Perhaps most importantly, the way in which we were asked to cater to every demand of the client is not in the public interest, particularly when the client is doing something that is not in the public interest.
The direct managers in my group provided very little guidance while simultaneously holding me to an extreme standard not of high quality in client service, but perfection. Once, a conference call we hosted for a client was delayed for 3 minutes by a minor technical glitch, and my client and direct supervisor ultimately brought me in, stripped me of certain major duties and not long after threatened to fire me. This is not uncommon.
My direct managers misled me about what work I would be doing when I was hired. When I brought this up with my direct managers, I was ignored. This also led to a distinct and growing corrosion of my morale from nearly day one.
I worked, on average, nearly 60 hours a week billable (and more unbilled) for several months straight. For this, I was never thanked, I was never rewarded, and I was still held to the standard of impossible perfection while my marriage nearly imploded. While I am aware that this can happen in consulting, I believe this practice is exploitive and unbecoming of a company of ICF's stature in the energy space. I am sure that this style of work is more appropriate to RAs just out of undergrad who don't have relationships to attend to, but I am married, and I am aware of several others in my group whose relationships have crumbled under the pressure of heavy work and the expectation of perfection. I was lucky - I got out merely having had to manage significant undue stress and barely save my marriage.
ICF does a terrible job sharing feedback. I had never been warned about my performance in such a way that realistically indicated that my job was in jeopardy until I very politely and respectfully requested a timeline and milestones toward a transfer given that my wife got a job, about 5 blocks from another ICF office in another city. In addition, when I finally got feedback, 80% of the information had never been shared with me, and probably 70% of that was either a distortion, an outright falsehood, or something I said on non-company time and didn't mean in any sort of negative way. When I received this, I reluctantly quit my job, given that I could no longer trust a company that concocts stories that are untrue.
