PTO is stingy — don't expect much time off.
Leadership is top-down and personality-driven. Decisions come from a small circle, and you're expected to fall in line, not push back. Good luck getting a new idea or honest feedback to land.
IT and engineering are chaotic and reactive. Whatever's loudest that day wins. Energy goes to fighting fires, not preventing them. There's a heavy "look busy" streak too — lots of performing work instead of doing it, and meetings held mostly to be seen holding meetings.
HR isn't in your day-to-day so much as always watching it. There's a constant sense of being monitored — an ambient, looming presence, like something could come down on you at any moment, even when nothing's wrong. It puts a low hum of tension over everything.
The pattern underneath it all: things are done a certain way because they've always been done that way. Course-correcting is hard even when something clearly isn't working. Initiatives that flop don't get rethought — they come back later with a new name.