But things started to change. The company had always had an "at will employment" attitude, but it began to become hostile to employees as it became less a small family-owned business and more a corporate global-competitor. A range of high-profile senior managers were brought in from larger firms in the same industry, all seeming to have an attitude that the company would thrive if employees were pushed hard enough and rewards taken away. It had a strangely Ayn Rand feel to it: the way meetings began to become secretive and exclusive; managers seemed to pit employees against one another; they kept rolling out strange rules that seemed to treat employees like children that needed discipline. Managers started manually clocking out employees if they had to work late so that the company wouldn't be responsible for paying overtime. They started obsessively screening calls for customer service, sales and tech support. They started extremely rigid "minimum quality" standards and "minimum call time" requirement in order to get basic bonuses, even for sales reps that managed very profitable and very difficult accounts. It was increasingly unclear what anyone had to do to advance with the company. It seemed metrics like how many hours a day you worked were more important than output. Innovation was stifled as it seemed unrewarding; employees who "looked the part" seemed to get advancement opportunities while harder working and more contributing employees were only treated worse and worse.
The company was still good for introductory-level opportunities, but I felt it was no longer a company that respected employees who grew with it. It still has a great potential in its industry, but is held back by its lack of long-term employees who can either power growth or give long-term customers a good reason to keep coming back.
