I started reading posts from recently laid off people but I could not keep up as mostly it was full of hate, that Nike is all bad etc...! my story is as follows: I decided to quit Nike more than 5 years ago when I just hit my 11th year in the biggest company in its industry, I had a good job managing a division delivering approx 100 m USD, I was almost 40, I spent my best years in Nike being a specialist in what I do, but not really learning much and not developing myself. I decided that I had to leave before I am too old, too expensive and too specific for other companies to hire me... When I landed my next job after Nike, I figured that I had to suddenly work much more, although I was thinking I already worked hard at Nike, but that was not the case at all, I had to literally double the amount of output in my new job. I guess you figure out where I am going with this! I definitely do not hint that laid off people deserved what they got, but the contrary! However I realized that Nike is so nice that you can get by with your 50% thinking that you are hardest working person and you deserve to be next great thing in the company becoming manager, director, vp etc, many people end up burning out, depressed, not fairly treated even cheated. My humble recommendation in this case would be "consider embracing this as an opportunity to really become the best you can be, even though Nike is a great brand and good company, it never gave you the opportunity to become the best you could be" And next time make decisions about your career yourself, dont let someone else do it for you" especially that someone needs to protect his own back!
8 replies (most recent on top)
Coming from someone who has done 2 stints at Nike, I can say that it's definately a game, wasteful, hyped, etc, etc, etc. In this kind of setting, you can embrace it and take the risk, or push yourself to strive and grow, which is admittedly much much more difficult in an environment that may not acknowledge it. I would echo an earlier commenter saying that embrace it as an opportunity to grow now; it will ease the pain in the next job, after they let you go when you're 40.
Sounds eerily familiar. I left at the 11 year mark for exactly the same reasons and found much similarity with OP working for others. It’s easy to be deluded into thinking you’re doing big important stuff at swoosh but the machine is so big that you are forced to become a specialist and find yourself lacking in many areas versus those who cut their teeth in smaller businesses. I certainly learned much more outside.
I agree with the post that said working at Nike is a game. It is. You can be very hard worker, delivering scalable processes and improvements but don't have the knack to BS and you're out. Plain and simple.
I have friends who are still at Nike who are fantastic, hardworking people but can't seem to get anything done because the leadership doesn't know how to make a decision but they know how to properly BS and keep their worthless jobs.
inside The berm its a cult. Slap of reality when you realize the berm doesn’t love you back. It could care less. Nothing family about Nike. It’s as cold as it’s own product.
I think the message here is that 1-culture is toxic, 2-it makes you lazy, at the end you are measured according to Nike's standards, you get promoted too easy or not that is not the point! The point is that the company does not allow you to develop, you are isolated from the market etc...and it seems that they shake the tree once in a while, unfortunately what falls off may not be the ones that should!
Working at Nike is a game and we all know that. You don’t even have to work as long as your personal branding stays hot. There are senior directors and. VPs with little to no accountability. Senior executives are trotted out for TED talks and then do nothing for weeks on end, the product is ice cold. The culture is toxic.
ok. ok. sooo....you were coasting at nike is what you are saying and got easily promoted then you left...and you had to work harder?
I'm not sure your point exactly...there's plenty of lazy a$$es I know at Nike. In jobs that they don't deserve, b/c they are lazy or dumb.
What a fool.