Why People Don't Like Working at Express Scripts - Senior IT Engineer Express Scripts Employee Review

I spent nearly a decade working for Express Scripts, which made it a very difficult decision when I recently left the company. For most of those years, things weren't bad (although there were certainly were frustrations). However, the culture has become very, very sour after the Medco merger 2 years ago, and good people have been leaving in droves ever since. The internal politics at the company have gotten so thick that it is nearly impossible to get anything done. On one hand, you have the legacy ESI folks, many of whom have grown up with the company. On the other hand, you have the legacy Medco folks who remain resentful that their company got bought, and who seem to have an unhealthy distrust for anything coming out of St. Louis. The two companies continue to operate under the ESI umbrella, and they both have some representation in leadership. The sad part is, that the two sides don't cooperate at all, and tend to sabotage each other at every opportunity. Cooperation is rare, and senior leadership doesn't force either side to compromise or take direction. If you come up with a better way of doing things at ESI, it will be fully your responsibility to convince *everyone* in the east and the west that the change needs to happen. Unfortunately, this is an impossible task due to the amount of red tape involved, and the ongoing divide between the legacy companies. From an IT perspective, this means that their technology stack is completely antiquated, and there is little hope of moving the company forward. This also leads to a situation where nearly everyone believes that the company doesn't value them at all, and it has become incredibly difficult to do a good job and make things better, even if you want to. This unfortunately leads to a situation where very few people work hard at all, and almost nothing ever gets done. All of this frustration has led to an environment where a sense of discontent permeates through the hallways. Behind closed doors, most employees have very little respect for the company or for senior leadership, and things seem to only be getting worse. When surrounded by such negativity day after day, it really starts to affect your mood and outlook, even when you aren't working. To make matters worse, many talented people have already left the company, and because of a sour reputation around town, replacing them with talented individuals has become nearly impossible. From a culture perspective, there is virtually none at ESI. Very few people get together outside of the office, and the only company get-togethers are formulaic employee-only lunches (one in the winter, one in the summer), where drinking is prohibited and families aren't invited. The St. Louis offices are in a terrible part of town, and most people look forward to leaving the area as quickly as possible after the work day.