A black hole for talent and a graveyard for professional ambition - Senior Transportation Planner Los Angeles Metro Employee Review

Paid time off Good Benefits Good work environment

Bidding positions and seniority with In the company oppose to specific departments

Steady and consistent pay, pay tends to go up every few months or year by a dollar depending on the local rates without negotiating. It’s just automatic depending on external factors from the city.

Terrible leaders. No room to innovate. So many people aren’t qualified, they hire too much “diversity” without real skills. Lots of power trips and unresponsive people. Everything is archaic. You meet some amazing people from different departments that really boost moral and connections but even that was not enough for me. I wasn’t learning anything to grow my skills for landing better roles. It was a waste of time. I can make that pay anywhere else and gain much more experiences and skills to get much more momentum in career opportunities and better pay. My role at Metro was to just be a mule. Too much micromanagement from leaders that have never worked outside of metro. They just advance in their career from building connections and not because of hard skills. You will be dumbfounded to see the people in power. The building is incredibly outdated and dull. Completely uninspiring. The other divisions are modern but the main building at Union station is so dry once you get into the offices. It’s gross. The desks and carpet are disgusting. Managers, DEOs and supervisors are usually hired because they are favorites and not because they are good at the job and tasks. They should hire younger talent with much more skills and capacity to innovate. Those in charge have archaic ways of doing things that slow down progress, have inconsistencies, and are redundant and you waste time with the tasks. I had times when they were against me wanting to use formulas on excel for calculations. They wanted me to count of fingers pretty much for hundreds of cells! What an absolute JOKE! They lack training and they do not support employees. They just bark meaningless orders that contributes no values using archaic resources. So controlling. I am better off being self employed and an independent contractor in the private sector to take control of the tools and software I want to use. At metro they use so much outdated and cheap tools. I just no longer want to be apart of that mess. No other department is worth it. People that stay are okay with being a puppet, people pleasing doormat, or they want to spread negative energy and be controlling as if you are the one to blame for their miserable person lives. I have morals, standards, ambition and self respect. The toxic workplace is not worth the steady paycheck at all. You can be self employed, work part time, invest, and other things and live a much better life. Metro is for people that are okay with losing their soul.