Corporate BS

[Duncano]

Has anyone worked for a considerably big company? I have worked in several large organizations, and I really wonder why are they full of bullshit?

Companies like that have similar initiatives in terms of career development, innovative spirit, equal opportunities, open door policies and bla bla bla. But when you come up with some idea everyone's with their head up their ass. You tell em how to save X amount of budget - nah, not interesting, we're aware of that, yea for another year. You start going door to door - you suddenly don't follow a linear hierarchy in a matrix structure. In other words, no one really gives a shit. They just want to wrap it up into something shiny.

Maybe I'm unlucky, I dunno. Anyways, I'm curious to hear about your experiences.

[Deleted]

Has anyone worked for a considerably big company? I have worked in several large organizations, and I really wonder why are they full of bullshit?

Companies like that have similar initiatives in terms of career development, innovative spirit, equal opportunities, open door policies and bla bla bla. But when you come up with some idea everyone's with their head up their ass. You tell em how to save X amount of budget - nah, not interesting, we're aware of that, yea for another year. You start going door to door - you suddenly don't follow a linear hierarchy in a matrix structure. In other words, no one really gives a shit. They just want to wrap it up into something shiny.

Maybe I'm unlucky, I dunno. Anyways, I'm curious to hear about your experiences.

I worked for Coca Cola Enterprises (largest bottling company, producing Coca Cola under license of Coca Cola Limited. in the world) for two years. I worked in their logistics office based in Nottingham City centre and left due to some issues with senior management bullying...

I joined basically at the bottom of the ladder and worked my ass off for two years, to be told in my final appraisal I would "amount to nothing in the business as I do not fight my corner enough when I have good ideas". This coming from my boss, who had just promoted two female employees (one of whom had come back from a two year "secondment" due to wanting to go traveling...) to be my direct supervisors purely on the fact they had worked for the business longer. I enjoyed working there immensely until this point, because they treated me the best (despite the pay being poor) in the day to day working such as shifts, paying travelling expenses, holidays etc. but once my eyes were opened to the fact that promotions were not based on skill, but purely on length of service / boss liked you I realised it wasn't for me.

I would go back in a heart beat to be honest though, purely for the working conditions! However that bridge was well and truely burnt when I left six years ago...

[Duncano]

snip

Yea, I hear ya, it's gonna be 2 years in this company for me soon, and my next career step gets filled up with some external guy who has never worked for our company before. And now I'm one of those who's teaching him about our processes, lol. Nah, I'm not staying here for long, maybe 2 months more.

[Reeve]

Has anyone worked for a considerably big company? I have worked in several large organizations, and I really wonder why are they full of bullshit?

Companies like that have similar initiatives in terms of career development, innovative spirit, equal opportunities, open door policies and bla bla bla. But when you come up with some idea everyone's with their head up their ass. You tell em how to save X amount of budget - nah, not interesting, we're aware of that, yea for another year. You start going door to door - you suddenly don't follow a linear hierarchy in a matrix structure. In other words, no one really gives a shit. They just want to wrap it up into something shiny.

Maybe I'm unlucky, I dunno. Anyways, I'm curious to hear about your experiences.

I work for a company with about 5,000 employees. Does that count as big? I think of it as medium. In any case, I've been able to make pretty significant impacts on the organization over the course of my time here. You sound like you've got some bitterness, which leads me to believe you've just been working for the wrong companies.

[semaphore]

There are always good and bad companies. I've experienced the same in a small one too so I don't think iut's purely to do with size.

[howdydiddlydoo]

Has anyone worked for a considerably big company? I have worked in several large organizations, and I really wonder why are they full of bullshit?

Companies like that have similar initiatives in terms of career development, innovative spirit, equal opportunities, open door policies and bla bla bla. But when you come up with some idea everyone's with their head up their ass. You tell em how to save X amount of budget - nah, not interesting, we're aware of that, yea for another year. You start going door to door - you suddenly don't follow a linear hierarchy in a matrix structure. In other words, no one really gives a shit. They just want to wrap it up into something shiny.

Maybe I'm unlucky, I dunno. Anyways, I'm curious to hear about your experiences.

What you are describing is called "the pecking order".


When you learn to play the game a bit better, you'll understand why it's best to let managers do things themselves and withhold certain information from them.

And if you become a manager yourself, you'll see why "smart junior" is actually highly annoying, and not so smart after all.

[Wiyld]

My wife works for a massive company, one of the biggest, and the experience has changed as we have moved and changed locations that she works for. The thing with really big companies is that they get compartmentalized and each area can be very very different then another. She started in a smaller location that was kind of on its way out, there were layoffs and various cost cutting efforts. Opportunities to move up the ladder were almost nonexistent as the structure was weighted down by all these guys who had been there for their entire careers, were happy where they were and had no intention of changing jobs, being promoted or anything. The entire site had stagnated, it was a depressing place to work, to say the least. So, we picked the site with the nicest weather we could find, put in for the transfer, and now shes working in a large new location where most people change position every year or two at least, my wife has been moved to more important projects twice now in the 6 months we've been here. This is just the 'happening' place where money is being invested. Pretty much any and all ideas are entertained, internal movement is strongly supported and encouraged.


