#culture

I can vaguely remember when we used to work toward something, had real team cohesion, and felt a sense of accomplishment after solving complex problems or delivering exceptional results. These days, it feels like we’re just getting ground down, and everyone around me seems completely and utterly demoralized. It’s as if our misery is the point. Creating an environment where people perform well and don’t hate their jobs clearly isn’t a priority anymore.

I started with Edward Jones in 2018 and left in 2024; I am White male with a degree in finance and two of the big professional designations. Because of DEI, I never received a Good Knight, was never approached about an RTP, and never got my own office. All the while I noticed that EJ catered to the "lowest common denominator" and gave all kinds of assets/handouts, RTPs and offices to "persons of color" (an Edward Jones' term), female FA's and the "alphabet community". All to check the box of DEI, and I can say with the fullest of confidence, it was far from earned. For those of you who do not know if an FA shares/gives assets to a person who fits the DEI mold, the giving FA receives an additional 10% compensation. They seem to predominantly hire ill-educated, sales type people.

The training was a joke; it was all sales based. I never received legit training directly related to financial planning, investment analysis, portfolio management, etc. I learned all of that on my own through designations like the CFP, CIMA, and CFA Level 1. The culture is definitely a "cult" and talk about "fake friendships". It was definitely a weird social environment. Early on I stopped taking TAP trips, going to summer Regionals, and all of the other mindless meeting/events that EJ holds. I forgot to mention, I was offered a failing office from an FA that was terminated. I knew that FA and I knew how horrible to book was managed and wanted to nothing to do with it. I turned it down and they took it SO personal. If I would have fit the DEI mold, I would have been handed a "gold mine". I saw that on many occasions. It didn't really bother me, I believe in a meritocracy. I wonder how the clients would feel about it??

Anyways, I built a book from zero to Level 9, producing $850,000 in a 6-year time period. I took a million dollar check to transfer to a sophisticated firm and have transferred 85% of my book. The remaining 15% can stay put for all I care. It is nice to be around legitimately educated people who understand capital markets, investment management, and financial planning. This firm values quality over quantity and there is zero DEI cr-p. If you have formal education in finance, economic, business, etc, EJ is not the place for you. I stayed for longer than I should have due the COVID lockdown. That slowed my exit by about 2 years.

Left nike 18 months ago and I had a huge amount of Nike stocks. Sold everything today at a 12% loss. I held nike stocks only because it was part of ESPP. This is my first time losing money on the stock market but it is not the 12% that su-ks! It is the cost of losing out on 17%-20% in the broad index funds. Unless nike does 40%-50%, there is no reason to hold nike for the next few years. Had hopes on EH for a few months but the execution is terrible. Best case for NKE is 70 at the end of the year. Sp500 will do 10% meanwhile.

I am done with following nike - great brand, worst company to work for!

I am a former trustee and graduate of Johnson & Wales University (class of 1973). I served as a trustee for over seven years and during that time worked to be a proper fiduciary of the university. I applaud your June 23 article “The Rise and Fall of Johnson & Wales University.” The article fully captures my personal frustration with university leadership, most significantly Chancellor Mim L. Runey.

As a first-generation college graduate, I also established an endowed scholarship in my family’s name to benefit students coming from a background similar to mine, who are looking to get into a finance/business-professional role.

When I resigned my role as trustee and chair of the academic subcommittee a couple months ago, it came as a result of frustration not only about moving the academic needle and managing my endowed scholarship but about the loss of over 30 established academic leaders over the years. These leaders were not included in the recent staff/faculty terminations mentioned. These academic leaders were brought in to build and develop key programs not part of Culinary. Most lasted a year or more and then suddenly were no longer part of the university.

The root of the problem at Johnson & Wales is Chancellor Runey. People are afraid to challenge her for fear of retaliation and dismissal. Her friends thrive, but many are just afraid to challenge and speak up for fear of being ostracized. Many of these people have gone on to other colleges and universities to build very innovative programs. Just look at the recent promotion of Joe Greene to president. I have great respect for Joe in his financial leadership. But for Joe, JWU would have collapsed years ago. My point is that the university at the board’s direction should have used the opportunity to build an effective bench with some new talent who could possibly serve as a replacement for Chancellor Runey. The time for fresh talent and ideas is now.

It is a shame that proud graduates, like myself, are watching the collapse of what was a fine institution. The university led culinary arts for many years, only to then fall to a distant second or further behind the Culinary Institute of America and to two-year institutions popping up all over the country. They lost their way and bet it all on one-dimensional education, favoring Culinary and Hospitality. They have all but abandoned the very foundation of their business, education.

This is my first external outreach. I have written several letters expressing these issues to the board chair and vice chair but receive little if any response.

