Political and bureaucratic (surprise, right?) to the point that it’s darn near impossible to get anything done – especially if you’re trying to do something that ain’t been done before. New ideas? Forget it. Career employees stay for so long that change can feel (and often is) impossible. Communication is somewhat effective when it comes from the (very) top, but gets silo-ed out with upper- and middle-management. Support staff receive a trickle of information at best. Making matters worse, most employees are passive/ambivalent in the extreme, which feeds the assumption that the info being shared is adequate. It’s not. You never quite grasp what’s going on or why you’re working on the things you’re working on, and although there’s plenty of talk about the Very Important Strategic Plan, you’re never actually given the time or the space to think strategically about your work! Most employees are spread too thin, hurtling from one project of questionable significance to the next. As a concept, work/life balance is nonexistent outside HR; leaving on time is considered leaving early. The culture can be rigid and inflexible toward different work styles, and internal promotions basically do not happen. Still, all that stuff, though it’s no walk in the park, is pretty typical. Perhaps the worst thing is the lack of a sense of everybody working together toward a common purpose. The sense you DO get is that each department thinks it is single-handedly responsible for keeping the whole thing afloat, everyone else is just in the way, and that anything someone does for you or you do for them is a favor to be repaid. With interest. The mentality wears you down unbelievably fast.
