The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves
Pros
You’ll never be bored. The work is always interesting and engaging. Everyone in the rug/furniture industry has heard of Surya. Your resume will always get you noticed. The people are fantastic. As your colleagues move on to other opportunities, your network will continue to grow. The office is located among scenic mountains and farmland. Opportunity to purchase products at wholesale prices. The HR director is fantastic, given the circumstances. He understands and cares, and does his best even with all the pushback from leadership and the president.
Cons
Salary is severely below market. Benefits are fine, but not special enough to make up for bad pay. Hour policing, even when salaried. If you show up a few minutes late, expect a passive aggressive email. If you need to come in late to go to the doctor, you must take PTO. If you need to leave a bit early to catch a flight, you must take PTO. Don’t even think about asking to work from home when the roads are closed due to severe weather - you have to take PTO for that too. Micromanaging at every level. President shifts between involving himself in every single facet of every single department when it’s going well, and then blaming employees and threatening termination when there’s a hiccup. You need to get written approval from 5 different people to do anything, which could take days, putting you off your deadline. President and leadership don’t trust their employees to do their work. Only the cheapest software and technology is provided, forcing employees to spend extra time working around known issues, instead of just updating. Computers and email servers had limited baseline storage, and instead of upgrading computers or providing external hard drives, we were instructed to delete files and emails still being used. There’s no standardization or consistency with processes. Every time we do something, it’s different from last time because someone decided that someone else in a different department needs to have final approval. Communication is very poor, even within teams. Decisions regarding your projects/accounts/tasks will be made and executed without you ever being informed. Getting information from anyone is impossible, and every single task and decision is micromanaged within an inch of its life by multiple people. Every time I went to my manager with an issue I had encountered, or just for help, I was chastised for having encountered an issue at all, even if it was from a mistake they made. When I asked for the tools and support to fix the problem, I was told that the problem should never have existed and therefore I was “just going to have to work through it.” This led to complete burnout. When I sat down with my manager to discuss my feelings of burnout, they told me it was “part of the job” and that I had to be flexible. Morale is low and turnover is high. Whispering about who’s unhappy, who has interviews, who’s leaving at the end of the month, is the main conversation among employees, because everyone can relate. The president has jokingly referenced the high turnover rate a handful of times, but rectifying this has not been a priority for him. The president and leadership team are convinced they know everything, and won’t let their employees make even minor decisions without approval from the president. The president’s word is law, and if you disagree, he’ll fire you. Arbitrary termination is not unusual, even for employees and managers who have been with the company for over 5 years.
