#worklifebalance

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Stop fake laughing with and complimenting ghouls like Beth O'Callahan. You won't be spared

What the he-l is wrong with you kiss-a-s corporate boot-lickers?

Beth doesn't support families, women, disabled people, and those with extenuating circumstances with the RTO requirements that make FTO impossible. And to add insult to injury, the recent layoffs despite record stock prices and revenue...

Have some god-damn self respect for yourselves.


Losing strong employees

I have seen several capable coworkers leave over the past year and it rarely had anything to do with the work itself. Most of the frustration came from how people were spoken to or ignored by management. After a while employees stop feeling valued and start looking elsewhere. It is becoming a pattern that more people are noticing. Exxon is losing good workers it should be trying to keep.


Work is becoming exhausting for the wrong reasons

I have worked here for over two decades and this is one of the more frustrating periods I have seen. The actual workload is manageable, but the constant politics between departments and leadership make the day feel heavier than it needs to be. We're spending more time avoiding conflict than solving problems. Most of the conversations are tense and few are comfortable speaking openly anymore. A few coworkers who used to be very engaged now barely participate unless they have to. It's exhausting, and for all the wrong reasons.


The only way to succeed in my group is to have no life

They expect you to eat, sleep, and breathe work. If you're willing to give up your evenings, your weekends, and any semblance of a personal life, you'll probably do fine. If you want to see your family or have hobbies, good luck. Is this a Cisco-wide issue? I was thinking of applying internally, but I don't want to end up in a same environment.


JDI Day = Day Off?

Are people actually going to JDI day or do some people use it as a day off? I really don’t have that much interest in going, and I think my team is kinda doing whatever. Wondering if it’s abnormal to not partake or how people approach JDI day especially considering where the company is at. I’d rather have saved the money of JDI day and split the cost up as a bonus between everyone lol


The grass isn't always greener

I have been gone from Boeing for less than 5 years. Not long in the grand design, but long enough to compare.

The corporate world su-ks. The type of people who make it to management in all companies su-k.

All things being the same, I'd rather work for a company that su-ks with great benefits than a company that su-ks with less than stellar benefits.

I'm going to be ripped for this, but yes, I'd go back to Boeing. Its sh---y but the 10% match in the 401k will get me out earlier and the cost of insurance is the lowest I have ever found.

I'm not going to be happy at work anywhere, so I might as well have my pockets full.


This place will eat your personal life alive

There is no such thing as a team here. You work in isolation and only hear from management when you messed up. Climbing past a certain point is impossible and they offer zero support for learning anything new. Do not put yourself through this. Your home life will suffer, your relationships will feel the strain, and you will need a break just to recover. Work somewhere that actually cares.


The only question these days is when, not if

I've accepted that my time at AT&T is finite, and that the end will probably come sooner rather than later. I have to tell you, that realization's actually been freeing in a way. I don't feel the need to give any extra effort or sacrifice my evenings for a place that won't hesitate to cut me loose. Instead, now I use my working hours to look for other opportunities, to build skills that'll help me elsewhere, and to do exactly what's asked of me and nothing more. There's no point in pretending otherwise.


Polaris is a joke

Polaris efficiency is really just shifting of work to a different cost center. A few examples:

  1. I now spend time every pay period downloading my paystub and emailing it to myself. This used to be automated. With Lolaris I now take time to do it that I would otherwise be working.
  2. Time writing now takes multiple clicks and entering in archaic codes to get to the actual timesheet where in the former program it just opened up to the timesheet immediately.

Multiply these small time wasters by thousands of employees. Where is the productivity gain?


Human Is better than AI lay off is more employees not a solution

AI is making many mistakes, especially in testing and validation. In many organizations, employees are becoming overly dependent on AI and are gradually losing fundamental problem-solving skills. AI is a tool, not a complete solution. Without strong domain knowledge and fundamentals, AI-generated results can be inaccurate and sometimes create bigger issues than they solve.

Many companies are rushing to automate everything with AI, but blindly trusting AI outputs can lead to costly mistakes, rework, and quality problems. In addition, the increasing use of AI models results in higher token consumption, growing infrastructure costs, and expensive subscription fees.

The most effective approach is to use AI as an assistant while keeping experienced employees involved in critical thinking, verification, testing, and decision-making. Human expertise combined with AI is far more valuable than relying entirely on AI.


What a great work day today . . .

I had 35 hours in the office already this week before I woke up this morning. That meant only 5 hours were needed to get to my 40 hours. Got in at 7am, found my desk, connected to the wifi and chilled for 5.25 hours. Left the office by 12:30 and grabbed lunch and a beer before getting home. Forcing me to work 40 hours a week in the office really opened my eyes to what is really important. That I can thank Stank for.


watch Company Retreat (on Prime)

ELT, GPs and other senior leaders - Please watch Company Retreat on Prime before you do anything more. It's the sequel to Jury Duty and raises many themes we're all experiencing now. Watch how your families react. Notice which characters resonate with you, your (age appropriate) children, and spouses. Notice who the bad guys are and why.

