The New York office of Alcoa is best characterized as stale and unchanging, filled with protected mediocre talent who couldn't compete elsewhere. HR is too busy coddling incompetent staff at all levels who have no business working in business while at the same time hire young, enthusiastic agents of change who quickly learn of their mistake of accepting the offer letter.
The culture in the NY office simply provides little to no growth - technically or professionally. Facilities are poor for a headquarters office and are overseen by an inexperienced and incompetent team. Cronyism is deeply rooted here - half the admin assitants were either waitresses in bars or worse - but because of "friends" within HR or inside the CEO's office, they now enjoy protected status. Management sits back, excuses and accepts this culture as "this is the best we can get"...that all the best talent is vacuumed up by the nearby investment banks and law firms. Very few are interested in change...you can even see this at leadership conferences where the CEO challenges his top staff and HR to hire better, more engaged and competent people and he is met by dead, disengaged stares.
