The pay was ridiculously low, even by industry standards. This was particularly bad for long time employees when new hires were given better salaries to get them in the door with no comparable raises given to people already there. The utter indifference of the people running the company to this was a constant source of unhappiness and resentment. Their stubborn refusal to pay better turned the company into a revolving door over the course of several years, a trend that only seems to be intensifying. Time after time, in countless petty ways, their actions make it obvious just how little you mean to them.
In addition to that, promotions were given based on the crassest and most blatant cronyism with precious little consideration given to either competence, merit, or justice. Management tends to surround itself with sycophants who say what they want to hear, can do no wrong in their eyes, and are never held accountable. It is a company wide problem, not even specific to one department. This suggests strongly that this outlook starts from the top and works its way on down. Each one of these promotions made it worse and acts as a billboard advertising to the rest of the employees "Behave this way if you want to get ahead." It ultimately lead to an organization where the only concern was looking good to the people above you.
Simply put, I don't believe upper management has the will or the ability to make the level of changes necessary to fix this. I don't think many of them even realize that the problem is there in the first place.
