Twilight Zone of Tech Companies
Pros
- Work/Life balance is easily maintained. Honestly, there aren't defined career paths so you can clock in and tune out everyday if you want. Hiring from within comes and it's unreal when you experience it first-hand. - No competition. Extron dominates the market and until that changes, there will be no impetus for reform. - You don't need any real previous experience to work here - in fact that's a plus for HR for reasons listed in Cons. - Mandatory training is free - but failure is instant termination. The training material contains regular contradictions and any concerns/questions are treated as hostility. Tread carefully.
Cons
- Everything you read is true. When I accepted the position, I didn't think the HR policies would apply to engineers... and was sorely mistaken. There are so many legends about HR policies that half of the fun of working there was finding the workers who'd worked for 10+ years and getting to know the gossip. - 100% of junior engineers have no previous working experience. This facilitates the bizarro culture. Exclusively hiring from within furthers the cause, but even after working in the company for 5+ years, advancement is dependent brown-nosing. - I wasn't given a reason for being let go (legal reasons?), but this is what I can recall being brought up in prior performance reviews: ----Forgot to clock in 2 times in the same week. ----Not clocking in and out to use the restroom. ----Using smart phone to answer work emails, while at work. You read that right. ----Emailing the training course instructor without explicit managerial permission. ----Having a beard (and not a goatee)
