Is there a maximum to words you can include in this section? God I hope not...
Most of what follows is about the Support department in general, though I know others in different departments have echoed these sentiments:
******WORK/LIFE BALANCE****** There is none. What I outline below, all combined, is what makes ABILITY a hellscape from which you will never truly be free. While you may not have to work nights or weekends, hours upon hours have been lost by employees to needless stress, anxiety, and depression mostly related to day-to-day ridiculousness of the job/company. The fiance of a former employee once said of his bride to be: "You don't come home from work and cry for hours anymore; it's really nice."
******MORALE****** The easiest target at ABILITY, hands down. The company has invested little time and effort in demonstrating to its employees that it in any way values them above their capability to arrive at work, perform the bare minimum, and clock out on time. Every quarterly meeting (under Mark Briggs, who is no longer CEO) was a reminder that no one outside of sales matters at the company. Words directly out of the CEO's mouth left over half the room feeling belittled and worthless. Management at lower levels have done little to combat this effect and have done even less to address their own issues with their team morale.
******MANAGEMENT****** Too much middle management and not in the cliche way you usually hear it: there is literally too much management There should not be six layers of management between a technician and the person in charge of their department.. The current structure is a breeding ground for inefficacy, stagnation, and failure. Good, constructive ideas are lost in the flow up the chain and needs remain unanswered and unmet as a result. Not to mention, the type of people hired into the six layers of management (there are some exceptions) do not understand how to create an environment of cooperation and success. The disconnect between the reality of day to day operations (ideas communicated from the lowest level of management who actually can do and do do the job of those they supervise) and the demands from "above" creates an environment of disinterested employees who feel put upon by corporate nonsense and shackled by bad business practices.
******INCOMPETENCE****** You can't talk about management without words like "incompetent" and "oblivious" following almost immediately afterward. Not to mention the fact that ABILITY continues to hire people who have no real idea what they're doing. When you talk to colleagues and the general consensus is "nobody respects [him/her]" you know you've got the wrong management for the job. The problem with incompetence is that ABILITY rewards it and allows it to breed its own incompetence, letting it grow and fester until it can't be undone. There have been (and are presently) people in the organization who are generally good, intelligent, driven, and creative people who have done great things for their departments, but they don't last because they are not lackey yes-men/women and their ideas get little traction and support.
******PERFORMANCE****** Focus has shifted to hitting arbitrary marks, not how well your job is actually done. In most jobs, the quality of the work you do is what makes or breaks your performance. Not so at ABILITY. In an attempt to "quantify" the work that is being done in Support, management has put KPIs (key performance indicators) that put a numeric value around work done. The problem with this is that the KPIs are poorly thought out and underdeveloped, often leading to sub-par employees receiving high marks simply for hitting the points of the metrics, despite performing their job poorly. Employees who go above and beyond are penalized because going the extra mile results in negatively skewed KPIs, despite having out-performed their coworkers in actual customer service and issue resolution. It is impossible to prove oneself because incompetently made and handled "markers for success" keep a good employee buried under a thankless workload.
******PAY****** The salary for most roles does not compare to market standards. For years employees were underpaid and told they should simply "be grateful to work at such a dynamic company" (direct quote from the HR department). After a market analysis, the results of which were withheld long after it had been completed, some salaries were randomly increased while others were not. There is no consistency in the company's approach to pay or promotions. There is no real opportunity for growth as career pathing and goal setting have consistently fallen by the wayside and the "requirements" for some levels are ridiculously unattainable. Raises are barely above the cost of living increase and management treats the one annual review, which determines raise amounts, as more of an opportunity to identify areas of improvement than to reward for areas where the employee has shown growth. The idea that someone would ever reach "Exceeds Expectations" is deemed a nigh impossibility and it is instructed to be given out sparingly as a result (actual opinion of management).
******WASTED TIME****** You can spin your time at ABILITY in a lot of really positive ways for an interview or your resume, but the hard and fast truth is that time at ABILITY is wasted time. Until things change, and I honestly hope they do, ABILITY Customer Operations is a place that does not help you grow as an employee or a person and I have watched it tear too many good people down to want that to happen to anyone else.
******Good luck, reader.
Heed my warning.
Be free.
