Where Everything is Urgent and Nothing Makes Sense
Pros
- The employees on my team are incredible; truly top-tier people. If teamwork were an Olympic sport, this group would be bringing home gold medals while simultaneously putting out fires nobody told them about. - There’s broad exposure to different teams, systems, and processes, which means you learn a lot very quickly. - There’s always plenty to do, so the days tend to move fast. - Unlimited PTO *for exempt employees only* is great in theory. Too bad everything is always at DEFCON 1, so taking time off feels like abandoning a sinking ship.
Cons
- The culture is chaos with a side of politics. Imagine someone put 15 different “urgent priorities” into a blender, hit purée, and then emailed it to your team at 4:59 PM with the subject line “Quick Fix.” - Nothing is ever fast enough. You could hand-deliver results from the future and someone would still ask “Can we get this sooner?” - In the latest town hall, the incoming CEO announced that corporate employees should see the new 5-day in-office mandate as “respect for employees working in the branches.” I didn’t realize respect was measured in commute miles, but apparently here it is. The justification of “branches go in every day, so corporate should too” oversimplifies the very real differences in job functions and workflows. - Decision-making at the higher levels moves at the speed of cold molasses. By the time a decision finally trickles down, priorities have already changed… again.