McMaster-Carr reviews

McMaster-Carr has somehow ascended to dominance in its field not thanks to but in spite of the way the company is run. The two major issues I have encountered (and that you will likely see repeated over and over in thorough reviews here) are: 1) a permanent and impenetrable elite "class" of managers recruited straight out of Ivy League schools (or a few short years post-grad). Your manager does not have firsthand experience doing your job and so their guidance is necessarily limited; however, that won't stop them from holding you to either humanly impossible quantifiable metrics or a vague job description that you may or may not live up to according to their whims and moods. I don't know what kind of training, if any, the managers are given, but I can tell you that whatever it is, it isn't working. They come off as detached and condescending in their interactions with individual contributors (ICs). If you'd like to have your performance review determined by 20-somethings with minimal social skills and even less real-world work experience, you'll love it here. 2) a philosophy that employees are interchangeable. Sure, the recruiter will tell you they think you'll be a "great fit" for job X, but the company won't hesitate to switch you to job Y with just three days' notice and no choice - the expectation is that every employee should be able to excel in every job. Only a "manager" with limited exposure to the working world could deliver that line with a straight face, considering that everyone on, say, the Systems team obviously has an Engineering or Computer Science degree. Don't bother asking if you can move to a different role or department that might be a better fit - they simply won't entertain it. Whoever heard of a company with such a self-defeating policy? So instead of optimizing its (supposedly) most valuable resource, its people, the company forces square pegs into round holes, and when the worker isn't able to deliver (due to lack of training, minimal resources, and/or unclear or contradictory direction), blames the employee and forces them out. Brilliant!

The company is run through corporate politics and nepotism. People who do not deserve to have that power. Speaking of "Power" if you challenge people in management they will just fire you. They don't consider you a human-being. The most manipulative, artificial people I have ever been around. They hire kids just out of college from "prestigious" schools and put them in supervisor roles with no experience at all. They actively reinforce a privileged class system while claiming to be diverse. People from other teams do not talk to each other. They forced everyone back to the office for "collaboration." I would sit and stare at my screen doing exactly what I could be doing at home and have superficial conversations with artificial supervisors. All communication could be done over a zoom call but no, because these insecure managers want to feel important, we had to come to office. Many people were forced to quit because they were promised remote but now had to drive 3+ hours to sit in a jail cell cube. As far as the job goes, good luck developing any useful skills to be used in your next job. They do crazy high-performance reviews every month, so you are managed through fear. If you miss one tiny detail, it could ruin your month. There is no encouragement of innovation. No motivation to improve. Their network system is beyond slow and unreliable. I feel bad for the people on the bottom of the organization who do the tangible work. The people in senior management need to understand that your fancy title and ability to navigate the cesspit politics does not mean you produce value. You are not important and more artificial than actual AI which will hopefully replace you. Actually, MCM will never adapt to new tech and will likely be run over by other companies who will innovate and be run by competent leaders. Run away from this company or you will be chained with golden handcuffs.