-I can't believe there are people on here trying to defend this company. EVERY negative thing I have read here is absolutely 100% true. There's no rhyme or reason to who gets promoted, they are incredibly inconsistent with it. Granite has a lot of supposed criteria in place that they use as an excuse to not promote people, but they are more than willing to bend these rules for people who are darlings of management. They play favorites like you would not believe. I once saw somebody get hired permanently in the provisioning department, and a month later, that person was given a position as a corporate recruiter on a platter because she was a young, attractive female who a couple managers liked, despite there being a rule in place that new hires could not transfer departments within a year of being hired. Prime example of management bending the rules. And the corporate trainers actually use this employee as an example of how easy it is to find a career path there.
-You cannot get a raise without being promoted, and the higher-ups routinely drag their heels on promoting deserving people. For a company that constantly boasts to the media about their increasing revenues and how much money they donate to charity, it's incredibly difficult to fathom why annual raises are not given out. You can be at the same pay rate for years on end. They rarely promote the best and most deserving candidates for supervisor positions. Instead, they usually opt to promote the people who they can control the easiest. Many hard workers are not rewarded, and then they have to watch people get promoted ahead of them who did little to merit a promotion.
-Pay is mediocre. Between rent, bills, and living expenses, there is not much leftover. Most of my vacation days were spent at my apartment because I could not afford to take a real vacation on my salary.
-The computers provided are awful, mine was running Windows XP, a completely out-dated operating system. My computer frequently lagged, I would receive emails 2-3 minutes after people sitting right next to me. Also, heaven forbid if you want to take a break from your day and look at something online...they have a filter in place that blocks nearly many web sites.
-You are stuck in the department you get hired in, unless you have friends in other departments that can help you out. If you try to transfer to other departments, you are looked at as a malcontent and the directors of your department will use it as an excuse to deny or stall a promotion. When interviewing for other departments, the interviewers were extremely condescending, and said they didn't understand why I was interviewing for the position. On my last day, several people in the same department informed me that had I interviewed with them instead, they would have taken me on their team in 30 seconds, because they respected my job knowledge and work ethic, which were completely ignored by the interviewer.
-Shirts and ties required Monday through Wednesday, despite being a company that rarely has customers on-site, making for an extremely uncomfortable work environment, especially when the indoor temperature is often above 75 degrees. I once clocked it at 82. Very difficult to get any work done when you're sweating through a dress shirt. I don't know why maintenance people can't seem to keep the building at a comfortable temperature.
-Must be at your desk and clocked in by 8AM, and prepare to be warned if you come in at 8:05 a couple times. You have to punch in a timecard, even as a full-time employee. Vacation time is tracked right down to the minute.
-You constantly feel like you're being watched, the COO routinely makes the rounds to make sure people aren't on their phones.
-Mandatory Monday morning meetings that are little more than the owner cracking dumb jokes, fawning over the sales team, and watching people make fools of themselves for free Red Sox tickets.
-Management doesn't seem to genuinely care about their employees, you are expected to come into work even when the governor is encouraging non-essential employees to stay home. And Granite actually views themselves as an essential utility, an incredibly self-absorbed and arrogant viewpoint that alienates their employees and makes them feel under-appreciated. Morale is consistently low throughout many departments.
