TOXIC -
Things I experienced here:
-the work of someone at the company was openly mocked and critiqued for around 20-30 minutes in my first 1:1 meeting. She would pull up
-the work of this person was pulled up on a computer screen and made fun of -saying things like “look at this? Just awful. Can you believe how bad this is?” --an employee would be openly criticized in department meetings in a way that was rude and not constructive and made everyone so uncomfortable.
-*constantly* being interrupted mid-sentence, it doesn't matter, talked over, etc.
I knew as soon as I started work here that I had made a massive mistake.
MANAGEMENT - I found my time working here to be dehumanizing. I was actually “docked” a little on my first performance review for not being open and honest with feedback. So, in the next few weeks, I provided some feedback (which was required weekly as a check-in on a software platform implemented by HR!) that I would benefit from better training and understanding that sometimes I do need more information about a project in order to do my best work. This feedback was thrown in my face in my next 1:1. This person is emotionally immature, extremely insecure, and resorts to defensive, manipulative tactics when having crucial conversations. Your boundaries will not be respected. I once voiced my concern that there seems to be very little boundaries between departments as a result of lack of established processes. I shared that, personally, lack of boundaries makes me feel unsafe. This was thrown back in my face, and circled back to the feedback I left (see above) using the HR-required feedback platform, and said “well you talk about feeling unsafe, I feel unsafe when you don’t seem to want to write things down when I’m talking. I don’t have time to repeat myself.” So, to recap, this person took the feelings I shared and used them against me as a way to minimize my experience and avoid taking responsibility for the feedback I left in the first place. I was also criticized for being “unwilling to infer.” Once, in a 1:1, I tried to suggest an excel function because the person was struggling with it and the person immediately cut me off and all but yelled “I KNOW MY EXCEL FUNCTIONS!!!” It’s 2022, and yes, we’re still doing the top-heavy, one-sided, toxic management at IRMI.
WORK - Their systems are extremely antiquated. This is the ultimate reason I had to leave. I felt like I was rusting. Don’t expect to be keeping up with your professional peers in terms of MarTech usage. Systems include mail chimp and Microsoft Dynamics CRM and nothing can be done without IT’s approval. Seriously nothing, you can’t even create forms without having to ask IT to do it for you. There is no sync between marketing and sales. Also, there is a really weird obsession with the best performing conference. Every single meeting you will go over how good the conference is doing (which is no credit to marketing since its brand has been around for over 40 years) and yet leaders takes credit for every bit of its success. The lesser performing conferences are neglected, which only sets up a repeat of the pattern in coming years. There is a lot of talk of “go ahead and manifest that we’ll hit our numbers for this conference.” Like, these people don’t realize that the rest of the world is actually able to control and predict ROI. Here, though, there’s a lot of “let’s see if this works” and “yay it worked!” This place is where your career will go to die.
HR - My last performance review was really good, never had any verbal reprimands or write-ups. However, There is no objective measurement of your performance - it’s all based on a subjective opinion or appraisal of you. You’ll be measured based on the “core values” if you collaborate, are results driven, pursue quality, think of the customers, are open and honest, etc. But each of these categories is ranked based on a leader's perception. When I gave my 2 week notice via email, I received no reply, just a cryptic meeting invite titled “discussion” for 9 AM Monday morning with NO description or explanation. Come Monday morning, I was already locked out of my computer and had to take the meeting on my cell phone, and got kicked off halfway through. I had no idea I would not be working my two weeks notice until that meeting, and no idea that my access to my work computer would be severed. There was no exit interview and not a single question asked about my experience at IRMI even though I did give extremely thorough feedback reflecting all of this at the 6 month mark in a survey required by HR. The key players aren’t interested in growing - make no mistake. They will do a lot of saying that they’re open to new ideas, but only if those ideas fit the current box in which they live.
