#leadership

They are not kind individuals. Simply observe the town hall meeting that SM conducted last week. She treated each of her reports as if they were children, or even more aptly, as though she were the almighty. Mocking every one as if she were all-powerful. Behind closed doors, she is as unpleasant as they come. She must have learned it from her direct superior. Drain the swamp!

I cannot believe Verizon is believing what this guy is saying. And I had enough of his outfit. He is trying to dress up like Steve Jobs but with dirty boots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97kXYnL2PWc

The East contracts are coming due August 1 and a lot of people can go on strike. The company will turn to us survivors to be scabs. Watch for your training invites coming in January! And if you're like me, you will say "no f in way" to leadership.

Leadership remind me of Mortimer and Winthrop in Trading Places

There are plans for laying off the remote employees w/o poss relocation to HQ in December. They think it will be too messy to offer remote workers option to move.

These may get pushed back to Jan/Feb.

The board has been coming into the office several days a week even during the pandemic. This is not about productivity, it’s about satisfying an unfounded perception from the board that also meets the cut numbers they want for profitability.

With the leadership team planning the budget next week, a significant portion will be over layoffs. They overhired and are moving faster than expected on the Consent Order.

At the same time, they are pushing ICs to move faster and faster leading to burnout, while planning to lay those same people off. The leadership was bemoaning that after the CO is over, there needs to be busy work until the layoff details could be finalized.

There is a major gap between Verizon’s international leadership and its US subscribers... For VZ to survive we should focus on America and completely stop offshoring to Europe and India. This got us nowhere and it's getting worse - we should focus on quality and stop this short term fixes that are causing chaos and rot.

I'm thankful that I survived another week at this place. I need these two days off coming up this week just to try to survive until I can get my EIP in March and leave. I set this as my main goal for myself and hope many of you will do the same. Get out of this soul ki-ling place. It seeps into every aspect of your life and the toxic environment corrupts everything it touches. Do not convince yourself this is the way things have to be, this is not living, it is just surviving until the next week. Waiting for the next calamity, next insane idea, next toxic leader or next reassignment inyo a horrible role. Sad place....this Snake Farm!

How do we feel about Jim Peichel as the new CTO? Seems like initial reaction is generally positive, but I don’t personally know anything about him.

SB, aka Bandy, closed the last Town Hall with a sort of “Trust me, bro” line.

Fitting, because that’s basically the financial strategy right now: trust us while we borrow new money to pay old debt and hope nobody asks why the interest bill keeps climbing.

Xerox isn’t running a literal Ponzi scheme, but the behavior rhymes: fresh debt replaces maturing debt, each round more expensive than the last, with no cash flow to reduce anything on its own.

Let's not forget some of SB's “stellar” performances in this Ponzi-like scheme:

• In September 2023, SB borrowed $500M to buy back from his lord and master Carl Icahn (a legendary activist investor who had fallen on hard times and was wrong not by decimal points but by several orders of magnitude in his calculations to buy HP) his stake in Xerox;

• In late 2024, SB borrowed another $220M to buy ITSavvy, the company then and nowadays run by a friend of the now-departed COO John B (still a board member though);

(Meanwhile, days later, SB indulged the whims of the also now-departed Chief Disruption Officer and wasted $10-20M on sponsoring the Aston Martin Aramco Formula 1 team, which wouldn't even win a Hot Wheels toy car race)

• And even though 2024 wasn't over yet, SB had time to plan how to borrow more money to acquire (well, rather than “acquire”, I would say “pay to be managed by”) Lexmark: close to $1B of extra liabilities for a company that lost about $740M last year.

SB & Friends claim they’ll pull out $200–300M in “synergies” by cutting overlapping functions, closing facilities, and shrinking corporate overhead.

Without those savings, the debt load gets heavier, interest expense keeps rising, and refinancing becomes harder. It’s that simple.

SB & Friends keep repeating the synergy story like it’s guaranteed.

It isn’t.

It requires flawless execution, discipline, and no surprises—things they know very little about.

