settle in because this will take some time.
when I first started working there I kept wondering why certain coworkers were so aggressive and exhibited bullying behavior, I just assumed they were negative people, I spoke to my manager about it (foreshadowing) and moved on with my life just trying to focus on being positive and helpful and doing my job. Eventually it became glaringly obvious that the reason these people were so aggressive towards me was the toxic work culture fostered in this department. I don't think I've ever worked with a group of people more manipulative and deceitful in my entire career over 15 years. I was shocked by some of the behavior I encountered (people deleting chats so you can't go back and trace information, emails being deleted, reassigned or archived with out your knowledge so you can't action them until its too late, false evaluations with metrics they can't explain if you press them for answers, encouraging harassment in the work place or being complacent to sexual harassment if the culprit is a favored employee- I have receipts for all these claims FYI this is not just s disgruntled review)
just an example of toxic work environment so you get an idea, after certain events were made public in the media about aboriginal people in Canadian schools, in we had a company wide seminar on inclusivity and discrimination against minorities, the only question asked in the QA portion of this event was "can white people join this committee". I can't. the absurdity. The concept of tone deafness isn't a familiar one in this company.
I was subjected to psychological abuse by my manager and supervisor to the point that I now have an anxiety disorder. At the beginning of the pandemic I was encouraged to not get the vaccine by my manager, who flat out said "don't get it, stay home as long as it takes, do not get it", later I was scrutinized for not coming to the office more often. I was over worked beyond what's acceptable. I missed family member funerals, I couldn't be there for my parents when they were hospitalized, it was an absolutely horrible experience. Anytime I needed a sick day (they offer an unlimited amount of "responsible sick days") for an emergency which wasn't very often but happened due to elderly parents getting sick during lockdowns, i would be told assuringly that i can take that time without worry about work flow or being behind, the next day without fail I would be pulled into a meeting to inform me that I'm behind on my work...
Benefits are average nothing amazing. Read the fine print when you try to take advantage of some company benefits like a work cell phone, they cut my pay in half when I ordered a work phone months later with no warning, coordinating a refund resulted in many people who shouldn't have payroll information being given access to this sensitive information without my knowledge, and ofcourse not to mention the public shaming in team meetings where the private payroll issue was brought up - by payroll employees no less - along with their opinions on the matter. Which is unacceptable.
HR is there to mitigate liability nothing more, there is no human component in how they manage sensitive discussions. They just want to end the conversation as spon as possible. They offer no real oversight to evaluations. A manager can use a report and claim its measuring 1 KPI when in reality the data is not aggregated accurately or even representative of the evaluation category they're claiming to measure. Evaluations are completely arbitrary and without a standard structure across the value chain. What's more, a manager can subject 1 member of the team to months of these incoherent evaluations, if you press to see if other team members received similar, you will get vague or evasive answers. When I checked in with colleagues to see if they received evaluations as well, everyone was mystified that our manager is doing evaluations at all. They specifically target 1 person to inflict this nonsense on and use HR to aide in this discriminatory process. It didn't matter if I followed their "progress plan" diligently, every meeting I walked in I was confident that I hit every deliverable on target, and walked out completely diminished. They offered no explanation when I asked for details on how i didn't meet their expectations, just vague statements like "I don't know I didn't look at the numbers in detail" or "I just feel ...."
The pay is absolute crap. Way below industry standard.
If you value collaboration, growth, learning, creativity, problem solving, save yourself the trouble, I would run. Don't walk.
