After touting all the accomplishments of the IT team in recent years, upper management proceeded this last year to basically dismantle that very same team and replace a lot of people with outsourced contractors. This used to be a good place to work in IT, with good collaboration between teams and opportunities to learn and apply new technologies. Now it's just about pushing ambitious projects through with impossible deadlines. All projects are managed "by crisis", people are overworked and product quality is suffering. Project managers often don't understand what they're managing. This company basically sells information technology services for the health care industry, and yet treats IT as an expense, not as a revenue generator. They're foolishly counting on the economic downturn to get the most out of their employees without having to worry about keeping them happy. "You need to work harder, because the alternative is to be unemployed" is a popular "pep talk" given by management.
