#employeerelations

I hope we're safe for the rest of the year, considering that the holiday season is starting. Or am I expecting too much?

Long story short, I'm an L4 - Community, Gender-Expansive, Kinship - Analyst. Thankfully, I survived the blood bath and still have my job.

Does anyone know what the implications are for the bonuses? Are we still going to get the full amount or are they cutting that too?

Thanks!

I have been praying for myself and everyone else. Even if I survive this layoff I know others will not and it saddens me. What a horrible way to do a layoff, we find out Thursday and have to go all the way to Tuesday to find out, it has been a miserable few days for all of us. I would say it is CRUEL in fact. I love Target and I wish they had handled this with more care.

There will be more layoffs before years end. Nothing says Happy Holidays like a good old fashioned RIF. Support for clients is terrible and getting worse by the day. Pretty unhappy place to work these days.

Are we affected??

The biggest issue I am having with this layoff thing, is the absolutely lack of transparency they are giving us. What a failure on leaderships part and especially this new CEO. What a way to make your first real impact on the company — your likability factor and lack of decency is out the door already.

How hard is it for this company to at least tell people what the process is like / how things will unfold instead of making every single employee just be on edge for several days? Very cruel and clearly they are not taking their employee’s well-being seriously.

Already hearing folks getting let go. Good luck to us all.

One of our posts about our su-k a-s security team and its crooked VP has hit over 100 thousand hits and counting. That is more than any other company has ever had on layoffs.com. One of the posts in that string has almost 4000 employees who have thumbs up the plead for help. That too is a record. Where have we gone as a company to sit mute to so many associates’ cries for help? It’s a pathetic record to have on this site and our customers see it. Hopefully the new company merger and shareholders and board of directors will see it and make the right decisions on who let this all happen and lay them off! Those records are embarrassing!

Hey, for those unfortunate (or fortunate) People like me that were surplussed in the past... the cutoff date to renew your COBRA benefits is Nov 7! Of course you will not receive any reminders as I did not from the COmpany to remind you of this important cutoff date: Dont assume you have until the end of November - it is by November 7th.

Most have probably found much cheaper insurance, but I found the Vision plan and Careplus (extended) to be pretty good and kept it. But of course no reminder to renew. Just a public service announcement as we all have other things going on in life, didnt want my old freinds and co-workers to miss out and get scr_wed once again. All the best! I hope you are all in a better place then where we were!

I took ERP and have been gone more than a month (Hallelujah!) Hoping my friends who got laid off - the term “unmapped” was used - find new employment by the deadline, which should be around now. Anyone know the deadline to find new roles or other employment? Just don’t want to say the wrong thing to friends who are stressed and disrespected enough as it is. Thanks.

I've been monitoring this site for the last month or so. I'd like to ask whomever knew the actual details (dates, we'll get email to WFH next week, etc) to come back & post what we can expect on Tuesday. Will everyone getting a meeting invite - one group who are laid off & other who are not (at least not this round)? Will it be by pyramid? And why Tuesday? Why not just do it yesterday? Did MF send the email on Thursday because the rumor was growing or was that the plan all along? We didn't get a heads up in 2015, so while I guess it's nice to know it's coming, 5 days notice is just too long.

Wondering what date in 2026 my rating has been determined for 2025 and cannot be changed. Thanks!

One Two Gunjan is coming for you
Three Four swipe your badge at the door
Five Six layoffs is how she gets her kicks
Seven Eight your job she’s gonna automate
Nine Ten time to make a friend

I had a meeting with my L8 (as an L5) the week before fiddelke’s email that in hindsight really suggested they knew what was up and were trying to prepare me for it because it sounds a lot like my lead (L7) is getting let go.

Earlier this year, a developer was shocked by a message that appeared on his personal phone: “Apple detected a targeted mercenary spyware attack against your iPhone.”

“I was panicking,” Jay Gibson, who asked that we don’t use his real name over fears of retaliation, told TechCrunch.

Gibson, who until recently built surveillance technologies for Western government hacking tools maker Trenchant, may be the first documented case of someone who builds exploits and spyware being themselves targeted with spyware.

“What the he-l is going on? I really didn’t know what to think of it,” said Gibson, adding that he turned off his phone and put it away on that day, March 5. “I went immediately to buy a new phone. I called my dad. It was a mess. It was a huge mess.”

