What Cringe Company Office Culture Made You Quit?

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure if this is "cringe," but one of my tipping points was when my last organization decided to solve their considerable employee dissatisfaction issues by ... buying an expensive performance review system that depended on sort of overtly hostile encounter-group like reviews where the employees were supposed to be forced face their shortcomings and have some kind of personal breakthrough. This also came with anonymous reviews from coworkers (when coworkers making crazy anonymous complaints was already part of the company culture problem). Part of the weirdness is that according to the program, we were not supposed to call these "performance reviews" but instead "coaching." When I got my first "coaching" document with harsh criticism I insisted on calling in HR to address my issues in a professional manner with professional support, or having it retracted. My boss just threw it away

[Anonymous]

Set up a "fun committee"
to make sure employees were having fun. (We weren't.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Defense contractor early in my career:

Had a holiday party where we had to dress formally and the one senior woman came dressed for an 80s prom.

My hours were 6am to 3pm.

A coworker (male) asked me if I could drop off his dry cleaning for him downstairs.

A different coworker had a calendar with women in bikinis on it in his cube.

The guys would often go to lunch at a strip club nearby, supposedly because it had 1/2 price hamburgers.

I quit after 2 months.

Did we work at the same place? They would actually trick people into going to this strip club by not telling them what the "restaurant" actually was. The name of the place didn't make it obvious.

Also, I was working in IT and no one would let me pick up a desktop computer. I was in my 20s and perfectly able to do this...but of course I'm a woman. It crossed the line from courtesy to degrading pretty quickly....

[Anonymous]

Being told not to speak in any meeting unless being spoken to.

I was an adult with 10 years of experience and a Masters degree. I knew how to comport myself in a meeting.

[Anonymous]

Having to account for how I spent my time, down to the quarter hour. Daily. In multiple places.

Meanwhile I was doing the work of at least two people for a boss who often wondered why I couldn't do more. He found out when I left and the 2 people I trained to do my work couldn't keep up with the workload.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having to account for how I spent my time, down to the quarter hour. Daily. In multiple places.

Meanwhile I was doing the work of at least two people for a boss who often wondered why I couldn't do more. He found out when I left and the 2 people I trained to do my work couldn't keep up with the workload.

Law?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Formal team building. If you want to build a team, just have people go out for lunch. Or drinks.

My experience is that any team that needs team building…has wretched management and the focus should be there.

[Anonymous]

I was fresh out of grad school, making pennies and went out for someone's birthday lunch. I ordered a soup because it was cheap and then had to split the bill evenly with people who ordered apps a meal and dessert! $40 gone. I was a contract employee and made to feel like I had to go to these monthly birthday lunches to fit in. I was worried about not being renewed. Glad I found something else.

[Anonymous]

when my boss asked me to use the men's restroom on behalf of a subordinate who previously had unconfirmed cancer. He did want her to get covid-19.

[Anonymous]

An expectation that everyone was going to work until 10pm or later every day. One of my co-workers told me the secret to getting out by 6pm was to hire a transcriptionist and literally never stop working. He would dictate notes in the elevator, in the bathroom, etc.

This plus regular questions about how my children were handling the “trauma” of having their mother gone all of the time.


I left and found another job where I was paid a reasonable hourly rate for doing a reasonable amount of work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Formal team building. If you want to build a team, just have people go out for lunch. Or drinks.

My experience is that any team that needs team building…has wretched management and the focus should be there.

+1. The buzzword at my place of employment is “engagement.”
I agree that it would have been a lot more effective to just let people socialize and provide some food and drinks than it is to have us all sit quietly and listen to a presentation on how to be more “engaged.”

[Anonymous]

When my boss literally allowed parents at the private school where I worked to threaten to slash my car tires because I would not sleep with him. Then he had the nerve to apologize to my DH as he helped me load my stuff into my car after I quit. I gave them the courtesy of not leaving until they had hired my replacement.

[Anonymous]

Pressuring me to donate to the PAC. No f-ing way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having to account for how I spent my time, down to the quarter hour. Daily. In multiple places.

Meanwhile I was doing the work of at least two people for a boss who often wondered why I couldn't do more. He found out when I left and the 2 people I trained to do my work couldn't keep up with the workload.

Law?

No, law is worse, we have to account for our time in 6 minute increments. By client-matter number, sometime several task and activity codes, and then a narrative of what we did. God, I hate billing.

[Anonymous]

A liberal WFH policy but everyone was required to send a group email to both your working group and everyone in your office (which in my case had no overlap) every morning to explain where you were working and why. It was so weird. I get letting your direct supervisor know, or at least letting them know if you deviate from a regular schedule. But I would receive 20+ messages daily about where everyone was working, plus I hated having to tell everyone I was WFH when I did it because it was almost always related to a chronic health issue and I hated having to disclose that (or lie) every single time.

I know work FT from home (since pre-Covid) but companies like this that have never been able to figure out accountability around WFH must be a mess right now. Or maybe they finally figured out that you just have to trust your workers and then hold them accountable if they abuse that trust. Anyway, no emails me to tell me where they are working or detailed info about their doctor's visits anymore, and I'm so grateful.