1. No one is willing to go to bat / look out for anyone else. Everyone is too concerned with their own pay. If it’s not pay, then it’s fear of repercussions for speaking your mind. There is no incentive to do the just thing because fear of getting fired (or retaliation in your review, which everyone knows will directly impact your comp, so you might be costing yourself thousands of dollars just to speak your mind...or worse, the truth). As a result, you effectively trade your values for money.
2. Bonuses are on a trajectory based on previous bonuses, so one bad bonus cycle seems to have a compounding effect because you have to dig yourself out of a hole / they will use it as a way to pay you less going forward.
3. No skill development.
4. Learning opportunities are few and far between for traders.
5. Leadership is bad. They do not motivate people or bring out the best in them. They assume the bonus system will be motivation enough as is.
6. Bonus system is extremely opaque. When you go to get your bonus, you have no idea what you are going to get.
7. Complete lack of mentorship.
8. No compliments whatosever. No "attaboy" and no pats on the back.
9. Plenty of criticism, though.
10. They have their mind made up on people from the moment they start and it is next to impossible to get that opinion changed. This is true whether that opinion is positive or negative. If you’re great, you can do no wrong. If you’re not good, then everything you do is wrong and even if something good it’s a fluke.
11. Complete favoritism towards Dutch (or any non-American, for that matter). No Americans are partners and yet American office has been responsible for a majority of IMC’s growth and advancement. Dutch leaders are just installed in Chicago office like false dictators. It sounds absurd - laughable even - but it is true and has happened time and time again.
12. No strong correlation between improvements to PnL and pay.
13. Pay is wildly variant among people who have extremely comparable performance largely due to office politics and favoritism.
14. Tons of turnover. As a result, very few experienced people there.
15. Lack of ethics at all levels of hierarchy.
16. People sit at their desks and fart around and pretend to work until 5:30 even though they have nothing to do.