Pros
There are some fine people who work here. The atmosphere, when I started in the mid-2000s, was great. Dynamic, freewheeling! Just plain fun and a great place to learn. I learned a lot, and had a lot of great experiences, and made some great friends... But....
Cons
As the economy began to sink, so did the company. They circled the wagons, got cheap, stopped the bonus structure... hell, they even stopped doing employee reviews for several years. As the sinking took hold, the toxicity bubbled up. Managers could no longer be trusted, there was an undercurrent of everything being secret. My manager told me one thing, would tell another person something else. When you can't trust your manager to have your back, that's not a good sign. Stress... stress increased logarithmically as the economy went south. They were more concerned with keeping the profit margin than anything else. they still made profits, but those were preserved for the family and the rest of use struggled for years on the same rate. Oh, and God forbid if you ever discussed salary concerns in mixed company. I remember a conversation with a fellow disgruntled employee, sometime in 2010 or 2011. At that time, we agreed, this place was going to look like a fire drill as soon as the economy picked up. And from my external observations, it looks that way. If you get a chance to read the article in the local Torrance newspaper about how Phenomenex shared in the wealth... it was a classic example of abusing the media for free corporate PR. I was no longer employed there when this happened, but from comments that did get out, most people got chump change. I don't have exact figures, but $3k to $4k seems most common... oooh... They could have given everyone $15k or so each and removed the feeling of being screwed. And no, I was not fired, and I am not some lazy blob. I work hard and was willing to do whatever had to be done to get the job done. It's just that the company didn't appreciate it.
