It's not that the management in the companies where I previously worked was especially dedicated to encouraging employees to give their best, but nowhere was this kind of fear management present as in Cisco.
I sometimes get the impression that some managers here actually enjoy such management style? It is especially noticeable now. They are literally using the situation where the job market is far from ideal and the employees are worried about losing their jobs.
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Agreed. Got laid off because I pointed out manager and director knows nothing and not doing their job, they kept all the yes man and their friends and family, plus I am not from the same southern asia country as them. It just get personal at this point.
I was there when stock options flowed like the Mississippi River and everyone was happy but the overall quality of the work was still objectively extremely poor. Before static analysis no one I talked to ever bothered to check for new compiler warnings in their code. They didn’t care and felt no reason to change.
That money I made paid for many goods and services from many industries and I can say with great authority few do good great work under either cushy or brutal circumstances. Most will never strive to be the best they can be, be it with capitalist beer or communist vodka. At the end of the day there is no worker’s paradise and for things to get done someone has to do them. That’s why it’s called work.
Say you’ve been miss-gendered and a SWAT team will be at your door to out the offender
Has hr/er ever done anything to help a victim of management??? Doubt it.
I reported my last boss for bullying, being aggressive, being ridiculous on our PIP's and being on an overall powertrip. She said some really sh---y things to people that were documented. I reported it to another leader who is a friend and she called the VP that we both rolled up to. Ethics called me and essentially said it would be recognized but a formal third party ethics committee would not be brought in. One week later all of her reports were moved out from underneath her and she got different reports that were also on our team (we rolled up to her peer manager who was amazing). Her boss who was a director set up 1:1's for all of us to talk through how we felt. Literally, we told him the worst of it and she still has a job. Heard her position as a Senior Manager title got stripped and eventually I think she got forced out of the org but she has a new job within Cisco as an individual contributor. The fact she has a job at all here is pathetic. The fact her boss and a director in our org actually allowed her to continue being a leader was shocking. I bounced out of that org. She wasn't a fan because I told her how I felt about her and I knew if she retaliated (which she did she dropped my performance review) I would contest to HR because my performance had been exceptional for years. My life was a living he-l and so toxic when I was under her.
I know how you feel and upset. But that's what Cisco is really like.
Cisco is such an unreasonable, unfair, atrocious company. And the company is always on managers'/directors' side, no matter what, regardless. They only trust and respect longer-tenured managers/directors. They don't even listen to you howsoever you explain.
PIP = Termination
Bosses (Managers and Directors) can easily PIP you just because they don't like you.
They come up with all those lies (even if you didn't do those things) and set an unattainable target to remove you, whatever it takes. There is no way for anyone who can reach that target. That's what they're aiming at. That's the purpose of PIP.
Also, I myself experienced being bullied and harassed by my boss and team members. An HR person told me to raise a case just like we open a case when we have any issue in our software or laptop. So I did. I waited for over a week to report to them in detail, but no one came back to me to look into it. And the case had been closed 10 days later. That's what Cisco's Ethics and ER Employee Relations work. They say there is an Ethics or ER team at Cisco, but it doesn't even exist. No one cares about you.
Almost all managers and directors at Cisco are unusually long-tenured (15 yrs, 20 yrs or more) ONLY at Cisco who don't even know how stupid, useless, behind the times they themselves are.
Outside Cisco, they have no value. Not even to be hired by any company because Cisco experience has no meaning at all. They gained nothing at Cisco, spending just years and years with no motivation.
Totally corrupted
also, I meant performance reviews not PIP's
I reported my last boss for bullying, being aggressive, being ridiculous on our PIP's and being on an overall powertrip. She said some really sh---y things to people that were documented. I reported it to another leader who is a friend and she called the VP that we both rolled up to. Ethics called me and essentially said it would be recognized but a formal third party ethics committee would not be brought in. One week later all of her reports were moved out from underneath her and she got different reports that were also on our team (we rolled up to her peer manager who was amazing). Her boss who was a director set up 1:1's for all of us to talk through how we felt. Literally, we told him the worst of it and she still has a job. Heard her position as a Senior Manager title got stripped and eventually I think she got forced out of the org but she has a new job within Cisco as an individual contributer. The fact she has a job at all here is pathetic. The fact her boss and a director in our org actually allowed her to continue being a leader was shocking. I bounced out of that org. She wasn't a fan because I told her how I felt about her and I knew if she retaliated (which she did she dropped my performance review) I would contest to HR because my performance had been exceptional for years. My life was a living he-l and so toxic when I was under her.
@addee Agree 100%. As an example just see the smug posts by "@Exec" defending laying off people and protecting the worthless Directors and management failures.
good luck with that, several directors have been reported to the ethics team for bullying and being abusive. Nothing happens, and they figure out who turned them in, if your manager is abusive, move on or youll get put on PIP and youre on borrowed time. Sad that once you get to that level, no accountability unless their VP gets tired of their face, cause its not about really doing anything to improve the employee experience.
Financial independance is indeed the way to go. Leave the big car/house behind you. Where possible save up. So there next to the job being annoying nothing they can hold on you. They fire you.. ok... next job gets aligned.
In essence it is nothing more then rebalancing (as we love to use that word) power dynamics. This is a job, not a family (unless a dysfunctional and dystopian one). The rest is a contract.
Has anyone reported this type of bullying by management to the ethics hotline before?
Don't take schitt from your boss. Tell him what he's preaching applies to him too, probably even more so if his only skill is old-school management.
The antidote to fear management is twofold: get your finances in order and live your life with an abundance mentality. If you are going through life on the perpetual verge of a heart attack because one missed paycheck will break you then you are reaping what you sow. These sociopaths in position of power will smell it on you and anoint you to be the target of their abuse.
When you have that devil may care attitude they can't touch you.
It's called 'Management by Intimidation' which is an old school method of management which goes back decades. It shouldn't be tolerated and is against Cisco's Code of Business Conduct. You can report them (anonymously) to the Ethics Committee.
Then get to work finding a better place to work. Vote with your feet. That's the only way corporate reform takes place.
Eventually stockholders lose value when psychopaths ruin the corporate health.
The job market is great. Don’t believe the propaganda.
Now you know how it is to work for the SE management in UK. The previous SED was amazing - an actual human being, empathetic , climbed the Kilimanjaro for charity after suffering a heart attack. He "retired" back in 2019 and a narcissist psychopath took over. Since then managed decline and management by fear. I though that was just the UK culture. Sounds like it's probably the company culture!