-Management is disorganized & out of touch. There is absolutely no bottom-up feedback, everything rolls downhill. A research associate's immediate manager is as powerless to affect change or make suggestions as an RA is. You'll go to your manager with a problem, and they'll agree with you and shrug their shoulders and say "That's CoStar". There's a "Employee Research Suggestion Board" where you're encouraged to post ideas and suggestions. In the 5+ years I've worked here, I've never seen a single one of those suggestions acted upon or acknowledged. A few years back they formed an Employee Satisfaction Committee to try to address chronically low morale, then promptly ignored every single suggestion the committee came up with. There are very, very few people I work with who enjoy their job. There's kind of a quiet embarrassment among employees that have worked here a long time, like "Yeah, this is awful, but I haven't been able to find anything better."
-Blatant dishonesty about the bonus program. At the start of each quarter you are given metrics that will supposedly determine your bonus payout. You are pounded over the head with these metrics day after day after day. Multiple emails every day about where you stand and which numbers need to be better. Metrics are the only lens you are viewed through, you are nothing more then some numbers on a spreadsheet, no consideration is given to effort that can't be neatly quantified by a metric. However, the company repeatedly changes the metrics and qualifications for bonuses AFTER the quarter is over. I've had thousands of dollars of bonuses I earned basically stolen from me in this fashion. 6 weeks after the quarter is over you'll find out "Oh, they actually decided to use a different measurement to determine bonuses. All those goals you've been working hard to hit for the past three months? They don't matter now. You thought you were getting $2000? Sorry, here's $400, $200 after taxes." This dishonesty & disrespect is a perfect illustration of how the company views its researchers. You're not a person who deserves honesty, dignity, and respect. You're an entry on a spreadsheet that can easily be replaced if necessary.
-Everyone in the company lives in fear of the CEO & Upper Management. There is not a single person, from the corporate VPs down to the lowest level of managers, who is willing to say "This is a bad idea, this won't work." This is a serious problem, because upper management is completely out of touch with the realities of the job. The Research Associate position as the VP of Research imagines it has very little in common with the realities of the RA job. You're constantly given assignments and projects that anyone who has done this job for a week can see are nonsensical or poorly thought out. But you don't get promoted to management at CoStar by speaking out or pointing out problems. So upper management will come up with some initiative that only seems reasonable to people who don't actually have to do the job. Middle management, fearful of the CEO & VPs, immidiately starts to pretend this poorly thought out & designed project is the most important thing in the universe, drop everything you're doing and work on the new project. Your immediate manager commiserates with you, then says "Yeah this is dumb but we have to do it." And while you're trying to figure out how to apply some common sense and get your work done, upper management is already coming up with the next idiotic project. That's the CoStar circle of life.
-The only reward for hard work is more work. Did you really buckle down and finish your project a day early? Great, now you can do other people's work who have been slacking off because they know if they don't finish their assignments it will just get dumped on someone else.
-In summary, working at CoStar is a dreary, depressing, thankless experience. To work here for any length of time, you need a kind of zen frame of mind where you can let all the stupidity and dishonesty roll off your shoulders. I just put my head down, put in a honest day's work, and try to forget about the place as soon as I walk out the door.
