During my first week, a coworker came up to my desk and said, “Run. You need to get out of here. They will ruin your life. This is not a real company, they don’t know what they’re doing, and these people are terrible. This is one of the worst jobs you could have, and I advise you to leave as soon as possible.”
This is about to be a long review, and it won’t even come close to capturing the horror of employment by TransPerfect Translations. I can say, with full confidence, that this was the most damaging experience of my professional life. I wish I had listened to this coworker, but I stayed. I worked 80+ hours per week. My manager was not dedicated to helping me grow as an employee; rather, she would call me simply to berate me (in private and/or in front of entire departments) until I was in tears. Every conversation we had was belittling and demeaning. This happened, at least, bi-weekly.
If this helps to paint a picture, some details from my first day at the company:
Dirty desk - Used tissues, hair, garbage, and food scraps in the desk.
No one in charge - Was given no instruction or attention.
Computer not assembled, missing components - I mean truly, not assembled. Computer pieces sitting on my filthy desk.
Garbage/recycling not emptied from person before.
All lights off in the office - everyone had their heads down, headphones in, pitch black room.
No one talked to or helped me - pretended I wasn’t there, ignored me when I introduced myself or tried to ask questions. The two people I was supposed to report to didn’t know the answers to most of my questions.
Log-in info., email, Skype, or drives had not been set up by IT.
Work hours/work day unspecified.
Kept receiving emails about files I didn’t have access to.
Unclear training instructions - Found training materials, but with no instruction it was difficult to know how to proceed, and which were for me.
Unwelcoming.
Name was incorrect on everything.
HR had sent me the wrong first day info and asked me to report to NY - Wanted me to come to NY to sign my offer letter, when I didn’t even live in the state of NY.
I was contacted by coworkers to schedule meetings, but I didn’t know my schedule.
Boss showed up to train me a day or so later, but she ignored me half of the day, had me sit next to her to watch her do her normal work, and then dismiss me. No actual training.
Management dangled incentives in front of the employees, and ripped them away once the goal was achieved - blaming the employee. For example, my manager laid out the specific goals that needed to be achieved in order to obtain a promotion. When I exceeded all of the goals, I scheduled a meeting to discuss next steps. She laughed in my face and said, “What makes you think YOU could be a Project Manager? No.” It’s worth noting that, in my previous job, I was a Project Manager. In my interview, TPT had told me that they NEVER hired in Project Managers, but that they always hired in at the Project Coordinator level and quickly promoted. I had been promised a transfer (completely self-funded) and, when I went to make plans to move states, my manager placed more restrictions, bumping out the goals - “Well, I know you hit THIS goal, but maybe we can possibly start to discuss the idea of perhaps you being allowed to transfer offices if you bill $$$ this much more this quarter…” Keep in mind, this cost the company $0 and I needed to move for personal reasons. This was not a request to work remotely, only to move myself to another office.
I took the demotion, as the job offer came with talk of international travel, good benefits, ease of upward mobility, and so on and so forth. I represented the entire West Coast of America by myself for months on end, while management guaranteed me that they were “working on hiring someone.” When they did finally hire someone, they invariably jumped ship as soon as possible, or were fired for completely unrealistic expectations that had been set, unbeknownst to the employee.
The IT & HR support are almost non-existent, and are largely only in the NY HQ office. The
people in my office (including myself) crawled under their desks to cry. One employee quit with middle fingers held high, screaming at the manager over the phone because the manager was attempting to not pay out the employee’s remaining PTO. Yes, this is illegal. I spent many hours on the phone with IT around the US, and had to call India support on several occasions to get my remote set up working. This accrued a $200 phone bill that TPT would not reimburse, thought it was all necessary support to maintain the operating system that none of their US employees could fix.
My boss would call me to work on weekends, and obsessively track my flight when on domestic business travel (“Your plane landed 40 minutes ago - I’ve been watching. Why aren’t you at the office?” ...Nevermind the fact that the flight was delayed, we sat on the Tarmac forever, had to grab my bags, Uber to the hotel, check in, find the office...).
The level of verbal abuse that I endured at this job is unspeakable, and inappropriate to detail on a public professional forum. I stayed at this job for almost 2 years because I felt that I had to, and it took a nearly critical toll on my physical, mental, and emotional health. I had nightmares about my coworkers and specifically my manager, who demonstrated abusive behavior towards me for which I had to seek counseling. I involved HR, as I felt that I was being abused and manipulated by multiple managers. HR played the waiting game, listened silently on the other end of the phone, and never took any action. When I left the company, I gave two exit interviews and, from what I know from people who remained in the company after me, it seems no action was taken. I would not wish this experience on even my worst enemy, because it so deeply damaged me (and most of the people around me). When the CEOs are petulant children who are so often being featured in the New York Times for their latest antics, you can imagine that the trickle down to management is truly horrifying, and they are just following their leaders’ example.
