I used to work IT at a company that leased electronic stuff to the general public. Oh boy were they shitty. Keep in mind, this is in a Western European country where employees and customers have actual rights.
There was a general policy of harassment and intimidation. Sexual harassment obviously. The female staff was constantly “ranked”, outfits were loudly commented. By management.
Sometimes you manager came next to you at 6:25PM. You’ve already been doing free overtime by then but utterly stupid management means sudden, unpredictable and hard deadlines. He would lit up a cigarette in your face and keep you until 10PM. Sometimes the deadline was so short and “important” people had to work until 5AM. For free (well, pizzas). And show up the next morning at 10 (instead of 9, woo).
Managers kept threatening you to cancel your holidays the day before leaving if you didn’t do this and that. Sometimes people had to connect from their vacations to do stuff because they were “critical” for something.
Money was a funny thing. We were constantly paid late. Sometimes more than 2 weeks late. Everyone who wasn’t an employee wasn’t paid at all. Not the rent, not the building staff (the toilets were FILTHY), not the contractors who remodeled the floor when we moved in, not the suppliers and especially not the IT contractors. I came in on day and found that I lost my entire team because their employers has never been paid.
One day, they lost a major investor because they lent money to purchase stuff to lease, not burning it in massive management salaries. As a collateral, the investor left with the customer database. So they were back to square one. So, as a get-new-customers-quick tactic, they created dozens of too-good-to-be-true promotions, like giving out electric scooters for new subscriptions and the like. With of course zero intention of honoring them out, since there was no money.
I could go on and on. Everyday there was new, shitty, borderline illegal stuff going on.
Funnily enough, they are. Some tech millionnaire invested in them just after I (and 90% of the IT staff) left.
We all thought he was going to be another whale that they would bleed dry. But he actually took over and changed a lot of things.
So, for now, they still exist. I don’t know how or at what cost, but they still exist. I wouldn’t go back there for all the money in the world tho, I’m pretty sure the corporate culture is still toxic af.
I used to work IT at a company that leased electronic stuff to the general public. Oh boy were they shitty. Keep in mind, this is in a Western European country where employees and customers have actual rights.
There was a general policy of harassment and intimidation. Sexual harassment obviously. The female staff was constantly “ranked”, outfits were loudly commented. By management.
Sometimes you manager came next to you at 6:25PM. You’ve already been doing free overtime by then but utterly stupid management means sudden, unpredictable and hard deadlines. He would lit up a cigarette in your face and keep you until 10PM. Sometimes the deadline was so short and “important” people had to work until 5AM. For free (well, pizzas). And show up the next morning at 10 (instead of 9, woo).
Managers kept threatening you to cancel your holidays the day before leaving if you didn’t do this and that. Sometimes people had to connect from their vacations to do stuff because they were “critical” for something.
Money was a funny thing. We were constantly paid late. Sometimes more than 2 weeks late. Everyone who wasn’t an employee wasn’t paid at all. Not the rent, not the building staff (the toilets were FILTHY), not the contractors who remodeled the floor when we moved in, not the suppliers and especially not the IT contractors. I came in on day and found that I lost my entire team because their employers has never been paid.
One day, they lost a major investor because they lent money to purchase stuff to lease, not burning it in massive management salaries. As a collateral, the investor left with the customer database. So they were back to square one. So, as a get-new-customers-quick tactic, they created dozens of too-good-to-be-true promotions, like giving out electric scooters for new subscriptions and the like. With of course zero intention of honoring them out, since there was no money.
I could go on and on. Everyday there was new, shitty, borderline illegal stuff going on.
Holy shoot, are they still in business? If not, what happened?
Funnily enough, they are. Some tech millionnaire invested in them just after I (and 90% of the IT staff) left.
We all thought he was going to be another whale that they would bleed dry. But he actually took over and changed a lot of things.
So, for now, they still exist. I don’t know how or at what cost, but they still exist. I wouldn’t go back there for all the money in the world tho, I’m pretty sure the corporate culture is still toxic af.