I left GDLS in Sterling Heights, Mi willingly three years ago. I worked there 5 years right out of college as a project manager. I left because I absolutely hated it. I couldn't stand to think of going to work in the morning and had to drag myself there in misery step-by-step. It is the most toxic, mind-numbing and in-bred work environment or organization I have ever been a part of.
I wouldn't have been this harsh three years ago after having left the company, but my experiences at real, modern and people centered organizations have made me realize just how bad it was. I was reading some of the reviews on here and started to feel like I felt when I worked there and it was immediately depressing as hell. I wish I was exaggerating.
You will be made to feel like a small, worthless cog that's sole purpose is to slog through life with your eyes to the ground waiting for orders from the enlightened managers on-high who have all the good ideas and see you for the worthless plebe you are. The executives refer to people as if they are products ("We are selling the USG 10 people, I don't think that price is too high at all."). The managers are too busy seeing who is king of the mountain and protecting their worthless empires to change anything for the better. Those that have been there for a while either check out and do nothing, or carry all the water for the rest of the burnouts. The young and talented are like Unicorns: they make the place better until they either run away or assimilate into just another donkey.
Unless you are one of the chosen ones, you will be ignored at meetings, your ideas will be shot down out of hand and managers will ignore you and act like you don't exist. Racism was rampant. Nepotism and sex would get you promotions. They played Fox News in the hallways.
You see, all they are doing is playing a game. The game is to talk the USG into giving them as much money as they possibly can for more and more tanks that they don't need and then milk the contracts of every last penny, even if it means forcing your employees to work over their winter vacations doing nothing but padding their time sheets.
For those of you that don't think its that bad, think again. Look through the rest of the reviews on this and other sites and you will see a very clear pattern of the same complaints.
Oh, and by the way, if you work there and think I'm exaggerating how bad it is, I would have thought the same thing until I experienced what its like to work with people who see me as more than a cog in the machine that pumps money into their crooked pockets. Its very likely that your affection for the company, if you have any, is actually either ignorance or Stockholm syndrome. GET OUT NOW!!! RUN!!!
