Exhausting: the work is not just intense, it’s also too much work for the amount of people that work there. So many people will have to work hours and hours of overtime to meet tight deadlines. VPs never seem to want to say no to clients, which is great for profit but terrible for workers’ mental, emotional, and physical health. The amount of hours worked are starting to feel like the norm, and not like a crunch-time-only situation. And of course, because we are able to make those tight timelines by working overtime, people start thinking the timelines are reasonable and they repeat. Imbalance between talent and company growth: the company is growing immensely, especially now that it’s been acquired by Beringer, but it seems there haven’t been enough people hired to pick up that slack. While the company is getting bigger, the salaries remain the same while the workload gets much more intense. Time off paradox: we technically have unlimited vacation, so long as it works for our team and can be approved by our manager - except sometimes the manager will be reluctant to even let us have less than a week off because of how busy we are. We’re told to take our time back whenever we work overtime, but that never happens because there are so many deadlines and tight timelines, it becomes impossible to take that time back at all. Not being heard: with the growing distance between management and employees, it’s harder to have our concerns heard. It used to feel like DIG is people-first but now it’s all about the clients. This wouldn’t be a problem normally, but in this case, it feels like employees aren’t being heard and concerns are shrugged off. The sentiment feels very much like ‘we are so sorry that you are suffering. It’s concerning to us… but there is nothing we can do.’ As much as I think the founders are genuinely kind people, our experience at work relies heavily on middle management, who are not always concerned about our wellbeing. It’s the VPs that have the direct line to the founders, not the other employees who are suffering more. Overemphasis on culture: a positive work culture is great, but it’s not a replacement for work-life balance, salary increases, or bonuses. As nice as company events can be, I would rather lose some events if it means more resources to help us balance work and increase our mental health. Plus, when there is THIS much work to get done, events need to be skipped because it would only put us more behind. Salary issues: the pay is low, especially considering the amount of work. 40 hours a week is definitely not the amount many people end up working - so the hourly rate is lower than what we are told.
