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I worked for one such company early in my career. I was the first hire of a batch that made the IT department 2.5x bigger. Some of the initial red flags were a

by mkl95 6y ago

I worked for one such company early in my career. I was the first hire of a batch that made the IT department 2.5x bigger. Some of the initial red flags were all the empty desks with readily available computers and multiple monitor setups, and the fact the IT manager was a guy who struggled to communicate in English or the local language. Long story short, one year after I joined all the IT department (including me) had left, with the manager being the only exception. We found out the hard way the company had a long story of hiring batches of developers and struggling to make payroll in the following months, which the CEO "fixed" by having the IT manager create a very toxic environment where people blamed each other for all sorts of things, thus distracting themselves from the elephant in the room (the company was broke and the CEO didn't care, and our manager was little more than a puppet). My main takeaways were: - Financially unsound companies are likely to have a toxic work environment. - You should look for signs of high, recent employee turnover the first time you visit your employer's offices.

sleepysysadmin 6y ago
My last job, I was only hired because they had recently had 3+ people quit the same day. During the interview they were telling me how they have a large staff and only expect 60-80% billing because anymore leads to burnout and how they have 'work-home balance' meetings to ensure they are good. Ya that should have been a red-flag. That stuff lasted at most a month until it ended and it went back to 'the beatings will continue until morale improves' It was super common to work 60 hour weeks, but every hour of overtime you wanted to get paid for... you had to give detailed explanation to justify why you worked so that they could bill overtime/emergency rates to the client. At my first year performance review I got scathing terrible review because our time/attendance system said I was late >40 times to work. I immediately asked which days I was late for... so my boss looks it up. Every single one of those lates was me logging in on a weekend after 9am because something was down and generally speaking the on-call person called me for help. So not necessarily that I worked 40 weekends, but saturday at 10am login and then next day at sunday at 11am would be 2 lates. Did my performance review change for the better after realizing that not only was I being awesome and working afterhours and weekends to help my coworkers and the literal only complaint against me was having been late? Nope. Not even a little.
loopz 6y ago
Ditto. * The first red flag was all the empty, but fully equipped desks. Several floors almost vacant. * The second red flag was leadership being away 80% of the time "on training", "seminars" and whatever else BS, instead of facilitating work. * The third red flag was being tasked by a remote PM, to install extra equipment. I later learned it was because VMs were overbooked. * The fourth red flag was my boss got fired, without hearing any reason. On and on it went. Since this was tempwork, I just felt pain for those with steady work in such conditions and did what I could. Without support though, there was nothing I could do but leave in the end, with leadership wanting me to stay (I was probably the only one resembling some sanity in that place). With experience and hard work, such places can be turned around. But not in times when top leadership and owners destroy a place. You'll be seen as an idiot and insane, in a world where leadership has turned everyone against eachother behind their backs.

by mkl95 6y ago

sleepysysadmin 6y ago

My last job, I was only hired because they had recently had 3+ people quit the same day. During the interview they were telling me how they have a large staff and only expect 60-80% billing because anymore leads to burnout and how they have 'work-home balance' meetings to ensure they are good. Ya that should have been a red-flag. That stuff lasted at most a month until it ended and it went back to 'the beatings will continue until morale improves' It was super common to work 60 hour weeks, but every hour of overtime you wanted to get paid for... you had to give detailed explanation to justify why you worked so that they could bill overtime/emergency rates to the client. At my first year performance review I got scathing terrible review because our time/attendance system said I was late >40 times to work. I immediately asked which days I was late for... so my boss looks it up. Every single one of those lates was me logging in on a weekend after 9am because something was down and generally speaking the on-call person called me for help. So not necessarily that I worked 40 weekends, but saturday at 10am login and then next day at sunday at 11am would be 2 lates. Did my performance review change for the better after realizing that not only was I being awesome and working afterhours and weekends to help my coworkers and the literal only complaint against me was having been late? Nope. Not even a little.

loopz 6y ago

Ditto. * The first red flag was all the empty, but fully equipped desks. Several floors almost vacant. * The second red flag was leadership being away 80% of the time "on training", "seminars" and whatever else BS, instead of facilitating work. * The third red flag was being tasked by a remote PM, to install extra equipment. I later learned it was because VMs were overbooked. * The fourth red flag was my boss got fired, without hearing any reason. On and on it went. Since this was tempwork, I just felt pain for those with steady work in such conditions and did what I could. Without support though, there was nothing I could do but leave in the end, with leadership wanting me to stay (I was probably the only one resembling some sanity in that place). With experience and hard work, such places can be turned around. But not in times when top leadership and owners destroy a place. You'll be seen as an idiot and insane, in a world where leadership has turned everyone against eachother behind their backs.