Truly one of the worst places I've worked. To the extent that I'm genuinely surprised they can remain in business. For a supposedly global organization that's trying to be a power player in the space... basic, but critical functions such as new hire onboarding was awful on all levels. > The IT team doesn't know what they're doing, and it took MONTHS to get all of my equipment set up. > It took even longer to get access to (and the right permissions levels for) virtually every tool/software that was necessary to be successful at my job. In fact, through my last day of employment with Verathon I STILL did not have all of the permissions and tooling required. > The training and development courses were ineffective. The timing and coordination of the orientation was strange, the presenter was completely out of touch, and the content was primarily focused on the history of the company and the science behind the technology (but no relevant, functional information about the current state of the company, how the company operates, how to navigate the organization, how to be successful in the function, etc). > Even learning how to navigate around the building was impossible - with even lots of tenured leaders getting lost within their own building, trying to find various conference rooms or offices. > No inclusion activities, no company swag, no onboarding or orientation programming around the actual function of our role, or how to be successful in it. Honestly, working at Verathon felt like teleporting back a DECADE in terms of company operations, company tech stack, and even the company culture itself. Seemingly every single motion at this company is a manual, analog, inefficient, and often ineffective process that favors stroking egos and saving face versus actually doing good work. My manager basically started every meeting with a rundown of people they hate within the organization, processes they hate doing, or whatever the latest drama was... but made no efforts to improve those things, and openly resented efforts that I (and others) made to effect positive and productive change. Every time I tried to start a conversation about potential improvements and/or solutions, I was basically shut down - usually because of the personal preference of some leader, somebody's ego, or because it's easier to just NOT have a difficult conversation. A few months in, and still without all of the tools and information necessary to be successful... They laid me off! They apparently needed to because they had mis-planned from a headcount perspective (but really, it seems like I was laid off because my manager's feelings got hurt/because my manager doesn't like being challenged). Not only had I turned down multiple competing offers to join Verathon, which had a tremendous impact on my household... but insult to injury, my manager joined the call giggling, laughing, and making jokes about how crappy the IT department is... in the same breath as they were laying me off. A little professionalism, especially considering the circumstances, would have gone a long way. Their behavior, however, was completely insulting.
