This is the most toxic and psychologically unsafe environment I’ve ever worked in. And I’ve worked for notoriously toxic tech companies. There is a culture of blame that starts from the very top, usually directed at lower level people who aren’t in the room. This creates a culture of fear and throwing others under the bus, which trickles (no, “cascades” as the hierarchical leadership prefers to say) down to middle managers and then ICs. Everyone feels it, and it’s somehow been noticeably worse in the last year. It seems like the correction effort after the article came out 3+ years ago about exactly this problem have been abandoned, and it shows in these reviews from people across functions and tenures.
Executive leadership makes it very clear that they don’t think anyone below Director level has anything valuable to contribute to the strategic direction of the company, which is a tragic missed opportunity because there are brilliant ICs and middle managers who would be able to make real impact with new, diverse ideas and experiences in a flatter organization.
I’ve witnessed multiple coworkers disclose that they’ve needed to start or up the dose on anxiety and adhd medication in order to deal with the unreasonable demands on each individual. Working nights and weekends is an absolute must to be successful, and the company has made it clear that they only care about KPIs and don’t give a crap about the human toll it takes to meet them. Even if you do great and make impact, if the right people don’t “like” you, you wont get credit for your successes, you might get passed for a promotion, and if the person who doesn’t like you is important enough you might even get let go.
My family, friends, and partner are constantly in disbelief that I work at a mental health company when they see how my wellbeing has tanked in the years I’ve worked at Spring. I truly think it’s going to take years and a lot of work to unlearn the behavior and habits I’ve built up trying to succeed by mimicking what I see from my upline and executive leadership: taking no personal responsibility, trying to win at all costs, assuming bad intentions, making assumptions/blaming/jumping to conclusions and distracting those below them with frantic reactive tiger teams that keep people from achieving their goals and focusing on the mission… the list goes on and on.
