Behind the polished corporate culture lies a management style built on fear, led by managers who control through intimidation rather than support. Same-day terminations were routine: your colleague smiles at you today, and tomorrow you find their empty desk, personal belongings still scattered on it. New hires were required to take a polygraph test during onboarding - a telling sign of how little the company trusts its own people. In practice, Russian was the dominant working language, leaving English-speaking employees feeling sidelined. Then there's HR, which deserves a chapter of its own: after almost any conversation with an HRBP, you walk away feeling small - reassured that you're doing fine, while vague "rumors" about your performance are somehow implied in the same breath. Bringing up a salary increase reliably hit a wall, so most people learned to avoid HR altogether unless absolutely necessary. Processes are strikingly opaque: some colleagues had company cars, but asking how that was decided got you nothing but a shrug and a vague "you have to earn it." The lowest point was the relocation push to Spain, where employees who chose to stay in Cyprus were slowly and deliberately worn down until they resigned "voluntarily" - endless vague promises of "more details soon" made every single day feel uncertain. The Spain relocation itself followed the same familiar playbook: new contracts, a fresh six-month probation period, and that probation quietly used as extra leverage over people. On top of that, the toxic culture also showed up in performance reviews: they were used as a tool of punishment rather than a way to actually help people grow. In 1-on-1s you could count on getting a bucket of criticism dumped on you, just to remind you of "your place." The company adopted the practice on paper but never adopted its actual purpose.
