Dell

Nothing I can think of.

Where to start?

Politics – Totally passive aggressive. Everyone is pretending to be your friend all the while they are trying to stab you in the back to get ahead. Heads of departments avoid confrontation at all costs. How do you rise to a VP or SVP without dealing with confrontation? Lying is expected and encouraged here. This gets funny because they forget which lie they tell to whom and routinely get caught and laugh it off. They won’t outright fire someone, scared to, so they pick at people until they’ve had enough and quit.

Collective IQ – This is the dumbest company I’ve ever worked for; they give new meaning to the Peter Principle. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are smart people here, but on a whole, the smart people can’t raise the collective IQ. Everyone is waiting for their green card to exit this company.

Petty – Had to go over to see it myself. They have management in another building that counts disposable cups and complains that too many are being used. They have posted signs on the coffee machine that only people that work in his group or visitors can have drinks or snacks.

Benefits – Worst benefits in the valley, full stop, real third-world stuff. They had a “Tell Dell” survey last year, and benefits came out as something major for the company. In the end, the only change they made was reducing the company matching 401K, and benefits stayed the same. When I started, I had to bring in proof that my kids were indeed mine. People have to pay out of pocket for routine tests that at every other company I’ve worked at were covered; things like blood tests, X-rays, etc., are not covered. Don’t get me started on their “health screening and wellness”; employees signed their health history away for ~$600 or two months’ paycheck contribution. Now they have people’s health history; god knows what they’re planning to do with it. BTW, if you’re a fan of drug testing, then Dell has something waiting for you.

IT – Absolutely nothing works: their systems, their laptops, and/or desktops. They force an operating system that resembles Windows, and everything is locked down—access to outside internet resources, applications, everything. Still, it didn’t stop widespread virus problems from hitting the company. Their hardware is the worst; someone in another building’s laptop almost started on fire in his bag on the way home. Machines routinely reboot for no reason, and ports are disabled.

They have an application for every function. There are literally hundreds of applications that you have to use for PTO, Benefits, etc., and most only work through IE6. You have to get permission to have admin rights on your machine but still can’t do anything. They made a change to accessing email, forcing everyone to Windows and Outlook; this left the Linux engineering community out in the cold. All meetings run through Skype, which barely works. It normally takes 5–10 minutes to get a meeting started because of Skype issues.

Travel – There isn’t a published process on travel other than to be cheap (except if you’re an executive). I know someone that had a medical issue that had to travel, and after a doctor’s excuse and weeks of process hurdles, they got a dispensation to travel internationally in business. This was scrutinized by management and called into question every time they were required to travel. Reports on “exceptions” are reviewed by the division heads quarterly, and you don’t want to be on that report.

Tell Dell – They tell you that the internal survey is anonymous, yet you have to put in your User ID. You give them honest feedback, and they know where it came from.

HR here for their own good. They have HR reps for every function, and they are all over the country. They routinely skip the people they are working for, manufacture problems, and go to the division heads so they can look good. One of the heads of HR would not meet with employees until they submitted questions in writing. When they didn’t get enough, the person canceled meetings with employees because he was afraid of what they might ask him.

Have and Have Nots: Sr. directors and above get perks: travel in business, paid phones, special laptops, and other perks, setting up a class system in the company.

And just in case, micromanagement is also king here. To get an expense report or anything completed, it needs to involve at least 4–5 layers of management, reminiscent of a 1950s manufacturing culture.

Bottom line here – I could go on, but let’s leave it at: this is the most toxic company I’ve ever seen in the valley.

None. If Dell wanted it fixed, they would have done so already.