Pros
The profit sharing bonus is nice.
Cons
The most unproductive and unhealthy environment that I have worked in. I won’t list every grievance I have for fear of sounding like a bitter and hyperbolic former employee. Instead I highlight a few key issues as a cautionary tale to anyone considering working here. Short Term Thinking If your project has a broken leg, expect your manager to hand you a band-aid. I have never witnessed such a consistent aversion to true problem solving. Over and over and over employees will voice deep concerns only to be met with short term fixes and patch-work solutions that will inevitably crumble and cause more work in the long run. There were times I legitimately believed managers were inventing busywork to avoid addressing the heart of an issue. Obsession with Busyness The best thing you can be at Solutran is busy. Productivity is not valued, results are not valued, BUSYNESS is valued. It is the social currency of the company. The more busy you are, the more important you will seem. You may be asked to create reports on work that was barely/never started. It sounds absurd, and believe me, it feels that way but it’s a routine habit. Poor Communication You will be added to meetings that started 5 minutes ago and asked to provide support on a topic you weren’t prepped on. You may not hear back from your boss for days at a time. There seems to be no expectation across the company that emails will ever be responded to. At times it seemed as if there were intentional layers of opaqueness from leadership. In the early months of my employment I thought I was crazy because I felt out of the loop on everything. Over time I realized that’s just the way the teams operate. Stumbling in the dark, lacking necessary information to do their jobs. Disorganization You will find yourself on projects consisting of 4 internal teams and 10+ employees, and yet somehow no one has the information or authority needed to finish a project. There are days you just want to scream “Who is in charge here!” because it seems impossible to find the answers you are looking for, or the approval you need to complete something. I would spend days chasing answers, only to be met by excuses and finger pointing. Each department likes to point to the other departments as the source of their issues. Lack of Accountability Don’t think I ever heard the words “I was wrong” used while working at Solutran. On nearly every level of the company they have bread a culture of deflection and blame. No one accepts responsibility for mistakes or late work. The leaders display an attitude of excuse making, and everyone else bends to that behavior. Gaslighting On more than one occasion I experienced or observed managers blaming subordinates for their own shortcomings. When you attempt to push back and plead your case, you will be made to feel that YOU are the problem, YOU are not understanding, YOU are responsible. I had to start keeping a record of decisions that were made by managers because I became so used to them flipping things around and blaming others for decisions that they themselves made. Whether done out of malice or poor memory, it fostered a deeply unhealthy environment. Family Dynamics The leaders of the company are family members and their close friends. This may sound wholesome and heartwarming, but the reality is that the walls have ears. The rigidity of the inner circle makes it difficult to introduce new ideas and substantive change. Turnover I’m not sure of the exact numbers, but they must be astronomical. Leaders would brag about hiring 100+ employees in a single year, and not acknowledge the fact that we lost nearly as many as we gained. There seems to be a delusion that it takes a special breed of worker to really “keep up” with the culture. The reality is, ambitious and experienced workers quickly realize the fallacy of the company and jump ship as soon as possible.
