Thursday, February 21, 2008
The seedy underbelly
Most companies want you to see their rosy exterior—everything’s peachy keen, everyone gets along great, and it’s a well-oiled machine. It’s not until you’ve been there a few months that you start to learn about the seedy underbelly of that company. The real truth comes out.
So I’ve been at my new job almost seven months now. I didn’t realize it had been that long already! Lucky for me I still enjoy the work (most of the time), and the people I work with are all right. But the thing that I find most alarming about this place is the number of people leaving. I found out the other day from a coworker that, between people quitting and being fired, the turnover rate around here is 70%. Seventy percent! That is incredibly high! I don’t know where they got their information, but I believe it. Only one other person besides myself remains of the original design team. Everyone else either got canned or couldn’t take it anymore. The web designer who’s been here the longest started one week before I did.
I think it’s the way the company is run. Communication is a little off. I didn’t find out that the most senior member of the design team (who started 3 months before I did) was leaving until two days before his final day. He says he gave two weeks notice, and it was never announced. The receptionist, who was always busy and seemed to have really cared about the employees and did her best to accommodate their needs, got fired inexplicably. There was an announcement via email, but no explanation was given. Everyone was baffled and shocked. We prodded the HR assistant for information about why this happened, but she was tight-lipped about it, stating she wanted to maintain the woman’s privacy. A week later she quit too. Only I didn’t find out about it until two weeks later when I asked if she was on vacation or something.
Why are people so eager to leave? Why are they so eager to fire people? I’m not a gossip, so I’m usually the last to find out about these things. Maybe it’s just as well that I remain oblivious. Ignorance is bliss, right? If I don’t feel like I’m being wronged, I’ll still be happy at my job. Lucky for me (and I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible), the one web designer left on my team is Chatterbox. Mr. Nonstop Blabbermouth who would be the most amazingly productive coder if he would just shut up. He bugs me, but the upside to the incessant chatter is that he chatters with everyone else, and it’s how I get most of my information about the goings on around this place.
So far, from what I can understand, most of the trouble stems from a few key individuals in upper management who are more interested in job security than in a well-oiled company machine. They promise the moon to the clients and then make us lackeys take the fall when we can’t meet their unrealistic deadlines. I don’t know. It’s what the last web designer who quit said. Maybe it’s true. If it is, some people around here need a swift kick in the pants and a vigorous poke in the eye.
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Categories: • Office Hijinks