[Whostheboss]

....

[BMW F22]

Worked for a company with 100k+ employees, hated it. Stable but corporate culture sucked (different industry i suppose). Advancement sucked too. Working at a smaller company now (8,000 employees) and I like it much better. Still would prefer a more social environment but it is good. I work more closely with directors and executives.

[Axius]

Unfortunately, that is the nature of the business when dealing with larger groups of people. I'm constantly fixing Eaton engineer tooling fuck ups and poor designs, but since I'm not an actual "Eaton" employee, but a contractor, when shit goes wrong, we get the finger pointed at us.

If the Eaton people fuck up (they only have one probe left in the plant, they're custom made and have a 6-12 week lead time right now), it's "Oh well, this has happened so many times before, so we'll just make it work". Yet if it was a probe we provided, it would be a complete shit storm.

Not to mention, the young kid that works under the head operations engineer I'm pretty sure is giving HO engineer hand jobs all day under his desk.


Fuck I hate the 7am meeting.

[Verbiage]

I left from a moderately sized white collar industry/environment in the healthcare sector to being a business analyst for a large telecommunications organization working around mostly blue collar employees (field techs, project coordinators, etc). Gotta say, not even a contest comparing the two.


Not a day went by where I didn't want to knock one of those office snobs the fuck out, man. Their sense of entitlement, even when their title shouldn't have reflected their attitude in the first place (lower or higher), was sickening.


I absolutely love the folks I work with now. Curse like sailors, but they get their jobs done and they understand the value of diagnosing problems and working as a team, as opposed to figuring out who to blame for some shit they should be assisting with.


/rant.

[Whostheboss]

...

[Verbiage]

I just realized I never really answered your question, OP.



I was a project manager at the first job, and am currently atop the corporate construction division coordinators at my present role.


If you wanna know, first corporation was Inovalon, second/current one is Comcast.

[Verbiage]

Originally Posted by Whostheboss

I already know Corp America is not for me.

What is it that you would like to do?

[FType22]

I am in a similar situation with terrible corporate culture.

Corporate culture is just as you describe it, it's hierarchical and ass kissy, even companies like Google and Yahoo have this issue. When companies get to a certain size they seem to suffer from poor middle management. It's a constant struggle between budget and quality of work, the budget won't allow for a manager to just manage, he must be a doer as well, this limits the quality of his management ability. There is also so much redtape in corporate environments that creativity is highly retarded by the fact of too many levels of approval to be nimble. Going from a small 6 man company to a larger 50 man company to a 3,000+ global brand really opened my eyes to this world.

On the other side of things, a kiss ass is going to be at every job you go to, I think this is a moment where you learn to deal with him. If politics aren't your strong suit, avoid them. I'm a very hard nosed, bold stated individual, which makes me terrible at politics. I'm a hammer and kiss asses are needles, so you need to know what battles to face.

[Axius]

...

[Verbiage]

Originally Posted by Axius

...but corporate and all the people who have taken on new management roles have completely fucked any will I had to be here.

Story of the life of just about everyone who isn't an entrepreneur.

[BayMoWe335]

Done both, both suck.

[Whostheboss]

Originally Posted by Verbiage

What is it that you would like to do?

The immediate and obvious answer is to own my own. The more realistic answer is to work in small to mid size company (Not more than 200 employees)

The perfect job will be a mid sized company located in a metro or sub metro area.

[Whostheboss]

Originally Posted by Axius

I really enjoy working with the operators on the floor and a small handful of engineers here. We've had a lot of success on some large projects, but corporate and all the people who have taken on new management roles have completely fucked any will I had to be here.

Because of the people in these new positions and making my life painstakingly impossible, I'm looking for a new job. On top of that, I really do see them driving this plant right into the ground and closing the doors. Yet they are all too big headed to see it.

Terrible. Sounds scary

[Axius]

Originally Posted by Whostheboss

Terrible. Sounds scary

It kind of is, but nothing I can do about it. Had a huge project worth $700k in savings that got denied because the product line was too new, so I missed my target goal last year by $100k due to not getting the credit myself and the other engineer deserved. That was the tipping point.

I feel worse for the people that are stuck in this small town if the place does go under, because there isn't much work out here compared to where I live an hour away. Just gotta keep trucking and keep fingers crossed I stumble into something better and get recognized for my work instead of chastised.