Meanwhile, the core business is falling off a cliff. The only thing keeping this train moving is access to credit markets and the hope that lenders keep buying the story.

So yes: when the CEO says “Trust me, bro”, what he’s really saying is: “You are going to take a leap of faith and BELIEVE that the cuts will be implemented quickly, revenues will stop declining, and lenders will continue to be friendly”.

Except the lenders are not staying friendly anymore. S&P Global Ratings just cut Xerox’s credit rating to CCC+.

For those unfamiliar with S&P credit ratings: on a scale of 22, with 1 being “Prime” and 22 being “Lousy” (default, no money to pay bills anymore), CCC+ is 18.

S&P are also warning Xerox will burn $170–200M in cash this year and carry a debt load more than 7.5 times our earnings.

Put it in the simplest terms possible: the rating agency thinks we’re borrowing money just to stay alive, and that if anything goes wrong — if synergies slip, if revenue drops, if refinancing gets delayed — the whole structure can fall apart faster than any PowerPoint slide can explain.

At this point, the person who says "Trust me, bro" is in fact the last person you should trust.

So every year we employees have to do “training” about the PepsiCo code of conduct. This is the first year in my many years as a Faithful employee where I have felt it is a performative joke. My senior leadership is very much violating said code of conduct by creating a toxic and antagonistic work environment. And it is apparently CEO sanctioned. PepsiCo is no longer the supposed ethical company it claims to be. Anyone telling you otherwise is lying.

The worker bees, who had zero to do with the terrible decisions, get cut. Meanwhile the ivory tower people keep laughing all the way to the bank. If the masses ever figure out that the ol' left/right, union/non union "divide and conquer" routine has been played on them for 40+ years, then we might make some progress.

It’d be great to see the real numbers. Anyone who’s actually used AI knows it’s nowhere near reliable enough to replace human work outright. And yet we keep hearing that “AI-driven layoffs” are the future, when most reports say many of those jobs aren’t being replaced at all, or they’re being sent offshore. It feels like nothing more than old-school cost cutting dressed up as innovation. At the end of the day, it’s plain greed and leadership completely out of touch with the people who actually keep the place running.

Just check the OUTLOOK, you will see many of your Leadership names will be missing and this will be seen thru until 3rd week of December

besides the free $20m and salary for a year?

it has been more than one year since EH got CEO job.

I know Nike production is made and delivered in 6 to 9 months to consumers through Futures program to their store.

Now he has no excuse to use JD's incompetence as excuse for having top of the line classic Nike product in Nike store's HASH WALLS by tons with deep discount.
EH was one who OKd Air Jordans to be relegated to Hash Wall in Nike store!!!
And he launched Skims line after looong delays
And I have seen CNBC interview which he seemed to come out with typical corporate BS during entire interview!!

One might say that one year is too short to judge a CEO performance but when you don't see anything positive then it is better to do it early rather than later

He has not come out with any new significant new trent or styles and at the same time he has relegated Nike classics to trash status.

Is there any winner in Beaverton?

Hans cried during a webcast on the George Floyd protest....that was the most cringe moment at VZ I ever witnessed

Leaders at that company were clueless and ran it into the ground before Windstream bought them in a fire sale. The end started when we kept those clueless leaders and put them in key roles. EO being the ring leader of the id10ts. Rumor is she was supposed to get walking papers after the Uniti deal closed. I'm guessing she produced pictures of someone at a goat rodeo and was saved at the last minute. Prove me wrong.

Serious answers only please

Reverse integration as acquired leadership took over the mothership. But how is this going?

“Verizon doesn’t have a problem with its products or services; it has a people problem” - a former employee who tags Dan

Home girl the service is inadequate, and many of us have had to say it was great while trying to improve it.

