Epic Systems

100% the biggest pro is the people you meet and work with. If anything, the only good thing I got out of Epic was the lovely people I got to work with day to day.

The food was pretty good, the pay was nice coming straight out of college with a major in English, and I did really enjoy the fact that I had an office (even with an officemate), as the open floor concept I work in now is just not the same.

I had a lot of issues while working at Epic. I felt like I was working in a cult. I got talked to once because I worked only 43 hours one week instead of the "expected" 45 or more (which I was never told was an expectation). I was constantly bogged down with never-ending work, and my mental health degraded because Epic does its best to isolate you, force its culture down your throat, and make you work endless hours so that it's the only thing you can focus on.

For years I've wanted to write a review, but I could never exactly sum up how bad working at Epic was for me. But I do have one story:

When I decided I needed to leave, I started applying to jobs. Unbeknownst to me, when I applied to a job using Indeed, I accidentally posted my resume publicly.

In QA, you have a meeting with your TL once a week. I accidentally posted my resume online on Sunday, and on the next Tuesday, my TL had a note in my agenda that she wanted to discuss what my future plans were.

When I got to the meeting, after discussing my workload, she says to me, "So HR flagged your resume when you posted it online this weekend." I was then forced to discuss why I wanted a new job. I was totally put on the spot and did not know what to say or do with myself. My TL told me she had considered marking me as "endangered" in some back-end, secret system of employees, because I seemed like a "flight risk."

I don't blame my TL, because she was forced into this position. Epic, in a sense, was trying to force me to stay and confront me about the situation. Something just seems so wrong about that?

What's funny is I might have stayed longer if that situation had not happened. Everyone should be allowed to leave a job and search for a new one in peace. If Epic actually cared about me, they would be asking me why I wanted to leave and what was so wrong with the company that I felt the need to leave only after a year, instead of forcing me to talk about my life and then causing intense paranoia that my job was watching me.

Epic's fundamental problem is that it's toxic. Its culture is draining, and they seem to have no sense to actually take the steps that are needed to fix the issues it has.

Props to the people who stay, but I don't think I was made for a company as such. I once saw a reviewer call it a "mediocre cult," and I couldn't agree more.

HR: Stop playing games with people's mental health and actually help the people you're supposed to look out for.

Searching for people who want to leave and then making them talk about it seems quite authoritarian, and like it should be illegal.