Prompted by another recent post, thought I'd describe the "culture" at the privately held megacorp I work at and see what comments it drew. I've enjoyed my career for the most part until the past few years. But this recession has brought to life the adage 'tough times bring out the best in some people, and the worst in others.'
There is a Darwinian aspect to every workplace and maybe even dominant in some departments within companies. But it's the overriding mechanism where I work from the CEO and all the Officers down, which naturally trickles throughout the organization. Not working together and poor performance are routinely tolerated throughout the company. People subtly but clearly undermine each other and that's tolerated as well - as long as it's not overt and blatantly obvious. Instead of intervening, they've clearly taken the position the right people and ideas will prevail, so we'll just let the conflicts play out. [added: the CEO, Pres & VP's literally just watch while people at all levels of the company bash each others heads in, and wait for a winner. The Officers are all hard-working and technically well qualified - but their leadership/managerial skills are mostly awful.] As you might expect, the best ideas have not always prevailed, personalities and alliances have an equal chance to rule the day.
I could go on and on with examples, but anyone else ever worked in such an environment where it permeates the entire organization? When you have a bad boss or localized situation, you can often move to another department to get away from it. Not where I am...
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