[JohnnyCanuck]

My experience is different and unique. I work for a very large institution and there are over 15,000 employees.

I have the advantage of being in a critical role that is hard to replace where if I do not do my job well the consequences to the enterprise can be significant, if not extreme. As a result, I tend to be listened to when I have something to say and my advice is almost always followed. I have never had to play my "get my VP involved" card in my seven years here.

There are other frustrations with an organization this large (the politics are overwhelming at times, the media scrutiny is huge, and there are lots of different and competing agendas), but man ... there are days I really enjoy this gig.

[eluded]

Sounds like it's time for some outsourcing.

[EALm4]

For me, I started out small and kept moving up to bigger firms. There's not much need for what I do in smaller business. My work keeps me segregated from other employees as the potential of a conflict of interest may arise.

Sometimes I feel like a prisoner that has moved from Jail, to min security prison, to max security prison, to solitary confinement with suicide watch. lol

When I was with the smaller firm, it was great, had tons of friends, and it was almost like a frat house. We all worked out of a "pit" style work area and it was very social. But the pay was garbage and as growing older, everyone there needed to make more money to support their new borns, kids, pay for that engagement ring. So we pretty much all left.

After I left there - the larger firms had stricter protocols for what I do. To a point where one place even had me in a secure room, biometrics, filmed the entire day, and the room had "frosted" glass and there was only 4 of us in there. Not to be sexist or anything but I was the only guy and coming into a small ass room listening to stories of how your kid threw up on you while breast feeding at Target is not the way I want to start my morning. The kiss ass girl there always had a sick kid. I'm talking always had a cold or something. Nothing major. She'd come in and ask the other girls if it was normal for her daughter to have X color poop. One day I just got up and walked out and didnt come back for like 5 hours. Couldnt take it anymore.

Would I like to go work for a smaller firm where it would be more relax, social, and friendly. But the $$$ with the larger firms keeps me here.

[Whostheboss]

...

[Whostheboss]

Originally Posted by EALm4

For me, I started out small and kept moving up to bigger firms. There's not much need for what I do in smaller business. My work keeps me segregated from other employees as the potential of a conflict of interest may arise.

Sometimes I feel like a prisoner that has moved from Jail, to min security prison, to max security prison, to solitary confinement with suicide watch. lol

When I was with the smaller firm, it was great, had tons of friends, and it was almost like a frat house. We all worked out of a "pit" style work area and it was very social. But the pay was garbage and as growing older, everyone there needed to make more money to support their new borns, kids, pay for that engagement ring. So we pretty much all left.

After I left there - the larger firms had stricter protocols for what I do. To a point where one place even had me in a secure room, biometrics, filmed the entire day, and the room had "frosted" glass and there was only 4 of us in there. Not to be sexist or anything but I was the only guy and coming into a small ass room listening to stories of how your kid threw up on you while breast feeding at Target is not the way I want to start my morning. The kiss ass girl there always had a sick kid. I'm talking always had a cold or something. Nothing major. She'd come in and ask the other girls if it was normal for her daughter to have X color poop. One day I just got up and walked out and didnt come back for like 5 hours. Couldnt take it anymore.

Would I like to go work for a smaller firm where it would be more relax, social, and friendly. But the $$$ with the larger firms keeps me here.

If we can make big company money while working for smaller companies! Dream job!

[EALm4]

Originally Posted by Whostheboss

If we can make big company money while working for smaller companies! Dream job!

absolutely. Not many smaller companies do what I do though. If they do its because it was outsourced to them and well....pays shit

[ASAP]

Small small small small.... conversation is over...

Preferred scenario is a small company that is about to turn medium and you can get equity stake... Big company = beaurcracy, stifling of innovation and loads of BS as well as repetiveness

Also, at least from my experience, the smaller companies paid better because they didnt have caps like large companies nor any ranges of salary.

[PoorLurker]

Smaller companies would be hard to work for when you can see waste in one hand while your phone in the other hand just got an email about how money is tight and you won't be getting a raise this year.

Wife worked at a company with less than 100 people. Small family feel, but they took advantage of her.

They would reward the people who would threaten to quit while screwing the people who keep their head down and work hard.

Gets to the point where ethical people start to question their ethics about work production and question themselves if they should start "playing the game".