Associates on this forum, please watch it too, if only to remember what a workplace family can be like, to mourn what we're losing, and laugh a bit too. Remember, most people are GOOD people and not solely in this life for money. Yes, it's a fictional story, but the themes are real as can be and at once topical and old as time.


Let’s hear those RTO testimonials! Has anyone else had to avoid human fe--s while walking to their building?

Yes, you read that right. Twice now I’ve had to watch where I walk because someone decided to de-----e in public. I never experienced that while remote. Before I forget did anyone see the pervert exec on the home page this week. Gosh it’s going to be so uncomfortable when he speaks to us at the June town hall. Hopefully he doesn’t ask us about our boxers or briefs 🥴 >> https://www.thestandard.com.hk/finance/article/167954/BlackRocks-Mark-Wiedman-sorry-for-off-color-comments-to-women-such-as-boxers-or-briefs << When I’m not playing frogger to avoid stepping in sh-t I’m either (1) hoping for my bus to arrive less late than usual (2) watching my back as a woman amongst the crazy people in town (3) witnessing open air dr-g use/dr-g exchanges and public urination (4) avoiding confrontation of any panhandler because I’ve seen the tension escalate to punches being thrown and if it comes down to it I would like to defend myself but I can’t carry a pepper spray deterrent with me and into the building (5) calling the babysitter to let her know I might be 80 minutes or 120 minutes before I get home (6) chatting with my son to see how soccer practice went since I can’t be there as often (7) hoping that my vehicle didn’t get damaged sitting at the park and ride lot (8) wondering if I’ll have enough time tomorrow to complete what I couldn’t get done in office the previous two days. Plus much more. Don’t ask me how many home cooked meals I’ve been able to make and eat with my family like we usually did before May 4. On the financial side of things I am struggling with this worrying dilemma. Do I cancel my IRA contributions to cover the cost of daycare and a frequent babysitter? Do I cancel my HSA contribution to pay for gas? What can I cancel to pay for my time? Seriously I am drained. This is the 2nd payday under the RTO policy and I am in the negative yet again. Thankfully my enormous 1.25% raise allowed me to buy a few tanks of gas this month. Not sure what I’m going to do next month. Probably have to bring the older child into work to avoid babysitter costs. My team is loosing talent soon. I’m sure my workload will increase. I’m sure I’ll be asked to get things done in the same amount of time. I’m definitely sure I won’t get any additional compensation for covering an empty seat. As of May 4, working here has become financially unjustifiable, incredibly stressful and a waste of time. It would be different if this was a job that physically needed my presence. But it isn’t. Same goes for the rest of my team. We have this futuristic ability to do our work remotely like we were doing for years but now all of a sudden we are needed in office to justify their real estate investment. Here is the best part my team is all remote with respect to each other. We are at least 250 miles from each other. The policy literally makes no sense. It’s causing me to lose cents too, well actually dollars — lots of dollars. So yea my testimony is sh-t is literally hitting the fu--ing fan. So if more sh-t hits the fan we can expect to have to avoid more human sh-t piles. If this is brilliantly boring well I am having trouble finding anything brilliant about it. Maybe I’ve been too generous by meeting or exceeding all expectations every year for over a decade. To Bill: make the brilliant decision to reverse the RTO policy completely before you wreck the careers and lives of more of your loyal employees and customers. The customers who no longer want to bank with us because of this terrible decision.

Don’t forget Bill gets a 30% comp increase and executive security. We get pennies on the dollar and a mandatory RTO five days.


Hanging out

It's so easy to stay on the payroll doing the very minimum work just to not get fired while taking as many paid days off for all the many reasons we can easily get away with. See, the difference between many of us and the bootlickers is that we just don't give a fck. We know we can't be fired and some day we'll be surplussed and when that happens, which it inevitably will, well celebrate and move on with our nice termination pay, which is much better than the bootlickers get. lol


Can we please keep LinkedIn professional?

I am so tired of scrolling past random selfies with captions pretending to be deep insights. What does your pose have to do with industry trends? Nothing. We need LinkedIn to stay useful for networking and opportunities, not become another social feed full of empty posts. This is getting ridiculous.


Results Matter. Badge Swipes Don’t.

Kevin O’Leary said recently he doesn’t care if someone works “from their basement” as long as they can execute and deliver results. That’s the part “leadership” still doesn’t seem to understand.

https://fortune.com/2026/03/10/shark-tank-kevin-oleary-ai-tech-gen-z-rto-office-cubicles-corporate-america/

We already proved remote work works. The job gets done. In a lot of cases productivity improved, turnover dropped, and companies saved money. Even Stanford research still shows hybrid schedules had zero negative effect on productivity while reducing turnover.

Instead, we are doubling down on badge swipes, presence reports, and forcing people back into traffic for work that still happens on laptops and Teams calls all day.

People aren’t frustrated because they “don’t want to work.”

They’re frustrated because leadership saw proof that flexibility worked… and ignored it anyway. They chose max pain and misery over common sense and happy employees.


People are quitting without anything lined up

And when that happens, it tells you all you need to know about this place. It means being unemployed and uncertain is somehow less stressful than staying here one more day. Think about how bad things have to get for that to make sense. That is where we are now.