this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024
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'Betrayed' SAP workers rebel against forced office return (www.euronews.com)
submitted 9 months ago by L4s to c/technology
16 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

'Betrayed' SAP workers rebel against forced office return::The German software giant has changed direction, and more than 5,000 employees have signed an internal petition saying they feel 'betrayed'.

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[–] [email protected] 84 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

SAP, the most forcedly convoluted and horrid amalgamation of acquired software, held together by a support team that barely know how it works, is forcing their workers to go back to the office, where they will communicate with everyone remotely.

Color me shocked.

I used to be able to email their support staff and say "I need access to XYZ" and they would respond "Who's access would you like to copy?" And I could have told them any name I would like and they would just give it to me.

At one time my boss gave me approval to do all the ordering for our department and gave me access to financial transactions. 6 months later, and a half million dollars spent, they realized I was never given the training that the access required. Guess who had 20 one hour trainings to complete in 2 weeks? Management blamed me.

[–] Crack0n7uesday 25 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

SAP training is so fucking boring too. Oh my fucking God I feel so bad for you, I'd rather listen to baby shark on repeat for eight hours a day.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Training modules pretend SAP makes sense, and treat you as if you are a robot. I blazed through them too quickly and they didnt like that. They asked me why, and i told them I had already been using the software access for 6 months because of a mistake they made, and the training was pointless. If i agreed in writing that i was competent and trained, then there is no difference.

Honestly I was positioning myself to be the irreplaceable SAP expert at my company because the software is so garbage that not many people knew or wanted to learn how to use it, and I wanted a foot in the door in the supply chain department.

Turns out when you tell your corporate bosses that their ideas don't work, don't work an added 20 hrs a week to compensate for their bad ideas and poor communication, and complain of harassment and treatment bias, they will just fire you. Without severance.

Those trainings were included as reasons for my firing. The ultimate reason for my firing? "Timeliness" because I used 2.5 days of my sick time over the course of 6 months.

They didn't show up for my unemployment hearing. The hearing officer was so confused by my situation he told me to stop answering as if it was a hearing, and just tell him why I think they fired me.

8 months later, I'm doing just fine. Raising my kids, running a business with my wife, and not worrying about being harassed by psychopathic ladder climbers while using the world's worst software.

Sorry for the book I just wrote. I'm known to rant and ramble like a senior citizen sometimes.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

What's nice is that the government of Canada fucked up by switching to a new pay system based on PeopleSoft back in 2016 and the replacement that will be coming in a couple of years is made by... SAP!

[–] PizzaFacia 68 points 9 months ago (1 children)

A tech layoff undercover.

[–] ClopClopMcFuckwad 47 points 9 months ago (2 children)

A family member of mine is fairly high up in Amazon and does something important with AWS but I have no idea what, and that's exactly what he's saying about these forced return to work initiatives. They over hired during the pandemic and now they want to cut the fat.

[–] takeda 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Yeah, 2021 and half of 2022 they were hiring like crazy.

The layoffs are no surprise. They over hired and caused shortage in smaller companies.

I guess the return to the office might be a way to make people quit so they won't have to follow the WARN Act, but I'm not sure about it, as first people to switch jobs will be the most valuable ones.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

It's of my own opinion that they are absolutely avoiding the WARN act, while also trying to dump a ton of workers into the market to raise unemployment rates, lower the wage demand power of prospective employees, thereby decreasing job mobility.

Its quite telling when every CEO sounds off like a mocking bird about trivial shit like returning to office after making record profit for 3 years.

I badly want to write a rant but I've already met my quota for today.

Sorry I ranted a bit anyway.

[–] damnthefilibuster 4 points 9 months ago

Companies at that level don’t give a cap about ’valuable’ employees. They would just as easily get rid of the high paid employees.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

But I thought workers were their family, with ping pong tables and snacks everywhere?

[–] tinyVoltron 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's not family without a pizza party.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

That's right you don't need that performance bonus, just enjoy this pizza party instead!

[–] ooterness 44 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This site opens a popup asking to share info with 800+ marketing partners. Fuck no.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

Euronews has done what The Independent did in the UK - went from being a brilliant source of news, to being a bit of a shambles. I used to watch the Euronews channel pretty much daily until they pivoted to a magazine show style of output. The website is just as bad.

A shame really.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The German software giant has changed direction, and more than 5,000 employees have signed an internal petition saying they feel 'betrayed'.

When a CEO promises that the firm is "a 100% flexible and trust-based workplace as the norm, not the​ ​exception," it is difficult to change course.

Representatives of the employees in Europe called the requirement to be back in the office unreasonable because staff had been told they could continue remotely.

"We feel betrayed by a company that until recently encouraged us to work from home, only to ask for a radical change in direction," Bloomberg News reported, saying the internal letter says employees are threatening to look for new jobs rather than go back into offices.

SAP Chief Executive Officer Christian Klein said: "I'm not a big believer that on a video conference platform you can understand our culture, you can get educated, and you can get enabled to do your job best," Bloomberg reported.

The German multinational software company recently announced that it is restructuring 8,000 jobs to shift their focus to AI.

The original article contains 298 words, the summary contains 175 words. Saved 41%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] RememberTheApollo 1 points 9 months ago

Nice letter.

You coming in today or what?