This article lists ten signs of a bad workplace. I think I've experienced them all at one time or another. I'd be interested in others reactions to the list. Ten Unmistakable Signs Of A Bad Place To Work | Forbes
Yeesh.... My company doesn't have a no-moonlighting policy, per se. But we do have all of our engineers sign an agreement that we own anything they make while they are here. If they invent someone outside of work they retain full rights. But if they use company resources (including our computers or work time) then we get to keep it. Seems fair to me. To those who want to write code for their "side app" on company time it often comes off as incredibly unfair. No reference policy? Yeah, have that too. Though we are likely changing it. We don't enforce it for positive references. But if a manager gives a negative reference it can find you out on your butt. Managers controlling internal transfers. Yeah, I wish we didn't have that. It really is a bad thing. Imagine getting a decent starter job and, five years later, finding your next step up. But you can't leave because your boss refuses to let you and they can stop you from departing with very little recourse. Nasty stuff. It's true that many jobs cannot be broken down into measurable parts. But many can. In HR, one of our metrics is how many requisitions we close and how quickly we close them. Will I get fired if I take a whole year to hire that super special engineer where only five people in the country actually meet the qualifications? Probably not. But if a hiring manager complains that I'm not providing any candidates for a mechanical engineer posting then reviewing those numbers can reveal a lot about how I spend my time. I'm a bit confused by their statement about "pay grades" as I've never experienced a civilian employer who was that hung up on such things. As a sailor I did routinely hear the civilians taking this sort of position. "I'm not gonna stand here and take that sort of crap from some GS-9!" Then again, most of them were former military where that kind of crap flies. And if you get worked up about progressive discipline because "you're an adult" then perhaps you should act like it and not get huffy about progressive discipline. The alternative is typically much less pleasant and involves managers firing people on the spot because they didn't have their morning cup of coffee. There are people who are happy at large corporations and people happy with very small employers and miserable people at both. No corporate structure can fully stamp out abusive managers. And if you have an abusive manager, odds are, they can exploit any system to screw you with it.
