Pros
Could be turned around by replacing our "leaders".
Cons
Sometimes it feels like there are only two things that matter for people hired at high levels. Did you get poached away from Celanese? Will you be a yes man? If yes to both then congratulations on your new job. Female coworkers tell me they are underpaid and have been disregarded for promotions even after years of excellent performance reviews. I can't speak to diversity concerns because the level of diversity here is shockingly low. It takes one finger for me to count the number of African Americans I work with in any routine fashion. It also takes only one finger to count the number of African Americans in a true leadership role, and that change was made quite cynically by the company as the BLM movement took hold. It wouldn't have happened otherwise. I can't think of any East Asians other than those in our Asian offices. I can only extrapolate that Ascend hates diversity and does not want to hire or promote a diverse workforce. People are quitting left and right. Now our CEO tells us to beg friends to join the company because Ascend's disdain for its workforce has made it hard to recruit. As usual our "leaders" have created a mess they can't handle and have to turn to workers for a bailout. Our company has a terrible reputation that our "leadership" has earned. No one would want to lose a friend by bringing them into this mess. I have to agree with the other reviewer who said recent positive reviews look like paid reviews. They are rife with lies. There is no "profit share" like one recent glowing review talked about. The truth is that there was no bonus this past year even though our CEO was bragging to the Houston Chronicle of great revenues during 2020 despite COVID and other challenges. I never heard of an actual company culture of failing upward until joining Ascend. Our "leaders" hate remote work and flex options. They are being dragged into this new reality kicking and screaming. I think that they want to micromanage us because they know they themselves cannot be trusted. Which is odd because they are actually paid a lot unlike those of us who depend on a simple bonus. The biggest con is that a lot of great people in lower to mid management have left or are in the process of leaving. This place feels hopeless and you know that everyone is doing their best to leave.