Top management has a total lack of respect for employees
Pros
The office is really multinational, everyone is friendly and young. Everyone gets along pretty well and tries to do a good job. If you are trying to get into translation, this is a good place to make contacts. Possibly working in the Quality department would not be too bad as I think they actually leave the office on time. It's good training in stress management.
Cons
The company is reliant on the fact that its production dept work between 5-10 hours unpaid overtime every week. I was told in the interview that if I had to work overtime, I would get this back in compensation time. This is a lie - if you work at TPT, you'll never get even one third of your time back. You will be tired all the time and it will severly damage your social life. I have seen a number of employees crying at their desks. What's more management always shifts the blame to the employees. If you are working overtime, they say it is because you are incompetent. There is a $50,000 target for all PMs every month. If you do not bring in this figure you will go on probation. The catch is the figure is wildly unrealistic, and only 16% of PMs actually meet it. The "target" is a way to scare employees into silence about the abusive working conditions. The other people working there are fantastic but have absolutely no time to talk to each other because they are desperately trying to fit 12 hours work into 8 hours. The CEOs are constantly trying to squeeze even more profit out of the company, which means offering translators very low rates and asking for very short turnaround times. As a result, quality is often very bad but any mistake made is YOUR FAULT as a PM. Any complaints about other members of the company will be dismissed immediately and refiled as a complaint against you. The company is apparantly ISO compliant, but quality will never improve because they only really care about ticking boxes. The turnover rate is ridiculous, with many people leaving after around 6-8 months. Everyone I know at the company was job hunting. The problem is that management doesnt care because they still make a great profit so nothing will change. Don't accept a job there, or if you do, use the first couple of months to keep job hunting while you still have the energy.
