Employee's potential pre-determined - Anonymous employee McMaster-Carr Employee Review

3.0
May 30, 2009
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The happiest people here are the ones waiting to retire. The best benefits of any company I've ever worked for but you pay for it in boredom.

Cons

An employee’s potential is already determined upon hiring. They seem to be very proud of the caste system they have created and work hard to sustain its existence. There is a very wide division between management and the drones. Competition among the “drones” is fierce and mostly fruitless, which leads to disgruntled feelings among anyone who tries to advance. If a drone attempts any advancement, it is mostly met with confusion. Ambitious underlings (however capable) have no place in their equation. Your voice/opinion will not be heard unless you are in management. It’s true that much is expected of management. There is a revolving door of recent Ivy League graduates trying to find a “project” that will catapult them into permanency. Their jobs are similar to the drones, but MD kids get paid about twice that of a drone.

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5.0
Jun 7, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
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Pros

Salary, benefits, coworkers, work/life balance

Cons

micromanagement at every level and job is boring at times

2.0
Mar 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good salary, guaranteed bonus, opportunities for overtime

Cons

Management changes constantly, managers are either fresh out of college or have never done your role or both, so I felt like I was managing myself. The metric standards are so high you have to essentially be perfect month after month. The standards are completely unrealistic, robotic, and leave little room for a bad day. There is PTO but you are only allowed to take it if there are “available hours” for that day - everything is about capacity and squeezing out as much work from as many people as possible. Taking time off affects your metrics for the month, which I did not know until after I took my first week-long vacation - they are always looking at your performance in terms of the past year, so I had to try to overwork and correct the bad month I had, when in my opinion your PTO should be completely YOUR time and have no adverse effect. Mentally and physically strenuous, whether you are on the warehouse side or office side - go to the bathroom too many times in a day and it will become an issue - they expect you to be glued to your desk/post. Like I said, no room to be human.

7
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