The company will bend over backwards to please the client. If this means you have to give back your billable hours because the client doesn’t like your work, the company will make you comply with the client demands. If the client wants you to be there several weekends in a row, you have to comply. Often times when you’re traveling, typical office hours are 8AM – 6:30PM or 7PM. It’s not unusual for a client to take advantage of you to have you work very late at night and ask for tight and unreasonable deadlines. If a client likes you, they will try to keep you on the project as long as possible. You will not move on to better projects or advance your career aslong as the client requests you to work for them. The client owns your career.
Furthermore, There are many people actively looking to leave the company because of how the company has been handling their RIF (Reduction In Force) process. The company is large and has lost its way. It’s hard to feel a connection in such a large company. As an Associate, you don’t get proper training to be a consultant. You get a 2 week training session called “Launch”. One week is focused on some basic consulting skills and the next week is focused on iRise training. 2 weeks is not enough time to prepare anyone for the consulting world. They really do set you up for failure.
CSC is going through a large restructuring. There are RIF's happening on all levels including to entry level associates. The decisions are not made based on performance. The decisions are not objective at all. Even if you are billable on projects, you can and will be let go if the company sees fit. Most people get a 1 week notice when the company decides to let them go. The meeting lasts for less than 30 minutes. Contrary to CSC's recent claims on the news, the approach taken is very short and cold. The severance package includes 2 weeks of pay for every year you've been with the company plus any vacation days you've accumulated. Which is not much, you are allotted 10 days. They are not flexible or understanding what so ever. If you want time off, you have to notify the company weeks, if not months, in advance if you want any kind of time off.
If you get ill, you may miss your bonus. If you can't travel due to illness, you can be fired. I know someone at the company that got ill, was ordered by doctors to limit travel, weeks later that individual was fired. The company did not even recognize the fact that the work was being done and completed remotely.
Once they let you go you can’t reapply to the company for a full 12 months.
Currently, at the corporate headquarters CSC is undergoing a major Financial Transformation project. It’s supposed to save the company $5 Million per year. The decisions made for this project are very political and not objective at all. The company was considering several vendors but they have settled for an SAP solution because their current systems heavily rely on SAP already. If you say anything that upsets upper management on the project you are immediately thrown off of the project within a few weeks.
If you are staffed to a health care project you will not be compensated with a quarterly utilization bonus. Almost all of the projects in health care are not making a profit. All of the people staffed on any health care projects are punished due to this reason. Even if you are billable you won’t get your bonus.
If you can, avoid projects with Kroger. Their corporate culture involves a lot of screaming matches from their own employees. Once you're on a project it's hard to get out because if they like you they keep switching you from one project to another within Kroger.