At Trenchant, Gibson worked on developing iOS zero-days, meaning finding vulnerabilities and developing tools capable of exploiting them that are not known to the vendor who makes the affected hardware or software, such as Apple.

“I have mixed feelings of how pathetic this is, and then extreme fear because once things hit this level, you never know what’s going to happen,” he told TechCrunch.

But the ex-Trenchant employee may not be the only exploit developer targeted with spyware. According to three sources who have direct knowledge of these cases, there have been other spyware and exploit developers in the last few months who have received notifications from Apple alerting them that they were targeted with spyware.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment from TechCrunch.

The targeting of Gibson’s iPhone shows that the proliferation of zero-days and spyware is starting to ensnare more types of victims.

Spyware and zero-day makers have historically claimed their tools are only deployed by vetted government customers against criminals and te------ts. But for the past decade, researchers at the University of Toronto’s digital rights group Citizen Lab, Amnesty International, and other organizations have found dozens of cases where governments used these tools to target dissidents, journalists, human rights defenders, and political rivals all over the world.

The closest public cases of security researchers being targeted by hackers happened in 2021 and 2023, when North Korean government hackers were caught targeting security researchers working in vulnerability research and development.

Two days after receiving the Apple threat notification, Gibson contacted a forensic expert who has extensive experience investigating spyware attacks. After performing an initial analysis of Gibson’s phone, the expert did not find any signs of infection, but still recommended a deeper forensic analysis of the exploit developer’s phone.

A forensic analysis would have entailed sending the expert a complete backup of the device, something Gibson said he was not comfortable with.

“Recent cases are getting tougher forensically, and some we find nothing on. It may also be that the attack was not actually fully sent after the initial stages, we don’t know,” the expert told TechCrunch.

Without a full forensic analysis of Gibson’s phone, ideally one where investigators found traces of the spyware and who made it, it’s impossible to know why he was targeted or who targeted him.

But Gibson told TechCrunch that he believes the threat notification he received from Apple is connected to the circumstances of his departure from Trenchant, where he claims the company designated him as a scapegoat for a damaging leak of internal tools.

Apple sends out threat notifications specifically for when it has evidence that a person was targeted by a mercenary spyware attack. This kind of surveillance technology is often invisibly and remotely planted on someone’s phone without their knowledge by exploiting vulnerabilities in the phone’s software, exploits that can be worth millions of dollars and can take months to develop. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies typically have the legal authority to deploy spyware on targets, not the spyware makers themselves.

Sara Banda, a spokesperson for Trenchant’s parent company L3Harris, declined to comment for this story when reached by TechCrunch before publication.

A month before he received Apple’s threat notification, when Gibson was still working at Trenchant, he said he was invited to go to the company’s London office for a team-building event.

When Gibson arrived on February 3, he was immediately summoned into a meeting room to speak via video call with Peter Williams, Trenchant’s then-general manager who was known inside the company as “Doogie.” (In 2018, defense contractor L3Harris acquired zero-day makers Azimuth and Linchpin Labs, two sister startups that merged to become Trenchant.)

Williams told Gibson the company suspected he was double employed and was thus suspending him. All of Gibson’s work devices would be confiscated and analyzed as part of an internal investigation into the allegations. Williams could not be reached for comment.

“I was in shock. I didn’t really know how to react because I couldn’t really believe what I was hearing,” said Gibson, who explained that a Trenchant IT employee then went to his apartment to pick up his company-issued equipment.

Around two weeks later, Gibson said Williams called and told him that following the investigation, the company was firing him and offering him a settlement agreement and payment. Gibson said Williams declined to explain what the forensic analysis of his devices had found, and essentially told him he had no choice but to sign the agreement and depart the company.

Feeling like he had no alternative, Gibson said he went along with the offer and signed.

Gibson told TechCrunch he later heard from former colleagues that Trenchant suspected he had leaked some unknown vulnerabilities in Google’s Chrome browser, tools that Trenchant had developed. Gibson, and three former colleagues of his, however, told TechCrunch he did not have access to Trenchant’s Chrome zero-days, given that he was part of the team exclusively developing iOS zero-days and spyware. Trenchant teams only have strictly compartmentalized access to tools related to the platforms they are working on, the people said.

