Toxic
- Many people here cry at work, on breaks, or at home (as of 2020 pre-pandemic). It's normal. People are over-worked, stressed, pressured, threatened, feel cornered by their boss or team, etc. I heard it was normal-ish for engineers to sleep under their desks during Christmas breaks and there would be "fire drills" where, I kid you not, if certain teams didn't meet the expectations of releasing a product by a certain time, people would be getting laid off 2 weeks later.
- The expectation is that if you leave right at 5 you aren't working hard enough. There is a decent chance people take notice, your boss starts giving you light-hearted suggestions to put in the "same effort as others", then if you don't, you get put on probation/performance improvement plan.
- I had a super verbally abusive PM I worked with. She screamed at me once in the middle of the office and stormed off. Said another time that she doesn't like me, to my face, and was visibly confrontational (this was her normal reputation but why the company put the new guy with her is beyond me). When I complained to my boss and her's about it over time as things got worse, they acted like I was bothering them and didnt' step in to mitigate anything between us at all. I was eventually partially put on probation for this.
Set Up To Fail
- I was particularly put on a platform that I'm not as familiar with. I have done mainly mobile design - why put me on a web team and get mad when I don't move as fast designing as everyone else who has been designing for web for years?
- I tried to get meetings with my PM to discuss projects and deadlines. She was always busy with something so we never got to speak about what I'm supposed to be designing, the problem, metrics, etc. Then when I finally got a hold of her days before its due, she'd get angry that I waited for so long. Then get angry giving me basic details about this project I'm supposed to have designed most of already, then get mad when it comes in a little late. Then she would ask why I didn't try to get details earlier and when I said I did but she was busy or cancelled our meetings, she said I was blaming her and hard to work with.
Cliques
- If you're a white girl or asian person you're probably good to go. Are you anything else? You're gonna have to really put in hours to try and fit in. Otherwise you're left out of lunch, maybe left out of TEAM events, emails, etc. Some may say what if you just had a bad attitude and that's why they didn't hang with you? Nah - I'm super social, friendly, and smart enough to catch on quick to social norms. I just didn't have the time or ability to add more hours into my day just to figure out how to fit in - I was too busy trying to survive on a toxic team with a toxic PM and a hands-off boss while working until 7pm every night and not seeing my children.
- Gossip everywhere. When I was there you would just hear it constantly. And I guarantee someone is saying something about you - it's that kind of place.
