Lot of politics. Especially since the beginning of 2011. Also, business is not too great. The management tries very hard to sell false hopes and stories. But if the business were so great, why would the parent company sell the company for 1/3 the price that they bought it for 5 years ago. Employees are getting sick of management's lies and shenanigans. Senior managers think employees are clueless. They would give a presentation and just paint rosy pictures and won't address or just brush aside the big scary questions about layoffs they did recently and the big questions about the existential crisis the company is facing.
Your promotions in the company are based on how well you market yourself to the senior managers. The people who are in the closed circle with the managers feel free to treat other employees like some lowly creatures. Once we went for a team lunch, about 20 of us. Us engineers choose to sit all together on a big table. Project Managers, Senior Managers and the cronies from the top/elite circle sat together in a separate table. They did make it a point to come and tell us that our food has been paid for so don't worry about anything ( you lowly peasants ). How condescending is that. Believe me, such behavior can be seen over and over again in the company. Most senior managers never even say hi to you if they come across you in the lunch room.
Now few comments specifically to IT Department:
You are more likely to be promoted if you experiment with a useless fancy new technology, than if you keep the business running and do something that actually makes money for the company. Senior Managers are juvenile, immature and often rude. They try to set these lofty principles, but are the first ones to rush to violate those, while us lowly workers watch, smile and gasp.
Non managerial employees don't respect the managers and project managers.
Whatever other folks have said about project managers is correct. They are the most unqualified bunch of project managers I've ever worked with. On a regular basis, management blames IT for their incompetence or their business problems. IT employees are treated like trash whenever an emergency arises. 99% of the time the emergency is not IT's fault but business managers and project managers are eager to jump on IT, put them in a room and force them to work 18 hr days. This actually happened in the beginning of 2011. In the end IT couldn't do anything because it wasn't an IT problem to beging with. And this keeps on happening again and again.