“I know I was a scapegoat. I wasn’t guilty. It’s very simple,” said Gibson. “I didn’t do absolutely anything other than working my a-s off for them.”

The story of the accusations against Gibson and his subsequent suspension and firing was independently corroborated by three former Trenchant employees with knowledge.

Two of the other former Trenchant employees said they knew details of Gibson’s London trip and were aware of suspected leaks of sensitive company tools.

All of them asked not to be named but believe Trenchant got it wrong.

Be prepared because we all know this is happening even though they deny it. As a mgr i can confirm they are absolutely reducing teams 25% and behind your reporting mgrs back. Most of my team was entered to meet by me and all of them show below after i went in and looked. Im not delivering any reviews when i did not do this and cannot tell people why it was done. Beyond pathetic and unethical. Open up a case with HR and ethics. Im telling you anyone below will be fired without severance but with an active case they will offer you something to avoid a lawsuit

I heard yesterday from a colleague that every January your reliability automatically resets to 100 percent. Is that true?

A granfalloon is a "proud and meaningless association of human beings," a term coined by Kurt Vonnegut in his novel Cat's Cradle. It refers to a group of people who believe they share a significant connection, but this association is based on little to no real substance or shared purpose, such as being from the same town or having a common hobby

architects are the most talented people in fidelity..offlate we are being targeted for no reason.. please respect us

Anyone know if officers were able to review and adjust who is impacted? I would assume that’s the lowest level that could have provided guidance. It’s hard to imagine cuts being done without some level of direct knowledge.

How long before offshoring and forced ratings finally break what’s left of morale? Every round of “efficiency” moves chips away at tr ust, replacing experience with cheaper labor and arbitrary rankings. At some point, it’s not just people leaving... it’s the company’s culture and expertise walking out the door too.

"What does the following article have to do with layoffs?" You might ask. It shows we have lots of room for improvement. Plenty of trash to take out...

If a visitor parked in a way that blocked all of your reserved parking spots instead of parking in one visitor parking spot, what would you do?

Would you let them park there and park in a visitor spot, or would you find a way to make them pay for breaking the rules?

In this story, one homeowner is furious when a fiber company parks their digger in a way that blocks all of their home’s private parking spots.

Keep reading to see how they handle the situation.

Sort the parking out? Ok, let me know if this works for you company with V in their name.
Back in the heyday of a fiber company with the letter V in their name, they were jamming fiber into the ground as fast as they could, they came to our townhouse village.

We got notice that they would be starting the next Monday and that they would be going along the inside edge of the sidewalks to set primary fibers and if we wanted it to come to the house to paste this orange sign on our front doors.

Ok, I was happy with the current provider, so no orange for me.

The digger guy didn’t care about making sense.

Parking is tight, with spaces for residents (marked) and some for visitors (marked).

I was surprised to come home on Friday to see a DitchWitch (cable digging / insertion machine) across the three spaces my family normally used.

I said to the workman that they were in my spaces, and they were across them.

Why not move to the visitor spot next spot over and rather than being across them, just put the machine in the spot like it was a car.

That way it would take one spot not three.

Digger guy goes “I already set it there, I have other work, you can sort out the parking” and drove off.

Ok fine.

They’re going to make it the digger guy’s problem.

So I park my car as close as I can get to the machine (using the visitors spot).

When next car arrives, we place it as close to the machine in the space on the other side.

Next car goes across the three spaces parallel to the machine. This blocks it in on three sides, can’t get out the 4th since there are the concrete bumpers.

Plus lack of wiggle room.

Others make alternate plans to get to work, I stay home to watch the action.

Digger guy shows up. Sees that he’s blocked in and is very sad. Stomps around the digger, around the cars, around the digger, another pass around the cars.

They go to the first town house. No answer. Second, third, fourth all at work. Gets to me.

The digger guy seemed to think they’d just move the cars if asked.

“Those your cars?”

“Yep, parked in my spot”

“You need to move them.”

“Nope, busy with other work” and I close the door.

Bang, bang, bang. “You can’t block me in, you can’t park there.”

“I can park there and look at them I already did. You said for me to sort my parking out on Friday and I did”.

“I’m going to call the police.”

