Where to begin... At first, the project was motivating and there were a team of very good people with great ideas and managing skills. All those good professionals ended up leaving the company, one by one. I guess they realized that it was impossible to do innovative or interesting things in that place. Plus, the stress and nonsense generated by the top dogs was unbearable. I saw brilliant people absurdly wasted in stupid projects and positions where they couldn't thrive. No mentorship. No tools. No purpose. People who almost killed themselves out of stress and today are happy and shining in other places where their talent is understood and valued. I saw juniors joining the company with excitement, willing to learn and build up a career. Some ended up settling in without repercussions if they did it wrong or fleeing due to lack of growth if they did it right. I saw managers desperate and depressed because they couldn't change what was needed to be changed. The owners promoted this distorted and pretentious version of a horizontal corporate culture that devoured common sense and the possibility of managing people and projects in a coherent way. When I left, the company had no future. We were trying to sell smoke based on rehashes of rehashes of ideas designed by those good professionals that left. We were stuck, unable to renew our services or do anything different. They said we were a Customer Experience company but all we were working on was stupid social media content. They ran out of money, so they couldn't hire good professionals anymore. They lost their sense of purpose, so even if they had the money, not a single real good professional would bet on them. The environment got more toxic by the day. The salaries went down. The HR team was doing anything but HR. The top dogs became obsessed with new business, but did not invest in people or tools to achieve those goals. The pandemic was the absolute chaos. They reorganized the company structure a million times, each time worse than the last. Every day we felt that it was going to be our last, because everyone knew that the company's main client could leave at anytime and we'd be screwed. I heard they sold the company to a bigger player. That makes sense, those partners needed a way out and good money. I think it was a good boat at some point, but I would never recommend to go onboard now because it's already sunk.
