Pros
I mean we got free bagels once a week which is cool, I guess? Other than that, none.
Cons
I worked at CDK for a little over three years. It was never an amazing place to work, but it was alright in the beginning. It all went downhill from there. I’m 100% not surprised it was recently ranked as one of the worst companies to work for. First of all, the people. In my department at least, I felt like I was going to high school every day. So much gossiping, rumor spreading, and talking negatively about other people behind their backs. It was hard to connect with people because I didn’t know who to trust and I didn’t want to be involved in that. The workplace felt toxic. CDK does (or did) have a few great people, but oddly it seems that they all end up getting laid off eventually. I used to have an awesome manager at CDK, but his manager ended up taking over for my team, and I have never worked for someone so condescending and passive aggressive. I would be in phone meetings with her at home, with my phone on speakerphone, and my roommate was in disbelief at how she was speaking towards me and our team. I honestly don’t know how she is still employed there. Oh wait, it’s CDK, and they’re ranked one of the worst companies. Makes sense, actually. We were also forced to work 14 hour work days (at work until midnight) and were expected to be in a “war room” all day. No time set for breaks. That’s illegal, but again, terrible company and manager so I’m not surprised. Next, the work itself. Don’t even get me started on this. Let’s go with a metaphor. CDK is basically a junkyard car built with a bunch of random parts that shouldn’t go together and there’s no way it should work, but somehow it manages to just squeak by. However, it literally breaks down every day and if one part breaks, you quickly and lazily replace it with a similar part that *might* fix the car, but it won’t be as efficient as actually putting in the time, effort, and research to properly fix it so that it runs smoothly and effortlessly. Oh, and let’s say this car is being entered into a race. You tell EVERYONE (and I mean everyone) that your car is going to be the best and win the race. You also tell them that they should place their bets on it before you even see if it actually drives. You ignore everyone who suggests this might not be the best idea and you also ignore any suggestions for improvement. And then for some reason, you wonder why your car broke down in the middle of the race. Crazy, right? That’s CDK’s normal. CDK is very reactive, instead of proactive. They prefer to wait until something goes wrong before they fix something. I can’t even count how many times I asked for necessary and important improvements to be made to tools/processes and was completely ignored. Then when something went wrong that the improvement I asked for would have prevented, it becomes a huge issue and people finally start listening. Speaking of listening to their employees. I also did not get a chance to fill out an exit survey. I put in my two weeks and four days later was told they were going to let me go early. I emailed HR and asked if there was any way I could have my exit survey sent to my personal email address (they were planning on sending it to my CDK email). They told me they don’t send them to personal emails and essentially because I wouldn’t have access to my CDK email to fill it out when it came through, I was out of luck. Part of me thinks I was let go early BECAUSE management didn’t want me to fill out the exit survey. My last complaint - CDK doesn’t give a lot of their employees the position title they should have, and I think that’s because they don’t want to pay them as much as a position with that title normally would have. A lot of their employees should be making a lot more money than they do.
