Pros
“All In.” That was the title for our Annual Report, which means that the entire year came with that mantra. I was most certainly “all in.” I landed an awesome job at a company with a culture that was seemingly hard to beat. I even had a manager who cared about my success while managing her team with professionalism and the right amount of stern-ness. Though I quickly found out that the latest office gossip was of high importance to some team members, my experience was off to a good start. Thank goodness because we spent about $10K to relocate for this opportunity! Luckily, I was soon promised to be remote since “you can do your job from anywhere.” What a relief since 95% of the job was handling items outside my base office.
Cons
Well…THAT was short-lived! I soon encountered the absolute most judgmental and biased manager of my career. I found out that the discrimination came straight from the top (race and sexual orientation are the main forms that I witnessed). This discrimination was rampant to the point that some teammates expressed concern to even bring significant others to company events for fear of rude comments and judgement. As another reviewer mentioned, there was SOME diversity in lower ranks. And that is where most of those teammates will remain while they continue to be overworked and underpaid. And guess what? That promise to work remotely…well, THAT went right out the window. Add on top of that the fact that I was forced to adhere to rules that the rest of the office didn’t. In other words, my dream job/company rapidly morphed into a total nightmare. Let me pause to say that yes, there ARE some wonderful people at FCCI that I made meaningful connections with. However, the wrong people advance very quickly. If you are popular and pretty, you will go as far as your heart desires! It is so unfortunate because those who sometimes do not even fully qualify for a promotion are promoted before their counterparts who are very deserving. I was asked to take on multiple tasks from those who were “terminated” since we wouldn’t fill the role in order to save money. Though I worked many nights answering emails/texts until midnight at times, worked during PTO, worked on weekends, almost never took a lunch break…it was not appreciated whatsoever. I once had a car accident while on an afternoon out of the office and still rushed home to complete an imperative task before end of day. ONE teammate…ONE showed any appreciation for that. When this teammate contacted my manager with praise, I was met with crickets. Now back to the extra tasks that I agreed to take on. Not only were those items not appreciated, they were UNPAID. Now, there have been plenty of teammates who received either a raise, bonus, or both when going above the call of duty. When I did confront my manger regarding the fact that there simply weren’t enough hours in the day to take on all of these tasks and still perform my normal duties with the utmost quality, my concerns fell on deaf ears. There was nobody to share these concerns with. I had already been told many times not to say a word about anything going on in the office to a board member and AVP…because I was told this team member just wanted to “seem important” and would only pretend to be interested in my grievances. In hindsight, I wish that I would have voiced my concern on many topics to her because the REAL reason that I was told not to talk to her was that HR would be exposed. Add in the minuscule diversity percentage company wide. The lowest that I have experienced in my career. Embarrassingly low (see popular professional networking site for more insight). Previous reviewers are 100% correct. Much of HR and upper level management is fake. Middle school on steroids mentality. FCCI will seek out teammates who will be likely to leave a positive review in order to balance out this one such as those who have received promotions most recently or are new. I know this first hand. Yes, the company has had bad reviews removed. No, teammates who have been terminated with severance are not able to post a review. These factors create a highly skewed rating. Save your time and sanity. Do your research. Look elsewhere.
