Busy business but management practice lacking - Project Scientist Aerostar Employee Review

I'll begin this section discussing management, or lack thereof. Too many chiefs, not enough Native Americans (gotta be PC these days). And most of the chiefs got into their positions because someone else left, not by training. All the principals and senior project managers, which seemed to be half the building, held a high opinion of themselves and the company. They never give positive reinforcement with the exception of Publix gift cards, and it was usually reserved for high "billability," or utilization rates. The only feedback received was negative. You never felt like you did anything right. They would ridicule an individual and his/her work when they QC'd (quality controlled) it, sometimes right in front of them, as if they were proud of themselves for having caught the mistakes. Oh, they're very proud of their septuple QC process. They liked yelling at you with red-inked, capitalized exclamations, often asking (with all lower case letters, per the community guidelines), "what the *bleep* are you talking about???", "what the *bleep* is that???", or "this is crap!!!" with no hint of professionalism or exaggeration of the number of punctuation marks used. They operated on three often-quoted mantras: "It's the Aerostar way," "It is what it is," and "Perception is reality." The first really means, our way is better than everyone else's way. The second means, put up or shut up. And the third means, if my desk is nice and neat, I must not have anything to do. If I'm walking lackadaisically to get a cup of coffee, I must not want to be there. No, I'm not joking. It's the Aerostar way. I've been told that outside its walls, Aerostar was considered the "Wal-Mart" of environmental consulting, meaning we always underbid everyone else's proposal cost estimates and other companies were left wondering how we'd be profitable. How we'd be profitable is simple: propose to do the same work with less man hours and less technology leading the already overworked field scientists to do hard labor with less hours. This paragraph was devoted to management, successfully exceeding the 20 word minimum. Other components to the management are bonuses and raises come review time. Before the buyout, this was pretty much unfair when you compared management to mid-level employees. Management gets the credit for bringing in the work, fair enough, but received disproportionately larger bonuses. It's better since the buyout with more fairness (I hope) and more transparency to our new parents. Office culture could best be described as oppressive. When you were inside to do office work, it felt as if there was this heavy object on your shoulders. People walked around the building looking dejected, shoulders sagged, and just looking defeated, but these same people were happy, chipper, very outgoing and so full of life when they were outside doing field work. I often looked for a way out, peeked at job boards to escape. I once confided with a co-worker what I was doing, and she told me she felt the same way, but she'd decided to ride the ship til it sinks. So I did, as well. Employees will stand a fairly good chance if this is their first job, as they have no frame of reference. A lot of guys that come in from other companies with lots of years of experience last maybe a few months before either moving on, or being laid off for reasons, such as, "it's just not working out" or "there are no projects coming in the near future." I came in from another employer and felt fortunate to last five years, or four years, 11 months, to be exact. Ironically, just before my five year bonus. If you're not in the circle, you're out of the circle.