Thank you for caring enough to write this piece. We all hope that the university can find its way, but each day I become less and less certain they will without bold moves.

• Philip Renaud, Johnson & Wales University, Class of 1973

I am curious how many others at Dell are experiencing a growing sense of disconnection from leadership, from managers, and from the company as a whole.

In many areas, there appears to be little meaningful work, limited direction, and minimal communication. One on ones have largely disappeared. Staff calls and meetings often feel performative rather than purposeful, and there is a pervasive sense of waiting, collecting a paycheck while quietly wondering whether our roles will still exist tomorrow.

The result is an environment that feels increasingly unhealthy. On site, people are physically present but disengaged, mentally and emotionally checked out. Culture feels absent, replaced by silence, uncertainty, and fatigue. The lack of transparency and human connection has a real impact not only on morale and productivity, but also on overall well being.

The world of work has changed dramatically, and many employees are adapting in real time. It feels, however, as though that reality is not being meaningfully acknowledged or addressed. I am interested to know whether others are experiencing the same disconnect, uncertainty, and erosion of culture, or if this is isolated to certain teams and organizations.

Opened LinkedIn on this Monday morning to find lots of resignation announcements. What’s going on?

In a toxic environment, poison is gold.

Monolithic
Monopoly
Copper Wire and Rotary Phone
Rip You Off
Old and Behind

The next round of the great Insight purge is among us.... Sharpen up those resumes.. While you are planning some NY revelry, someone else is plotting your demise. Lists submitted. The level of incompetence at this place is astounding. Services business is suffering greatly, fools only think that they can make this work. Can't compete against Deloitte or Accenture, CDW is in dismay. Don't do ERP or CRM implementations (hey KrustyBurger what's up with that? Thought that you were G Money Magic?), just playing around with AI like some kids at the school yard. Eclipsed by a bunch of other more nimble and spot on competitors. Does not matter how many ex-Cisco, ex-IBM'ers, ex-CAP fools are hired at 4x what you make. Let's anoint more CTO's and CISO's around this ghost town. Tumbling like tumble weed in the desert.

That's how bad things have gotten. Elevance is destroying us.

Very few people are actually doing their jobs, and there’s zero accountability when they do not. Processes are completely broken, and anyone with a decent work ethic ends up carrying the load for everyone else. I’m beyond exhausted by this and seriously tempted to walk away, even without another job lined up.

Leadership has bought into the AI hype hoping it will allow them to shed people.
AI is just another a tool...like a hammer.

"it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." ~ Abraham Maslow

Management is handing everyone a hammer and telling them to go pound on everything the see.

Exactly what @bp+1kc37smg0 said.

Lately, it’s like I’m being pushed out without anyone saying it outright. Whenever I ask questions about a process, I get shut down and told to just figure it out. I’m not given the same time to learn new tasks as others, and when I flagged a coworker for mistreatment, it felt like I was the one in the wrong. Meanwhile, that coworker got promoted the same month after treating me poorly. I put in the work, my performance is strong, but recognition and support seem non-existent. Even small gestures others get, like acknowledgment on anniversaries, completely skip me. I honestly don’t know who to trust. Anyone else dealing with something similar?

A teammate who got laid off in the last round spent weeks helping a new hire learn the job, showing him the ropes, answering questions, in essence, training the person who would take over. And then suddenly, she's gone, without warning. The new hire is now doing her old role. I can’t wrap my head around how companies actually do this.

I can't figure out why would you do mass layoffs without truly considering the people and rolls you are cutting? They just got rid of people blindly without thinking about the impact on the future of the company. Who does that?

RTO is an antiquated strategy based on how the company was in 2010 not 2025. Our roles have changed as have the people, and their locations, that we all interact with. There will be no measure of success because it’s based on a belief in collaboration and nothing more. There is not a single metric that will support it. However I will lay money that sickness and absence rates will rise.

Well said, @a9+1kc3yqn6p.

I don’t even want to think about what 2026 is going to be like, considering that for the past five years, if not longer, every single year has been worse in some respect than the one before it. More layoffs, fewer benefits, and a culture that keeps deteriorating. Let’s just say I’m not looking forward to finding out what the next year brings.

Being away for a week only made me realize how miserable I am at Dell. I know I'll be tripling my job search efforts in the new year.

Cingular was not a good name either
Anyone remember the Super Bowl Commercials? People at the Super Bowl party looked at me like Huhhhh? Makes no sense....Self Expression.
All SBC ideas. That same cement head dense culture exists today.

