Mathematica reviews

Low pay, upper management is intentionally obtuse

Where to start… - amid large federal funding cuts that have prompted MPR to layoff several hundred staff, leadership has deemed it appropriate to give bonuses to executives (which historically have amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars). - They were willfully blind and woefully unprepared for the new administration, with the CEO even outright denying that anything would change in late January, and since then gaslighting staff by saying they’d been preparing for months. They began an unnecessary and costly internal restructuring which has added multiple expensive senior positions, which they have continued pursuing while having to layoff staff due to lack of funds. - They imposed a draconian communications policy limiting what staff can say even on their personal social media platforms. After one staff member asked leadership to explain this policy and voiced disappointment, they were let go. - They have gone out of their way to be as non transparent as possible. Staff who had been members of certain minority-oriented employee resource groups have been instructed not to speak or ask questions in company meetings. They have shut down chats in virtual meetings so they are not forced to see staff’s comments. And they consistently end staff meetings early while never taking questions. - When many staff were reeling and afraid they of the current administration’s attack LGBTQ+ folks, Mathematica preemptively disbanded all employee resource groups and instructed staff to remove pronouns from their emails. - They are hiring lobbyists to curry favor with republican lawmakers (again, while laying off staff due to lack of funds). - After years of encouraging staff to invest their retirement funds in the employee stock plan, the stock price is now falling. So, leadership has changed the rules to prevent staff from withdrawing their funds, and instead are requiring it to be paid in installments over 5 years (effectively trapping people’s money in a tanking fund). This change was made without consultation. In sum, it feels like I and our wonderful colleagues have been trapped in a fun house where the clowns at the top are getting richer and richer at the expense of the morale and ultimately the livelihoods of the rest of the staff.