Let's be real

1. Stores are drastically understaffed
2. Corporate human resources is disconnected from store associates
3. Favoritism is commonplace among associates and managers
4. Customer service is not a strong priority
5. sales numbers (good or bad) are not open discussed
6. High turnover among c suite leadership
7. belk is fending off many lawsuits from both employees and customers
8. Budgets and payroll dramatically cut
9. The company has a reputation for WOKE politics starting at c suite level
10. CEO remains an enigma to associates and managers

Chevron has delivered the worst stock performance of the year among all major oil companies. It’s obvious that Wall Street simply isn’t buying the story. No matter how desperate the ELT appears when communicating their strategy, they clearly no longer understand what it actually takes to win. They think they’re delivering what Wall Street wants, and maybe they can convince themselves of that — but they can’t convince anyone else. They can’t even convince their own employees. And the result is exactly what we’re seeing today: the worst-performing stock of the year.

Employee raises safety risk after third occurrence. Met with gaslighting and firing. Clear from the video that it happened:

https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/his-g-n-just-went-off-guard-says-sig-p320-fired-unexpectedly-at-usaa-guard-gate

Typical USAA! distrust employees and don't fix. RTO doesn't fix leadership attitude.

Who's next? Or are they done at that level and now will focus on the next levels?

How deep will Bain's cuts be?

If the AI hype has already peaked, does that mean Dell backed the wrong horse?

Does this mean MD might finally show JC the door for failing?

And what does all of this mean for the rest of Dell?”

So on a local level in field can only go by what we see and know.What we saw was low level low pay first line bosses getting riffed .While not very useful they might actually have some use!Yet we saw no upper management like 2nd or 3rd liners who actually do nothing but make misery along with Tons of money!!So what we see is this is all a joke .Dan just needed a bit more cash flow from the bottom of the pile.This just means our next contract is gonna be really fun with Dan since he really loves to Rob the lower paid working groups .While moving in all his over paid paypal buddies!!!

Wild these positions we’re left untouched - some poor decisions have been made by this one impactful ones, but yet she still hold the job kind of wild that my director didn’t even have a call with us to say he was leaving Only to have no transparency of really what’s going on with this company but this one’s still kept their job

Utter waste of time and money. Intel needs a real credible CTO who actually understands the technology that is vital for Intel's future.

Been a loyal NTAP employee for over a decade. I was told to burn my PTO in exchange for all the time off that i wanted. Then you lay me off and keep the $20k that I would have had coming to me if you had not told me to use it ASAP. So glad to not be working for this company anymore, how awful you are to the people that once made you great. What a terrible leadership team that is now in charge of a once great company. Keep sc--wing your employees and see how that works out for you in the very near future........

They are trying to run off all tenured employees. Don't want people to stay. 70% of employees in most areas have been with SF 2 years or less, per plan. We are the Dollar General, Waffle House, $8 Wine Box, Carnival Cruise, Disney Movie Remake, Quiky Mart or excuse sir can you spare some change of the insurance industry. Bottom of the barrel! Look around, look at the people we hire, feels like you are standing in line down at the DMV ..... The people running this place are total trash, and I pray they will rot in #$%@ when they die! F-ck off SF!

i did not get change to attend many meetings.

This is not the first time Target has failed. Had they learned their lesson after failing to launch in Canada they would not be in this mess. They believe they can tell consumers what that need and want and that’s just not how it works. Value is such a subjective thing and Walmart and Costco have successfully tapped into this. I remember when I started 4 years ago and barely shopped at Target as a consumer because I was on a tight budget. Once I got my employee discount I figured it was worth it. I stuck to groceries and avoided the stuff I didn’t need. I told my senior director that Target may be off putting to people on a budget and maybe that should do a fun marketing campaign making fun of overspending and that you could grocery shopping on a budget. His response: we have teams that look into marketing and for me to essentially stay in my lane. This is why Target is failing. Leaders think they know better. I left a year ago and just shake my head at such an avoidable situation.

Adding another Shankar thread ..

Why is he still around? Have we not learned any lesson ?

I made it through this awful week, and I am so sorry for those who were impacted. They did not deserve this. The process seemed utterly random. I would gladly switch positions with any of those laid off since I was planning to retire in the next year on my own. I cannot be the only one in this situation, but there was no way to self nominate. I call out the pathetically poor execution of this layoff process. Shame on any of you in leadership who let this happen. May you never enjoy another sound night of sleep!

