At SSFP Seniority and Favoritism Win over High-Performance - Anonymous employee Genentech Employee Review

The goal at SSFP is always to make things "just good enough" to not get into trouble. It is not to truly fix, innovate, or improve. To a degree this makes sense because the pace at the site is exhausting. However, fast-paced does not mean efficient. Politics, bureaucracy, and inefficiencies such as unproductive daily meeting marathons and ill-organized and executed org restructures such as "Project Blueprint" paired with a "Lean" initiative that is doomed to fail long-term, suck time and energy from doing actual work. Many low-performers are able to hide in plain sight behind the site's busyness. Once over the hump of 5-7 years employment on the site and with enough of the "right" friendships forged, there seems to be a seniority code that protects folks from getting fired altogether and often even snatch up a promotion that clearly rewards loyalty and friendships, not contribution or skill. High performers with true motivation to bring change and produce quality work bump against the roadblocks set by the pervasive "just good enough" low-performer culture until they either adjust to it or leave the site in frustration. In my time here, I experienced several managers behaving unethically, creating environments of fear and favoritism. Escalating these issues to the next level of management resulted in either simply moving those managers to other parts of the organization or ignoring the issues altogether. It sends a loud and clear message to employees at SSFP: Managers have each other's back, no matter what. Seniority and favoritism win!