Pros
-My anecdotal team and management experience is great. This seems limited to my dept, however. (Also note that my team is located in Maryland and I work in NJ.. so why am I coming to this office 5 days a week just to use the wifi to contact my team?) -I enjoy what I do, and there are always opportunities to learn more. That’s just a subjective personal love for all things tech though and doesn’t technically reflect the org.
Cons
-The biggest elephant in the room to me is the new “productivity” push, which includes a HIGHLY INTRUSIVE spy software which many of my peers are already being berated about by managers. Instead of gauging employees by their impact and deadline management, they’ve outsourced 30 different ways to monitor you at all times using a sketchy Silicon Valley startup, and expect it to magically make more productivity. The level of intrusiveness is off the charts. Well.. more like it’s all on the charts. It shows the name of every window, every person you’ve messaged, the URL of every website, and MUCH MUCH MORE. Why does it feel like I am working in a totalitarian state? Who does this benefit? -Again, anecdotal, but as a result of this monitoring software, one coworker was told via email by a manager that because they took a single 10 minute bathroom break in the entire day, they need to log (via spyware) “8 full hours as per upper management.” I.e. if you use the bathroom like any other human being, you need to stay late for every second “wasted.” It is unbelievable to see a major corporation disregard NJ Labor Law as a thing which exists. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH: THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE IN A MODERN CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT. THERE IS NO PLAUSIBLE EXCUSE OR CORPORATE SPIN ON THESE PRACTICES TO JUSTIFY THEM. -Not a big deal to me personally, but the kabosh on any remote work is extremely concerning as a new employee. They even gaslighted everyone with an email stating we “wanted this?” Clearly no one besides management did, at least have the decency to say it was a managerial decision instead of you-know-whatting on our faces and telling us it’s rain. -Retirement offerings are extremely far from competitive. Shop Rite cashiers get a better deal. -The support facilities aren’t even satisfactory; the cafeteria at my building firstly isn’t even big enough to accommodate the influx of staff they’ve forced in so you’re lucky if you can even get lunch there, but the food quality, staff service level, and portioning is ABSOLUTELY ABYSMAL. It appears as though they’ve used a prison food contractor to feed tech workers. It’s honestly unbelievable, and despite being a small point in the grand scheme of working conditions, it speaks mountains about leadership.