Stressful place to work - Warehouse Specialist McMaster-Carr Employee Review

3.0
Mar 17, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Benefits and profit sharing are tops in the industry.

Cons

You are working at an extremely fast pace the entire day and barely have time to use the restroom. Direct supervisors are fresh out of select universities and have little to no management experience, and turnover for management is high. Since the supervisors are young, most don’t have families and can’t relate to an employee if they are experiencing difficulties at home. This inability to relate has harbored ill feelings towards management, and as a result few people are willing to put in extra time when operations are running lean. Management’s Expectations for high quality and efficiency are extreme, and has almost everyone concerned about losing their job on a daily basis. So much so that the stress level actually causes employees to be unable to concentrate on the task at hand for a full 8 hours, so their policies are actually counterproductive.

Explore other reviews about McMaster-Carr

4.0
Jun 16, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Pay/benefits are incredibly generous - People are generally easy/nice to work with - Note that the Systems department seems to be fairly isolated from the negative issues discussed in other reviews (e.g. tension between warehouse workers and management) - I haven't experienced any of those issues within the systems department. In my opinion, Systems is a great place to work and develop as an engineer. - Hybrid work style (3 days in office). Personally, I like hybrid more than both fully in-office and fully remote styles. - Great cafeteria with good food and cheap prices. - Good work/life balance (outside of being on call, I can leave work at work).

Cons

- Work is not super interesting to me. I come from a highly technical, but very different (not ecommerce/industrial supplies), background where I was doing work I was much more interested in. No doubt there are folks in Systems who love the domain though. - While I'm not on call a ton (1-2 weeks every few months), I really hate being on call. I like to leave work at work. Note that joining at least one reliability team is expected within your first year or so.

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