Chubak is planning unannounced layoffs before Christmas. This is a psychological ploy he used at Citi in order to "keep the survivors in line". Apparently, he is paranoid the people left behind will form some type of revolt against senior leadership. He is a fairly paranoid guy in meetings.

If all these people are still there then why Dan just created this drama ?

Culture won’t change if these heavyweight people are going to sit on the top.

BNY Mellon recently declared that “culture isn’t built in conference rooms—it’s built in moments like this,” referring to a stationary bike marathon.

One bike, eight hours, and a simple question: How far can we go when everyone contributes their energy to a shared goal?

Apparently, the answer is: not very far, especially if the goal is building a healthy organizational culture.

THE THEATER OF PEDAL-POWERED CULTURE

Let’s pause to admire the sheer audacity of this metaphor.

Culture, we are told, is not about trust, transparency, or leadership—it’s about sweating together in a room while hashtags flutter overhead like corporate confetti. (#BNYLife, #BNYBetterthanSlicedBread, #FreeCoffee, #EmpathyLivesHere, #WellnessinLayoffs…)

Employees were encouraged to cheer, laugh, and pedal as if their collective energy could erase the memory of strategic missteps, toxic work environments, and the erosion of morale.

It was less “culture in motion” and more “culture in denial.”
The strongest cultures, we’re assured, are defined by shared experiences. True—but those experiences usually involve competent leadership, clear communication, and respect. Not a spin class disguised as a corporate epiphany.

FAILED LEADERSHIP: THE REAL RESISTANCE SETTING

BNY’s leadership seems convinced that culture is a cardio exercise. Yet the risks of failed leadership are far more serious than a skipped workout:

• EROSION OF TRUST & MORALE: Employees don’t lose faith because they missed a turn on the bike. They lose faith when leaders fail to demonstrate character, competence, and connection.
• POOR STRATEGIC EXECUTION: Pedaling in circles is a perfect metaphor for what happens when vision and goals are disjointed. The bike goes nowhere, much like projects derailed by ineffective communication.
• TOXIC WORK ENVIRONMENT: Micromanagement and favoritism can’t be fixed with cheering. Burnout isn’t solved by hashtags.
• DECLINE IN PRODUCTIVITY & INNOVATION: Employees aren’t reluctant to share ideas because they lack cardio endurance. They’re reluctant because poor leadership discourages collaboration and risk-taking.
• RESISTANCE TO CHANGE: Leaders who cling to outdated processes create stagnation. A stationary bike is, after all, the ultimate symbol of motion without progress.
• FINANCIAL & REPUTATIONAL DAMAGE: No amount of sweaty selfies can offset declining market and client confidence or reputational hits.

Culture isn’t built on hashtags—it collapses under them.

WHAT A HEALTHY CULTURE ACTUALLY REQUIRES

A healthy culture is not defined by how many miles a stationary bike records. It is defined by:

• TRUST & TRANSPARENCY: Leaders who communicate openly, even when the news is hard.
• STRATEGIC CLARITY: Goals that align with reality, not spin cycles.
• RECOGNITION & FAIRNESS: Environments where employees are valued for real contributions beyond their ability to pedal.
• ADAPTABILITY & GROWTH: Investment in skills, technology, careers and people—not just in stationary bikes.

Culture is built when employees feel safe, supported, and respected—not when they are asked to cheer through layoffs disguised as “shared energy.”

CLOSING SPIN

BNY’s leadership insists that “the strongest cultures are defined by what people experience together.” True enough. But what employees are experiencing together is distrust, burnout, and the gnawing suspicion that hashtags are being used as wallpaper over cracks in the foundation.

Culture is not built on hashtags or stationary bikes. It is built on character, competence, and connection. These traits are somehow not found in our current senior leadership.

Until BNY trades its spin bikes for self-awareness, accountability, and genuine investment in people, the only thing truly “in motion” will be the revolving door of talent being intentionally shoved out the door or willingly heading for healthier organizations.