- my experience...ineffective management
I can only talk about what I experienced first hand, I'm sure a lot of people whose goals aligned with the company's plan really enjoys it here, but mine didn't and it was a nightmare. I was kept in the dark for most decisions and had no say in my career path. Management lied to me about the conditions of a project, didn't fulfill the promises of remote days, and forced me to stay there longer than what I agreed to until I finally quit. When things got tough no one would answer my emails or messages, I would be ghosted for months and then someone would say "Hey how are you?? why are you unhappy? I thought you wanted to be here??" When I've made abundantly clear this project isn't where I want to stay and my problems with it. When I called out my manager for not fulfilling his promises he turned around and pointed fingers at me asking me "why can't you just get over it? some people would consider metroing to dc everyday a piece of cake. maybe you're just not strong enough." No one from the management team alleviated my pain points. I asked for remote days (which was guaranteed before the project started), tolls/parking reimbursement, and an end date and was 0 for 3. They actually made me stay on the project for longer and didn't offer me anything in return... Not getting what I was promised and what I later asked for sucked but they even made the process bad because I couldn't get an answer for the longest time. I actually remember my manager asking "did you ever get parking?" and I was just ??? "Did you ever get me parking??" In my particular case it felt like I was dealing with a placement company who just decided to shrug and say well, we're going to make as much money off her before she finally gets too unhappy and quits. I know they kept me there even though I was unhappy because that's what's most profitable for the company. Unless there was a financial justification for taking me off the project they just weren't going to care about my career path, their promises, and my unhappiness. It's also disheartening to feel like the majority of the company is hostile towards you for leaving. I heard people who would say things like "this is the job, she signed up for it" which just isn't true. I signed up to work for another team and they moved me against my wishes. I fulfilled my part of the deal and completed what they told me at the beginning. I can truly say I was treated much better during my 2 week notices/throughout my resignation from the company where my project was and even the placement company that handled the project. The situation and ghosting also got so bad that my own manager didn't even respond to my letter of resignation and had someone else respond to it hours later.
Some other things that happened either to me or my coworkers:
- little control of career
they do this weird thing where their first impression of you really sticks and whatever you do later is kind of irrelevant. you'll be typecasted and only put on projects/tasks that THEY think is suitable for you. Unless you're lucky, you'll be stuck doing whatever they hand down to you.
- favoritism
management ranks you against your team (they really do this is how your pay is determined) and the favoritism is clear as day. "we'll make sure you get what you want because you're ranked the best of your team". If you're not highly ranked... chances are you won't be paid as well and you won't be on projects you want to be on.
- pay
if you start from the bottom of the consulting ladder you will be very underpaid here. also if you start your career here, you will have to go through months of training where they pay you something like an intern's hourly wage. even when I was on the delivery project I wasn't getting paid what delivery consultants make.
- micromanaging
the new time tracking system makes your break down your day into separate task and how many hours you spent on each task
- hours
certain projects will require you to work after hours, weekends, and holidays. Luckily I didn't have to, but a lot of my coworkers did. If you don't volunteer to sacrifice holidays or weekends management will label you as lazy/not reliable/not a team player. Some of my coworkers had to work on Thanksgiving/Christmas/NYE.
- no 401k matching