In my personal experience the small companies are the worst at what you describe. How are you going to move up the pecking order when there is only 1 person per job role? Unless they get fired, get pissed and quit, or the company suddenly grows enough to require adding more of those roles what are you ever going to do but your current role?

[Spectral]

I work for a government agency, which I'd guess is more laden with stupidity and arbitrariness than the typical large corporation. It seems to me that there's an inherent correlation between organizational size and plausible deniability, which leads to more people that don't handle their business; I think this is true in both government and business.

I'm lining up some interviews with mediums sized companies though, so we'll see soon enough!

[Wiyld]

I work for a government agency, which I'd guess is more laden with stupidity and arbitrariness than the typical large corporation. It seems to me that there's an inherent correlation between organizational size and plausible deniability, which leads to more people that don't handle their business; I think this is true in both government and business.

I'm lining up some interviews with mediums sized companies though, so we'll see soon enough!

In my last job I coordinated with a lot of government workers and the problem with them most often seems to be that they see their jobs as indispensable. If we can't live without those people, then what fear do they have of under performing?

"It's not like they can fire me, what would the city do then?'

[Reeve]

What you are describing is called "the pecking order".


When you learn to play the game a bit better, you'll understand why it's best to let managers do things themselves and withhold certain information from them.

And if you become a manager yourself, you'll see why "smart junior" is actually highly annoying, and not so smart after all.

Well that's a horrible way of looking at things.

I've had good bosses and bad bosses. The good bosses aren't intimidated by me and give me guidance, set me in a direction, and let me go. If I have trouble, I go to them and they help me work through it.

The bad bosses are intimidated or something, and they try not to let too many of my ideas go through. They want to control my output to a great degree and basically make me feel stifled.

In the end, the good bosses generally are more likely to rise in the organization, as they're seen as fostering fantastic employees and bringing them into better positions.

[209]

I've worked for large companies, state and federal government. In general they all operate the way you are describing. "Career Development" plans get old fast in my opinion. I have no desire to get into management and I am nearly at the top end of my software development career in terms of job title/rank so do not have much more than a plan to maintain that. Every year it is a pain in the ass to deal with.

There is always budget cuts and we get asked, usually multiple times a year, for ideas to reduce cost. None of our ideas are considered and usually nothing as far as we employees can see is actually cut. I noticed in each place they for sure prefer to make a single huge cut rather than several smaller sensible cuts. Almost always the best place to cut is contracting for various work but it never gets done for some reason.

Eventually you'll learn to just take your pay check and live with it. For 10 years I "fought battles" to propose and push ideas. After a while I realized I simply don't get paid to do so. I still do far more than my share of work... more than 2-3 others but no more stress!

[Spectral]

In my last job I coordinated with a lot of government workers and the problem with them most often seems to be that they see their jobs as indispensable. If we can't live without those people, then what fear do they have of under performing?

"It's not like they can fire me, what would the city do then?'

Ha, are you sure you're not just experiencing the complacency that comes with the knowledge that they're very, very hard to fire? I suspect that the biggest difference between government and private sector employees is that while both sectors have some good folks, the government is unable to shed its bad ones.

[209]

Ha, are you sure you're not just experiencing the complacency that comes with the knowledge that they're very, very hard to fire? I suspect that the biggest difference between government and private sector employees is that while both sectors have some good folks, the government is unable to shed its bad ones.

Part of the problem too in my experience is the government is unable to acquire and keep really good employees. Despite the perception that government employees are over paid, they usually get paid less than the private sector. I get paid about 15% less total compensation than if I were to work somewhere else in town as a software developer and I have to endure far more bullshit that is typical in a government setting.

It is true that some categories of government employees are paid better than private equivalent in total compensation (not direct pay still usually). And it is for sure true there are far too many layers of managers who get paid far too much. Almost every layer of managers above me are clueless dumb shits that are detrimental to success and they get paid about 50% more than me.

I stick around because I like the idea that my performance directly impacts my fellow Americans in a very real way. I don't write software so some rich company can make a few more bucks... I make a literal difference to people's lives. Not today though since I am on leave!

I have to admit the constant hatred of employees - especially at the federal level - is unfounded and difficult to deal with. Busting ass every day for a group of people that hate you is not easy to do. It only makes it easier to say screw it and become lazy like others. Your elected officials fail you every day as well as those that they appoint into positions... not your peons trying to carry out their flawed and political agenda.

[Skippy88]

Never been part of a big company but I will say some people don't like change. Locally we have had people oppose a McDonalds being built, a high school being built, and even a gymnasium being built onto an existing high school.

