After an interview where it is obvious that they just paint is as pretty as possible, it is very disheartening to see how this place really ticks. I've wasted my time, and left a great company in order to come here. If I could give it less than 1 star I really would.
I've had the opportunity to work with lots of different departments depending on what is going on, so lets cover the ones I have worked with...
Processing - Great group overall. Unfortunate thing is that you have a few that ruin it for the rest of them and their management is afraid to do anything about it...or just wont. Little room to grow with no general outlook for a career path unless you move into another department.
Claims - Some good stuff in general. They usually have to put up with a lot in general so they tend to leave eachother alone. Management staff is actually pretty good here except, the higher up you go in managers, the worse they get. Also, their claims management software is laughable at best. Has many problems as well as holes that cause it to be slow and hard to use at times. Was probably state of the art 15 years ago.They are talking about fixing it, but as it goes with this company...talk is just that...talk. Good area for working your way up from the bottom, if you don't getting your nose dirty. Also a good place to transfer out of.
HR - ...what HR? Paper pushers basically. Every now and then they will come by and look to see if you are in your desk on time and try to cause a stir, but that is about it. Most of the time they are slow to respond or return calls. They are nice too...to your face...there is unfortunately little in the way of personal information in this company culture. Way too much gossip for a unit that knows everything there is to know about someone. Also, finding out that something you told a manager to keep "secret" because of a it being a personal matter is always fun to see spread around the office as gossip.
IT - Actually feel bad for this group. They "work" so "hard" and then things keep breaking. Some very good eggs here and there, but when data that your project team requests takes a week and it comes in screwed up and not what you wanted (several times, once, so bad that we wondered if he had even read the request), it makes life hard. I heard they fired all the good people a few years back when they thought they set, but that also is their way (see Owners)..."Lean a company out until it can barely function, then complain and never really fix it." This is a "stay away" department from what I've seen.
Product/Pricing Department - This has got to be the most disfunctional group I've ever seen. There are definitely some good eggs (very few though), but there is more bad than good here. In what little I worked with them, I saw a lot. None of it very good at all. It felt extremely similar to a fraternity...the girls were talked about as if they were pieces of meat, rude and ugly jokes were made on a regular basis, and in one of the Product Areas, I observed of lots of turnover due to the management in place and a culture of what I understand is a "very bad management style" and "afraid of employees under them being better than they are". Almost all of this was seen on the Product side, not the analytics side. That Product side is 90% full of people that you want to just stay away from. It seems the management in this group has been in place for a while, which is odd. Usually problems and encouraged behaviors start at the top. I didn't get to work with the analytics side much but I was told that they aren't very respected and no one takes their data to heart because the PM's will just tell them to "fix" an indication to lean a certain way anyway. So from this, "stay away" from Product, "eh" with Analytics (its a good place to get some experience but have a backup plan waiting in your back pocket).
Everyone above VP level - These people...wow...it's like everyone in the room took a breath from the same oxygen tank that put them into a euphoric state before this meeting. Some of their ideas and thoughts were so far fetched that even they should know that this stuff just couldn't be done with the resources in place or that we just don't have. Also, add that I really think that some of them have a Masters in "Talking Over People." If they don't then they definitely took the intro class "I'm Yelling So What I Am Saying Is More Important 101."
Owners - These "mystery people" wouldn't surprise me if they were actually some sort of really old, out of date robots. No one ever sees them even when they are actually in the office, which happens once every red moon (darkness draws them out of their holes evidently). If one of them of them came to my house and offered to vaccuum it to showcase the new power of the updated electric motor utilizing tornado technology, I would say "Sure!!!" and let them in, because who is going to pass up a free vaccuum? Although, I would be surprise if they even knew how a vaccuum worked in general. Probably better to let the janitorial staff (that they let go to the point where the bathrooms get disgusting while running out of toilet paper and obvisouly don't get touched for days!!) handle it. It's scary that they never make appearances to employees. Superman didn't wear a mask, why should they wear invisibility cloaks? Leadership starts at the top, people! Uncloak this mystery! Reveal yourselves! Act like you care about something other than trying to get a massive margin!
So it is for these reasons that I am offering my resume in gold plated paper (there goes the savings account) to anyone who has an opening that I can get back outside of this company. I know life in the industry is better than this because I had it. I gave up better benefits, vacation days, company culture, and stability for a company that might one day be great, but will not be for the foreseeable future.
My 2 week notice can't come soon enough.
