Vaupell Reviews

One giant dictatorship. Everything is their way or you're out the door, but not really. Bad employees are just recycled and passed off to other departments to become someone else's problem. Bullying is the biggest problem. People get yelled at, made fun of, berated in front of others and your job will be threatened. I have watched as people have been brought to tears on some days and other days I have personally "gone on a walk" just to keep my sanity. People will constantly throw you under the bus, stab you in the back, take credit for your work, gossip (maliciously) and lie right to your face. And all of this is encouraged. No one is held accountable and often people just shift the blame to someone else. You will be talked down to, bullied and made to feel like you don't belong. It's part of the good ol' boy society here. Training doesn't exist. You will be thrown into the thick of things and be required to produce instantly. Human Resources is also a joke. They back everything that management says, so the employees have no support system or voice whatsoever. Even with the off-color jokes, the sexual harassment and the constant put downs about sexual orientation, it's a huge surprise that this company hasn't been sued yet. Employees are so scared to even mention the word, "union" because of what they fear their managers will do to them. Management has also made threats that if the employees want a union, they'll shut the door and move the jobs to China. I'm not pro-union but after being here for years, I'm to the point where I feel like I've been beat up so much that I would gladly welcome one and take my chances. If you are salary, you are expected to work long hours and sometimes taking a lunch is frowned upon. This is a very negative place. People who are positive and enthusiastic are eventually broken down and learn to accept that no effort beyond the bare minimum is the norm. I personally witnessed a person get lectured by her manager for taking her lunch, telling her that she needs to ask to take lunch and she needs to adjust her breaks because everyone else works through them. Salaries are a huge fallacy. Upper management's salary is among the highest for manufacturing but all other salary personnel is in the bottom 1-5% of their respective fields in the Greater Seattle area. There is no room for prosperity (1-2% raise every year, unless you're "capped" and then you will not receive a raise - this happens often). This is a career killer in the Aerospace industry. A recruiter has informed me that other Aerospace companies automatically discard a candidate if they see this company on their resume and has informed recruiters to not send anyone who has Vaupell listed on their work history. Instead, recruiters recommend listing Vaupell as "Confidential" due to the negative reputation they have in the industry. I have friends at Boeing and even they laugh when I tell them about working for Vaupell. But the management team at Vaupell lives in their own world and think the opposite, telling people that they are a leader in the industry. I've tried to get out and unfortunately being tied to this company has hurt me during each interview process. Once you're here, you get sucked in and your only hope is to switch to a different industry.

I was able to see how things functioned from every level at this company. There wasn't a single department that could be relied upon. The Molding department became the scapegoat for everything, so naturally they resented everyone and would do the bare minimum to work with other departments. The Assembly department had this attitude that they were perfect, even though they had no ability to follow a work instruction - which means that standardization of processes didn't exist. The Paint department was so reliant on a handful of people and whenever there was turnover or absenteeism, they fell down and couldn't function. The Purchasing department was so inhumane and treated their employees with so little respect that they were in constant turnover mode. The Quality department was so inexperienced and had no consistency or knowledge as to what a good part was. The Customer Service group had no clue about how business worked and were always making empty promises to the customer. The Engineering department was actually good, but their communication skills were minimal, which caused problems elsewhere. The Production Control group was as corrupt as any department could ever be. I watched as the manager for that department ordered his employee to falsely manipulate the data for meetings and information that went directly to the customer. Upper Management is guilty of many things, including lying to the customer, manipulating data, nepotism, giving special rights (favoritism), and creating an uncomfortable and hostile working environment. Anyone with any ambition or self dignity needs to stay as far away as possible from this company. The people who thrive the most here all share the same traits, lazy, backstabbing, corrupt, no business sense, no people skills, and have no conscience or soul.