“Go for it” and I closed the door.

This time, the site engineer thinks he can get the cars moved.

About an hour passed, knock at the door. “I’m the site engineer for a company with V in their name, are those cars yours?”

“Yep”

“You need to move them”.

“No, when your work drone dropped the machine off, I suggested rather than take up three spaces, they take up one. They said I should sort my own parking out. I did and I have other work to do.”

Closed the door. More knocking that I ignored.

By now there is a crowd of workpeople milling around.

We’re going even higher up the food chain.

Another hour passes, new knocking. “I’m the Senior project engineer for a company with V in their name, are those cars yours?”

“Yep”

“You need to move them”.

“No, when your work drone dropped the machine off, I suggested rather than take up three spaces, they take up one. They said I should sort my own parking out. I did and I have other work to do.”

“We’ll call the police”

“You do that” close the door.

00:01

03:36
Read More

Finally, the police arrive.

While finishing lunch, knock at the door. “This is the police”.

Open up, and ask how I can help. Get told by Office Obie to move my car or they would be towed.

I pointed to the “Private Property” sign and said “This is a private parking lot, you don’t have jurisdiction, in fact when we have complained about issues, your Chief has said you don’t have jurisdiction. So you can’t call the tow, you need to deal with the homeowners association.”

Some splutter by Officer Obie but acknowledged they don’t have jurisdiction to call a tow and left.

Now, the HOA gets involved.

Late afternoon knock at the door. “Hey Kilted, this is member of the HOA.”

I open up, we go out, I explain the situation (sorry no 8×10 color glossies with circles and paragraphs on the back) to them.

HOA yells at people from Company that has V in their name.

Company people looks sad.

They reach an agreeement.

HOA member asks how can we solve this?

I go, “Well illegal parking is a $100 fine, they are across three spaces, so that would be $300 fine, they pay that we can call it a day (winking at HOA member.)

“That works, I fine you $300 per day company with V in their name”

Senior engineer with a company with V in their name goes “Ok, we will pay it, move the cars. “

Not so fast.

I go “They look like they will pull a runner on you, I’d get payment first.”

“Good idea, you can pay me the fine since I’m the HOA.”

“I can’t get you a check today.”

“When you get the check, you can start. Otherwise, there is a bank down the street, cash will work.”

Senior engineer slinks away.

Now they understand what the visitor spot is for.

HOA member and I chat outside while worker drones mill around. Senior engineer returns, hands cash to the HOA member and goes “OK, now move your cars”.

I comply putting cars in other slots. When I come back from moving the last car, I see the digger parked in the visitor spot, correctly like a car. “What’s with that HOA member?”

“Well they decided that they had wasted the entire day and would start again tomorrow.”

They came and did the wires the next three days, each day the digger was returned to it’s spot. Oddly, I never saw the guy that wanted me to “sort my own parking out” again.

I wonder if the digger guy got fired. Regardless, this is a rare story where the HOA is the good guy.

Perhaps, I'm emotionally immature or just not used to toxic work culture.

Fido manager seem to dump last min work items on you and react in a way they own you.

And worse part, they let someone who fricking can't even understand anything remotely technical to present your hard work.

In what way is this healthy??? They make you do all the dirty work while someone less deserving steals all the credit with no appreciation for your slogging.

The Montclair Public Schools issued 153 of its employees notices of termination, reduction in force, or reassignment as a result of the district’s $19.6 million deficit, Superintendent Ruth B. Turner said on Wednesday.

https://montclairlocal.news/2025/10/layoffs-hit-montclair-schools-amidst-budget-crisis/

Are there any consequences if you coffee badge or don’t hit your numbers? Are they giving exemptions due to bad weather?

Heard all 5's will be let go in the first week of December as opposed to usual January round. True?

How are they hiring in HUMCS Now when they just let people who accepted the ERP go? Also, we have some teammates who accepted ERP that won't be "ABLE to GO" until end of March, 2026! They're all super upset, understandably!