The CEM tool in ServiceNow is just something to keep you busy and something you can get in trouble for if you don't enter your time. They use it under the guise of wanting to know what you're working on. But when you're assigned to one customer and bill your time in GPS against that customer, you know what I'm working on. The kicker on this tool is that you can't show more than 40 hours in a week against it. God forbid you actually show real hours you work, then there might be a lawsuit to pay management overtime!! It's just a time waster, and honestly, they don't track it. I didn't hear any issues until the end of the year, when I had a gap in time on the tool.

Did I miss it? They didn't mention it during the Town Hall at all. Hmm...

I’ve heard from a few people that PSGs are being suppressed and advancing to 25 and higher will be much less common than before. I feel long overdue for a promotion (both in performance, % CO, expanded role, and time) but am not getting much support for even consideration. Am I capped out?

There was a time when working here meant something. Now the dominant emotion is exhaustion. Pride has been replaced by fear and trust is all gone. Whatever made this company special did not survive the last few years.

So Christmas is over, how many people woke up this morning to the uncertainty of 2026 at Xerox.

Spineless leadership in the CEO, the UK led by a CMO who only thinks about himself, his family, friends and sycophants.

What kind of place is this ??????

Sadly, employees are the ones paying the price. I spent years here thinking things would stabilize, but instead it was constant disruption and recurring layoffs. Management keeps experimenting, backtracking, and repeating failures, while workers are treated like disposable pieces. What a joke.

I mean that's really it. Billion dollar company. Our manager didnt even gift us some measley points for Christmas.

if you work at belk in a store. do the absolute minimum. they dont care about you. why should you bust your butt for them? these people that bend over backwards for belk are id--ts. they think belk cares about them and belk and corpoorate does not.

It was a farce from the beginning. The organization selected incompetent and unqualified individuals to LCS. Instead of choosing the right people based on skills, selection was based on politics…you help me and I help you. It’s an organization full of backstabbers/ credit stealers who are adept at managing up but achieved little on their own. What’s worst is the nonsense they spout inside and outside the company. A layoff there is needed.

Not having to work for the hollowed out dead shell of a once great company.

Not having to act like the id--t leaders in tech have a clue as to what they are doing.

Not having to work with unethical, trashy, leaders in tech.

Not having to pretend that Nike is still cool.

Not having to endure the toxic political culture.

May god help all of you out of that sewer.

In my old company, a colleague had a serious issue with a director and went to HR for help. She documented everything perfectly. Instead of investigating, HR scheduled a mediation where they sided with the director and suggested my colleague was not a team fit. It was a clear lesson that their only job is to protect the company from us. From what I've seen here so far, the same applies here.

I work at 228-the villages Florida and it’s a 💩 show. It’s atrocious

This CIO has not only gutted the workforce, but also the systems. Poor culture thrives, and online articles are the focus versus getting the business to be effective through delivery and commitment. Get someone effective in Singapore to replace this jo**r.

Remote employees were once again showered with lavish gifts and people in Milwaukee got nothing. The only give TG the Grinch gave local employees was the gift of paying for more gas to commute, paying more for parking, and extra time in the restroom if you manage to find something to eat at the cafeteria. Bah humbug

I am sending warm holiday greetings and a big hug to all of our customers and managers like the HR leader helping us on this board. You have been with us and donated time and comments to help us. Some customers also hit them in their pocket book to stand with us. I am a single mom who feels disrespected and totally frightened and your help is really gratifying and loved by us all. Happy holidays to all of you who stand with us! I saw a nice email from the CEO wishing us happy holidays and it was nicely written. Maybe the grinch’s heart is warming and the changes we need in the changing of bad leaders will come in January. I am hoping for that more than anything.

The fusion of all positive energy were gone. It’s already in the mid downfall. Game over is nearing or is it just spawning? One thing I see, no diamond in Verizon. I ‘ll sit back and watch.

What’s the point of anything?

Did this post somehow catch your eye?

Is it making you stop to think? Feeling the need to comment?

Does it resonate with you some way?

Moral compromises?

Are you lying to yourself?

Deep down, gut feeling, do you know you are doing something wrong?

No fear of what is to come next?

Remember we are but a blip on the timeline.

Looks like you made it this far.

Maybe this post is the reminder or push you need to turn around your soul rot.

Is your soul rotting at U.S. Bank?

I would like express a Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all active and retired employees. Wishing you all a wonderful new year and hope that a turnaround of a once great company occurs.

Bandy the Clown can not even be bothered to send the “troops” a Christmas message. While they usually say nothing and spout BS not to make an effort is an all time low when I thought he could get no lower. Maybe him and the new CMO have decided that internal communication is no longer needed?

Since SB, DC and the EC can’t be bothered I will say it - Happy Holidays 🙂

other than more layoffs and enriching his wealth in his own startup investments?