Sigh. I used to love working at this company. I was proud of the company and of the job that I did. In the last year or so, however, IEM has lost a lot of what made it special. There used to be an atmosphere of collegiality, collaboration, and respect, without all the politics present at most other companies. That is gone now, however. The company has made a lot of changes to structure and focus in the past year. While that is not a bad thing at all, they made them without any kind of change management plan, and seemingly without thinking through how some initiatives that sounded great in theory would work in real life. Communication has been lacking, there are definitely political games going on behind the scenes (or at least there is a perception that there are), and that sense of collaboration is gone. In addition, in the past, employees were encouraged to take initiative, suggest innovations, and otherwise look for ways to improve the company and its operations. Now, however, those things fall on deaf ears at best, and sometimes result in a dressing-down. In addition, work-life balance is non-existent. I have had people indignant that I didn't immediately respond to emails they sent well after midnight. I have take to turning my phone and computer off at 9 p.m. and not turning them back on until morning for just that reason. In short, this place that used to be a pleasure to work in is now a misery. Now, instead of being excited to go to work every day, I wake up dreading another day of drudgery, another day of feeling like just a tiny, invisible cog in a machine that is careening out of control in the wrong direction.
