Working at Amherst has been the worst experience I’ve had in my career.
The social culture borders on toxic/illegal. There would be frustrated complaints from people inside the organization when someone leaves for a family event (maternity leave, paternity leave, death of family members, etc.) And the following verbiage after that is either in agreement with the complaints or utter silence.
The work culture infringes on any type of work-life-balance you’re thinking of—you will get messages at night, on the weekends, on holidays of tasks that always need to be done ASAP. The culture of "urgency."
The level of reward you get from your work is almost zero to none. When you ship off a project, you can’t always say you’re proud of the work. The ‘we need this done ASAP’ allows no time to proactively plan or produce good work or even average work. This is for ALL projects.
Middle management should seriously go through training on how to manage people. A good percentage of middle management speaks to others in a very condescending way. The result is the work environment is very unprofessional and demeaning.
The pay is on the lower end.
While HR has been trying their best with new policies but the sad reality is that these thought process that defines the culture comes from the top down and cannot be changed.
If you desperately need a job, then I would say take the job here. It’s a place to be while finding a better opportunity out there. While you’re on your job search, stick to the mentality: less terrible, more pay.
