Pros
- Stable employment, in that terminations are rare (unless you're a manager) and, for some reason, rich people are willing to pay exorbitant prices for the stuff. - Opportunity to get involved with plenty of machines and technologies (resume padding)
Cons
- Management: Untrained Arrogant Reactionary - don't plan ahead but rather react with quick poorly thought-out decisions in the rare instance decisions are actually made Unapproachable in most cases Ignore employee ideas and concerns (even those that are highly actionable and easy to fix) Resort to childish tactics when challenged (no confidence in their abilities) Revolving door - constant "restructuring" and turnover A safe harbor for managers who have proven themselves useless elsewhere. Zero actual leadership, definitely an "inmates running the asylum" situation. - No systems in place to reward achievement, and little opportunity to grow within the organization - Toxic, verging on abusive environment - Hectic and Chaotic, due to lack of planning - Deliberate lack of emphasis on training, resulting in an untrained staff. A high- ranking manager said "We don't train people, because then they leave." - Compensation below industry standard. No system to correlate pay with abilities, experience, or contributions. - Majority of resources go to Design Engineering, leaving scraps for Manufacturing. I can only speak to the manufacturing side of the business. Every "Signs of a Bad Company" article you've read applies to Crestron. It is an absolutely toxic environment. Pervasive throughout the ranks is a culture of blame, avoidance of responsibility, and arrogance. That arrogance among management leads to ignoring or dismissing the ideas of employees. While there are tons of managers, there are zero leaders. Management is exclusively concerned with how they'll look to their superiors, rather than leading their own team. There are few business related conversations, because everything is put into email in the name of accountability, when in reality it's a wiping of the hands making the issue someone else's problem. There are few meetings, because management could care less about your concerns or ideas. There is little pride in the work, because quality has been an afterthought from day one and continues to be outright neglected. Those who try to care are immediately mentally beaten down. The chaos caused by a lack of systems, procedures, and leadership allows incompetent managers to survive another day... every day. My immediate coworkers were an excellent bunch who made survival possible, but in the broader sense, there is no Crestron Team. Employees feel abandoned and betrayed, and the low morale is clearly evident to anyone paying attention. It's telling when almost no one retires from a company of its size, meaning there are very few long careers associated with the place. You either join as a terrible person, become a terrible person in order to survive and adapt, or become extremely frustrated. If you're unemployed, it's better than not working, but do NOT consider it a place for a career. I stayed for as long as I did because each time a new manager joined, I took it as an opportunity to restate my concerns, assuming the new person HAD to be different. Biggest mistake of my career, as I should have moved on long ago. I finally wised up and can appreciate the caliber of managers to whom I now report.