Block reviews

After 2023, Square became...chaotic. Leadership (Jack Dorsey and his direct reports) made rash decisions without much consideration or explanation. They prided themselves on working "in the open" but in reality their shower thoughts became major company changes, which was distracting and immature. "Work about the work" (i.e., anything related to process, alignment, or collaboration) was villainized in favor of moving fast and breaking things. As a result, though we just made dumb decisions faster and ignored anything that felt messy. Spoiler: the messy things ALWAYS came back to bite us in a way worse way than if we just addressed it. Leadership also picked favorites and weren't shy about perpetuating that. The Golden Children could do no wrong and everyone else was stuck in a pattern of proving their ideas to deaf ears.

Everything I once loved has fallen apart. I had 8 managers in 6 years, and only promoted once because of it. Leadership turnover creates constant changes in priorities, and increasingly, leadership has turned risk-averse and resorted to micromanagement. Constant layoffs leave everyone feeling tense and fearful. Environment is less about collaboration and more about competition, making sure you're not stack ranked at the bottom. Was told by my leadership there were not promotions available on our team as we're already all "too advanced" in our levels. Leadership many levels removed makes all the decisions and those of us who execute on those decisions get told what to do and when we say it's impossible or we have a good reason for not doing it that way we're told they don't care and do it anyway. You have to deliver projects you aren't proud of or you know aren't the right direction.