Oh boy. I will narrow it down to the major downfalls and mention only a few of the many, many other issues I had with working here.
1 Respect. I did not feel my personal “non work” time was respected. At all. It was quite common for my former teammates to work many, many hours over and above 40 hours per week. I did so as well, easily averaging more than 55 hours per week. I never felt I could make any plans after work because I literally did not know when I would be able to leave. It was absolutely horrible and caused me no small amount of stress.
2 Expectations. Shortly after I was hired it became clear that I needed to learn a lot more technology skills than were listed in the job description. I already had average skills in general and above average with some software, but rather than invest in training me, I was left to “figure it out” most of the time and felt ridiculed for asking for guidance or resources. To be clear, I was eager to learn and wanted to do my job. I was unable to do so because the instructions were a riddle written in a language I don’t know and then hidden all over the galaxy. Everyday I had to go on an epic journey just to decipher what the issue IS— let alone begin to address it!
3. Mystery Priorities. Tasks and projects would frequently be assigned to me without regard for my capacity or time to actually complete them. When I brought this up, which I had to do regularly, I was made to feel less than and was given very negative feedback. I cried almost every day at this job, and I wasn’t the only person sobbing in the ladies room. Here is an example of what I mean. I am
Working on a long-term project (many months long) and managing many day-to-day tasks. Near the end of the day, say after 4pm, several tasks that I have never done before would be assigned to me—not by a manager but by a coworker—with a due date of today. Now, I had already scheduled the rest of my day as being consumed by my normal tasks. I inquire as to the priority level. The answer makes me feel like I should never again utter an inquiry that could possibly Question The Importance Of The Task. So I cancel my plans after
work and knuckle down. Now, say something like this happens a lot. Well, maybe I should schedule time in the afternoon— what a novel idea! I do so, I come in earlier, I stop taking a lunch break or any break at all, and soon enough you have your normal day: arrive early, complete as many tasks as you possibly can without regard to quality because there are Just Too Many Tasks, slam down some free coffee, open up that long term project that you were just told isn’t quite on the right track but there’s nothing wrong with it but maybe if it was just different and work on making it different, be introduced to some new hire, have many tasks you know nothing about or next to nothing about assigned to you by random people on your team, research how to complete said tasks, answer questions from other teams about ongoing issues, answer questions from your own team about ongoing issues, have a meeting,
try to ignore the dogs barking in the hallway, book a meeting room so you can have an hour of quiet, have some person you’ve never spoken to before Ping you on Skype asking if they can use the room for an Important Meeting With A Client, surrender the room without hearing so much as a thanks, continue blowing through the tasks you think you may know how to do and hope for the best, reread the mystery tasks that somehow have to be done by today so says A Person, have a cry in the ladies room, have four more meetings—one of which you end up having to lead, return to your desk to find More Tasks Due Today, and all the while your phone never stops ringing.
4 Culture. The inhumanity of the culture I experienced at this job is illustrated by this anecdote: a male colleague spills a thermos full of coffee on the floor while in the audience of a presentation. The copious amount of coffee immediately floods the area, soaking peoples’s shoes & misc. rather than get up, apologize, and gather materials to sop up the mess, he ignores it completely as if it never happened. As if he didn’t just soak people’s feet and bags and notebooks in warm,
weak coffee. That is about how much consideration I felt from most people here.
5 Benefits. As far as actual benefits, there is the usual health and retirement options. I consider these a Con because, in addition to modest pay, the modest benefits leave much to be desired.
