chain and peers) can see why bp has been a train wreck since Browne left. It’s culturally corrupt and that prevails everywhere. You can remove the cancer - it’s too late

Displacing individuals is too slow and not creating sufficent staff reduction.
Poor work conditions and arbitary illogical management and we-ponized metrics have failed get employees to self attrit. Leadership next phase: Build League, the foundation to start displacing entire teams of employees at once....

Have read this a lot..

The problem with this logic is that it is exactly the strategy used to hire them in the first place (internally from other BUs using Spotify model) what your missing is that this is was designed to fail and there was extreme internal resistance that became louder in late 2019… convenient right?

Have you ever heard anyone at the firm say “fidelity doesn’t like two VPs in one room” before they humbly announce a lateral move to a different adjacent org? Take a look at some of your peers at any pay grade that started to make lateral moves during the fall of ‘25 water cooler talk.

I see your posts, i hear your sentiment. but what you are enraged about isn’t the firms gross incompetence. It’s actually quite worse, because it was strategic and now associates are left pointing the finger at the right people but for the wrong reason.

The existing tenured VPs on teams actively pushed back for years against the re-org and likely didn’t tell you about it. It was near impossible to fight — as PI was proving the model worked in their BU. The main argument of why the success wouldn’t transfer for AM tech is based on the end users and stakeholders. 100% internal technology with a specific set of elitist stock pickers, research analysts and traders as internal customers.

And then expecting those exact investment professionals to engage in this new silly structure was down right embarrassing. Asking someone who has worked as a product manger (industry title) to become a squad lead (not even a title used by Spotify itself anymore) was evidence in itself for some people aware enough that they jumped ship or took a lateral move.

Covid became the catalyst for this shift to formally take place, yes. But dont let your ignorance (and outright bigotry) distract you from the real enemy here. False sense of transparency from upper executives. Tenured VPs shielding delivery teams from all this happening only made them less prepared for the blow.

Fidelity wants to remain known for not following suit in layoff trends throughout changing economies. This is a decade long plan to control costs in a different way that other competing public firms cant take the same approach. If you want someone to blame, this is a “privately owned” cop out.

Thats it. The VPs you keep bringing up that you all seem to want to interrogate hypothetically. They were brought in so that there wouldn’t be outraged when they were phased out. Every single AM tech leader knew this. Patterns were recognized. New roles were presented to people with confusing titles and responsibilities. Delivery teams divided.

Asking chat gpt to come up with reverse interview questions about new VPs merit is sophmoric. This was why they were placed originally — upper execs paid for the Spotify consult and needed to see it through, and covid allowed them to execute this. knowing it would fail and THAT was a valuable point enough to justify future layoffs.

There are MANY cases of well accomplished VPs choosing a demotion, strategically. To stay at the firm, embrace the change for a temporary 5-7 years until the next wave of “leaders” try to make an impact. When Kathy and bill were here, this was well understood but not widely discussed because there was an actionable conversation happening about what long term associates LIKED about why they stayed for so long. There was a long run of success with their combined approach, and unfortunately gave a lot of younger employees a sense of stability that would soon change.

All of the outrage of covid hires and thinking you can reverse engineer something that was intentionally designed to fail in the first place is a waste of your time. Stop being tricked into thinking they actually believed this re-org would work. Or that it was a disguised effort to implement DEI.

Your leaders didn’t tell you the truth, stop whining about DEI when it was intentionally used to distract you and blame your peers, and not the execs.