Pros
-quarterly bonuses -PTO -the people
Cons
The expectation is that you come early, stay late, and work through lunch. Your manager will not outwardly tell you this, but there's no other possible way of completing all your work on time. A five minute break to go to the bathroom feels like a luxury. You are handed more projects than you're able to manage at one time. You're responsible for performing a quality check on all your deliverables and if there's a mistake then you have to fill out a lengthy report about why the mistake was made. Never mind the fact that part of every quality check you perform involves a foreign language and you just have to hope that the linguist and the QM did their jobs correctly. You are still responsible for making sure the final deliverable is perfect. When you fill out the report for any mistakes that were made, you are not allowed to say the reason for the mistake is human error. Even when you ask the linguist why the mistake was made and they tell you it was human error, it's not acceptable. I've broken down crying from this job so many times. I get so much anxiety on Sundays because I can't bear the thought of going to work the next day. Even when I'm told I'm doing a good job, I don't even feel truly appreciated because my salary is SO LOW. I was promoted when the company freezed their raises, which meant I was stuck at the same salary for over two years. Meanwhile the company is throwing these lavish parties and hosting conferences globally and the CEO is bragging about how much money the company made that year. And yet I'm still living with three roommates because that's the only way I can afford to be within commuting distance of the office? When it comes to getting promoted, it doesn't matter how good of a job you do. It doesn't matter what your revenue is. If you and another PC were hired at the exact same time, you'll get promoted at the exact same time with the exact same salary. Doesn't matter if one of you is clearly better than the other. The company has a promotion/raise formula they stick to. They'll tell you they don't, but they do. And to be fair, sometimes they do stray outside of this, but that's usually only when the person in question is well-liked by/friends with the managers. There's so much guilt that comes with this job. One of the main aspects of PMing is interacting with linguists. Placing jobs with them, giving them feedback, negotiating with them. You use the same people regularly so you start to form relationships. And then suddenly, management is breathing down your neck to slash rates (with the thinly-veiled threat that your bonus will be negatively impacted if you don't cut linguist rates). So then you have to email these linguists and tell them you have to pay them less money on all projects moving forward. How is that fair??? The linguists are the ones doing the actual work. And now the PM has to decide if they want to keep their bonus growing or pay linguists at a fair rate. And speaking of bonuses, I was repeatedly reminded to not share the amount I was getting with other PMs on the team. Isn't it illegal to tell your employees that they can't discuss their compensation? Side note: it took them years to send me a TPT laptop. I spent years using my personal computer to do this job from home. I'm sure all our clients who have strict security protocols and confidentiality requirements would love to know that many TPT employees are accessing their files on personal computers. All in all, the PM role at TPT is the worst job I can conceivably imagine. You're worked to the bone for barely any money. You become close friends with the other PMs on the team because you guys are essentially trauma bonding. If anyone thinking of working at TPT is reading this, RUN IN THE OTHER DIRECTION.
