The most depressing job I've ever had. - 3D Production Assistant Aechelon Technology Employee Review

Aechelon Technology is very good at deceiving employees to think that they are working for an important cause, with immediate disclosure of attractive benefits and modern facilities during interviews. Aechelon management likes to call their GT employees Contract Workers, which by law, is a false definition of “contract.” The management team uses Termination At Will to their hearts’ content, and does so frequently. The truth is, that there is little to no chance for “temps” to advance their career at Aechelon Technology. There are employees working here who have been for 3+ years who have never gotten a raise or any hope for being brought on “full time.” -Permanent Temps (internal team nickname) complete their work on a timely manner, and are told that their work meets requirements. The usual response during “contract renewals” is, “We haven’t heard anything bad about your work, so you must be doing a good job.” -For a company with no regard for autonomy, there is no set way the Leads are managing the Temps. Each lead has a different process, which is often conflicting with management’s vision for an assignment. If an assignment gets sent back down the pipeline for corrections, the temp is at fault. -Turnover is fast, and management would prefer to get rid of existing employees and waste time training new ones, rather than resolving issues or confusion with the team they already have. -Often, leads that are assigned to the terminated employee don’t find out that their employee is terminated until days later. -When employees are terminated, it happens in the middle of the workday, when everyone is present and afterward, there are no words spoken to the team. Morale is terrible here. -Beware asking for a raise. You may find yourself clearing off your desk in two weeks. -When employees have ideas for improvement and present them to management, those ideas are ignored. The usual responses are “That’s not how we do things, That’s not going to work, We have a process, and you are not permitted to deviate from it, Please refer to the (outdated) Documentation.” -If employees finish their assignment ahead of schedule, they are reprimanded, not rewarded. The overall team assumption is that management doesn’t want to find more work for their employees (do their job). -It is useless to go to HR to address concerns. Every other month there’s a new Head of HR. Then a few weeks later, an email will be issued to the team that said person is no longer with the company. -Extremely outdated proprietary software - The model palette is a mess. GT has to use very outdated models that need to be scaled triple the original size to fit in desired spot. The models are not relative to each other at all. -Temps are not trusted to make their own model palette based on the assignment needs. -Temps are not allowed to make product requests to the software or modeling department. -Temps are not allowed to customize their software to make for more efficient workflow -Temps are not allowed to request a second monitor, because “Only the leads get two monitors.” -GT is separated from the rest of the company, so no one knows what anyone else does. -Headphones are required at this job for sanity reasons. You will run out of music, you will run out of podcasts. The greatest illness of Aechelon Technology is the complete lack of communication, and the unhealthy company culture that teaches its employees that collaboration and discussion will get them fired. -Employees are not permitted to talk to one another during work hours. Talk is limited to breaks only, and the breaks are not defined by management. Most of us have similar educational backgrounds, and interests, but do not engage for fear of being terminated. -Employees are not permitted to choose their own seating arrangements. -If there is an issue between two employees, management will move assigned seats at a moment’s notice with no explanation. -Social or talkative people do not do well in the GT Department. They are usually only employed for a few months before they are let go. -Management handles reprimanding of talkative employees through passive aggressive email, usually not at the time of the offense. Management never talks to the employee directly about issues, which doesn’t help the employee learn boundaries, nor understand them. -Over time, the employees that aren’t terminated during contract renewals become self-silencing for fear of losing their job. The GT department is made up of the Head, Supervisors, Leads and Temps. There are a few employees in between the position of a Temp and a Lead. They are not responsible for managing other employees, and work on the same assignments as the Temps. They are called “Full Time” employees v. “Contract Employees,” which is falsely defined employment. -Full Time GT Production Assistants get benefits such as PTO and company stock. Their salary pay is also around double of what the “Temps” make hourly. -Aechelon has a Quarterly Bonus, which is often late. -There are huge differences in bonus pay from employee to employee. -The amount of money that a temp gets on the bonus is “Performance Based.” There is no instruction or indication anywhere of what that means, and no one in management will explain it.