Thread regarding Nike Inc. layoffs

Reality with leaving Nike

It sounds like a number of you are preparing to leave. I did so 5 years ago after 10 years. A few thoughts.

1 - it won’t always be sunshine and roses on other side. I worked for 3 sh---y companies before I found a good one
2 - pay and benefits at Nike are pretty good, especially if you go into small business like I did
3 - get ready for a surprise to the system when you actually need to start doing work instead of just presenting. It took some getting use to
4 - tied to 3, brush up on real world skills. Nike is weird most people don’t actually do very much you’ll probably find you have gaps in your skill set especially at smaller companies where you have more areas of influence
5 you’ll probably go through some stages of withdrawal. I went from hating Nike, to missing it, to now feeling sorry for most people there and seeing it through the marketing smoke and mirrors for what it really is. A large soulless company who’s only goal is to remain the perception of cool

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Post ID: @OP+1aQ2asNW

3 replies (most recent on top)

I hear what you’re saying OP but I don’t relate to your 3rd and 4th points at all. Being a large company Nike has a lot of different types of jobs. As you said some of those jobs involve presenting all the time and not doing much else. Then there are jobs like mine that involve almost no presentations but a lot of heads down high volume work. Real work.

I perform a specialized finance function that would make a lot of people weep if they had to do it for even 2 hours. I do it 50 hours every week and even then sometimes have trouble keeping up. Everyone on my team is similarly stretched.

It’s useful to remember that $40 billion dollar companies like Nike don’t survive solely on people giving slick presentations. Globally there are thousands of us who do real, difficult and complex work to keep the engines running and the lights on. I think plenty of people at Nike get blinded in their own functions & fiefdoms and in the process they forget that other areas of the company can be very different from what they personally know and experience.

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Post ID: @rmu+1aQ2asNW

The hardest part for me was having to unlearn all of the bullshi**ing that comes with working at Nike.

You are correct that if you move to a smaller company you will actually have to do work and be honest with people.

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Post ID: @hin+1aQ2asNW

Spot on. Was a culture shock when I got hired at Nike 7 years ago as I honestly surprised at how LESS of work i was expected to do and how relaxed it was compared to my previous smaller employer. Leave if you must, but be careful as Nike is a different world compared to what ACTUALLY exists out there.

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Post ID: @wfm+1aQ2asNW

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