If you need a better job or are waiting to keep this one my advice as a manager is take advantage of all these perks they go on about giving to employees. Take all the d-mb linked in courses and have them on your profile, have the company help pay for certifications or college or CE courses and bulk up your resume and work your a-s off, by 2027 there’s going to be a major shift and US workers will be a skeleton crew unless the laws change: Employee relations are staring to hire overseas workers who can’t u destined English and HR is non existent. They will keep piling on more ludicrous procedures for QA across all departments and doc you over the most insignificant thing so when they do lay you off it’s because you’re performance was bad and you failed to maintain quality and productivity. Start looking for other jobs now. Re write your resume and good luck.

But that never happens, because they don’t give a damn about the employees or how any of this affects us.

I am new and joined 3 months ago. I am a fresh grad engineer and came to exxon for experience and to learn. Every other employee treats me like an outcast and does not interact with me. I have tried to talk to these people and they just ignore me or say they are too busy to be bothered. I am learning nothing from my time here at exxon. I was put on the United way committee and tasked with bugging employees to complete their contributions. I was told that there were groups or clicks at the site In am at. I reminds me of the caste system in india. I am like a untouchable dalit caste indian at this place. I was warned by an older employee that is ready to retire about the toxic culture and dysfunction. Everything he told me has happened to me. He also told me about this layoff site and I have learned a lot. If I had read these post before I joined I would not have come. I am hoping to last at least a year but want to leave right now. I feel that I will be nsied or piped because I am not doing any real engineering work. I have been nice to everyone I have met but no one has reciprocated the niceness. So now I just avoid all these je-ks and sit in my office and hide out. I find it easier to avoid them then interact a feel stupid by talking to them. There is definitely a huge toxicity problem and behavioral problem at exxon.

Ge-z reading all these posts it's clear there are a lot of s-xist pigs at the company. Many probably put on a nice exterior in the office as well but put a keyboard in front of them on this forum and you see what's really there.

There are a number of posts on this site - possibly all by the same person - that make it sound like management is out to sc--w over the workers.
Let me assure you, most managers hate this process. Sure, there are a small number of easy decisions and obvious low performers, but most of the decisions that need to be made are heartbreaking.
Worst of all, no manager wants less people, especially when they know they still have to do the same amount of work as before.
Quit with the comments about no compassion and bad leaders. This su-ks for everyone.

Say you had a dispute with him. He was clearly at fault and tried to hide it. Now he wants you gone and he made it happen. Right after being informed that you have to go, can you appeal the decision by let's say contact everybody you can above his rank and on his reporting hierarchy to explain the situation ? That would be during the notice period.

Tech center is no longer working colleagues. They are your competitors and enemies
The stronger they get the faster you go, all go. See the logic ?
They are CHEAP LABOR. You are expensive labor. Canada, Europe, US, Singapore tech center is taking your career and one day you get VP/President from BTC/KLTC, game over. You now must know how to play the game.

I have been reading every post and comment that appears so far, and just super curious to know how some of you are so headstrong in the belief that the remote workers are only working 2 hours but getting paid for 8.

If you’re not a supervisor or a manager, perhaps you’re paying too much attention to other people’s work, and need to focus on your own.

If you are in a leadership position and notice an issue with an employee slacking off. Maybe actually act like a leader. I know it sounds crazy, but actually reach out and offer the support you are required to.

With the ability to track keystrokes, mouse clicks, and calls/ tasks completed. No one is doing only 2 hours of work. If they are, however doing the bare minimum, that’s a team and leadership issue, as well as an overall company issue of not providing a reason why someone needs to work harder.

So in summary, don’t get upset someone isn’t willing to create unnecessary stress on themselves to hit 100% product and quality which will I turn burn themselves out. So they decide this is a job to clock in, clock out and meet the productivity quota at the lowest end.
If the company didn’t want employees doing that they wouldn’t set that threshold to begin with.

If you’re upset because you think you’re working harder than most. I promise you, if you’re focusing on others work and pay and have the time to come on here to be mean. You’re not a hard worker. Not even close.

They arrive at 8am and leave around 2:30 for daycare pickup but never see them back online or available for any meetings later in day. How do people get away with this!? My workload would not allow that.

Some people keep trying to make it an age thing but it’s not. We’re all in the same boat. The divide is between us and the execs who make the calls. They’re playing with our livelihoods while all of us are just trying to get through the week and still have a job at the end of it.

I’ve never actually respected anyone I worked with. If you want a decade of stagnation and headaches, sure, stay. Otherwise just run now while you can.