eBay reviews

The backbiting taking place in some groups is absolutely astonishing. The first time I witnessed it I was floored - and very uncomfortable. It's as if these folks think that this type of behavior is actually an acceptable way of doing business. I've seen reputations destroyed with the flick of the mute button, as a SENIOR MANAGER mutes a conference call, bad-mouths the speaker to a full conference room, and then turns the audio back on. If you EVER get on the wrong side of anyone who has any influence over your work, you will find it very difficult to overcome the negative trash-talk that will instantly take place and propagate all around you - but never to your face. Your manager will base your reviews on hear-say, and you will be destroyed. If this happens to you, you should start looking for another role at another company immediately, because you won't be able to overcome this here.

These traits are not unusual in my experience at other companies. It was just extreme at eBay. That said... Constant org changes at all levels, where you can be sure in two months half the people you are working with will be gone or moved to another group, and key management players also. Excessive meeting culture means you are literally in physical or virtual conference calls 6-8 hours/day, which means that (if you're not management where attending meetings IS your job) you will have to do your results producing work after hours, on weekends, holidays, and...sadly, during meetings -- where you should be paying attention to what is happening in the meetings. As you can imagine, that also has consequences for the effectiveness of meetings.