Pros
Individual contributors and a majority of “middle management” are truly incredible, amazing, hard working people. They are on the whole kind, generous, and intelligent.
Cons
The C-suite at Fictiv is really separated from what their employees actually do to keep the company running, and this has led to an attitude that the employees are simply not working hard enough to get things done when the company does not hit the desired metrics. This is especially apparent on the Sales and Operations teams. I often heard upper management say that sales people were “replaceable” and any attempt to defend them was met with derision and scorn from those in power. I heard about a number of meetings where an individual on the GTM team was verbally attacked for an hour straight for messing up deals in a public meeting. There is also a fear based culture on the general operation side that has to be called out. Often, the COO would decide that she did not like an individual and would then sabotage their growth at the company. Be that promotions, collaboration opportunities, or pay increases. This was (and I assume still is) a well known risk of working in the operations team. Oftentimes requests to make internal processes better are completely ignored by upper management, despite the fact that the processes were well known to be inefficient and to waste their employees’ time. When changes were made, it was only because individuals fought tooth and nail to make them happen, often at the expense of their future careers at the company. (Since disagreeing with upper management was a sure fire way to make them think you weren’t on their side and were not working hard enough.) The pay is also well below market rate, and when approached about this fact, the c-suite often falls back on the excuse that “pay should not be the only reason you work here.” Many employees have passion for their work, but asking them to live a different lifestyle to work at Fictiv seems extreme. I will also add that the c-suite has made promises about compensation that they have failed to follow through on.