The other issue might be they lack the time and energy to implement the change.

My personal pet peeve though is when people come to me asking to implement a change even though I have nothing to do with company decisions. At least take your ideas to the right person.

[Gheld]

A couple years ago, I got my brother a job where I work. It's cold and flu season, and after having numerous health and safety meetings in which the H&S Coordinator appealed to people not to show up to work sick (for obvious reasons) (and we're supposed to get 40 paid sick hours a year) my brother took 2 sick days because of a nasty chest infection (but I assume the baws thought he was full of it because it was right after his wedding, although that's what a fucking doctors note is for (which my brother had obtained)) and he ended up getting put on probation for "excessive absenteeism".

[Duncano]

What you are describing is called "the pecking order".


When you learn to play the game a bit better, you'll understand why it's best to let managers do things themselves and withhold certain information from them.

And if you become a manager yourself, you'll see why "smart junior" is actually highly annoying, and not so smart after all.

I'll disregard the first part because situations can be different, but you actually seem like a person that would behave in such way, you'd probably turn down someones idea even if it was good. If my assumption is correct, can you elaborate more on your thinking process?

---------- Post added 2013-01-16 at 04:32 PM ----------

The bad bosses are intimidated or something, and they try not to let too many of my ideas go through. They want to control my output to a great degree and basically make me feel stifled.

In the end, the good bosses generally are more likely to rise in the organization, as they're seen as fostering fantastic employees and bringing them into better positions.

That's the reaction that I see every time, and I've seen it from at least 4 people among the top management, everyone I talked to so far. Makes me wonder why don't they use it for their own advantage, I'm fine with it, they can even delegate it to someone else.

[howdydiddlydoo]

I'll disregard the first part because situations can be different, but you actually seem like a person that would behave in such way, you'd probably turn down someones idea even if it was good. If my assumption is correct, can you elaborate more on your thinking process?

Nope. I would use your idea and praise you for it.


But your chances of getting a pay rise, promotion or anything else by putting forward good ideas drops down to not much because you are invaluable at your job.

Any manager that knows what he is doing will embrace and encourage all good ideas, get people working together as a team, then present this to his own superior and take all managerial credit for it.

Thats called "the pecking order", and thats just how life works.

[Hyve]

Has anyone worked for a considerably big company? I have worked in several large organizations, and I really wonder why are they full of bullshit?

Companies like that have similar initiatives in terms of career development, innovative spirit, equal opportunities, open door policies and bla bla bla. But when you come up with some idea everyone's with their head up their ass. You tell em how to save X amount of budget - nah, not interesting, we're aware of that, yea for another year. You start going door to door - you suddenly don't follow a linear hierarchy in a matrix structure. In other words, no one really gives a shit. They just want to wrap it up into something shiny.

Maybe I'm unlucky, I dunno. Anyways, I'm curious to hear about your experiences.

I've not worked for a corporation, but I am the COO of an international publishing company, and what you're describing is actually a plague within the Corporate / Business society.

Don't assume all are the same though. It depends who are you also. I'm always open to new concepts, but if I listened to everyone, I'd never get any time to actually make money for the company. At the top levels, it is much more relaxed and open I find.

I've had conversations with large companies, investors, directors and much more in Skype, while we're all still wearing our pyjamas. The world of business is on edge at the moment, people are reluctant to spend and so companies are worried that any major shifts in their company could scare any shareholders, or investors on edge and that isn't good if they're on the stock market.

You've been unlucky, but you need to talk to the right people. Don't talk to any managers, fuck 'em! Talk to the COO / CEO / CFO or anyone from the C-Suite (Chief ______ Officer)

[Dirgon]

I worked for a large company that does food service operations at sporting venues, and I worked at both venues where they operated in my area.

For the most part it was nice, at first, but I think the union had a lot to do with how terrible it was to work there. My boss did a decent job of making myself and another employee, a friend of mine, feel valued (because we knew we were, basically running things in his absence) but any requests for a raise or promotion to the position we were actually working were always denied. We were essentially supervisors being paid the same as everyone else. Other coworkers had problems with the fact I was brought in at the same rate of pay they were, even though some had been with the company for years. That problem went away after awhile since I was working my ass off.

Due to the union they couldn't get rid of the awful people I had to deal with, who were making my job hell on a daily basis by not doing theirs. Being at the end of the line on everything, someone skipping their job meant I had to be the one to get it done. I eventually quit, and took a torch to my bridges with the company in the process.

[Phuongvi]

In my own experience they are just a bunch of low self esteem motherfucker on a power trip.
The management are usually a bunch of pantsy YES MAN, they never say NO for custumer relationship reason and the most important thing, they have no freaking idea of what your job is about.

Those corporation are like if you are in politics: have a smile, say yes, make the budget cut in the employee salary, make promises and be full of shit.