Horrible place - Customer Service Representative McMaster-Carr Employee Review

1.0
7 Mar 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Benefits, pay for your education and your children's

Cons

Where do I start? All the negative things have already been said. Being managed by 21 year old ivy leaguers who never worked before in their lives who make twice what you do. These kids think they are above everyone else. They literally walk down the hall with their noses in the air and don't even acknowledge us "lowly" workers. None of the supervisors or managers have business or managing backgrounds, most are art history or some nonsense majors who probably couldn't get a real consulting job. Everything is micromanaged. If you take your break at 9:03 am instead of the 9:00 am you're scheduled, you get chewed out. Don't even think about calling in sick or going to the bathroom in between breaks and lunches. They monitor and dock your pay and it shows up on your reviews for taking bathroom breaks or calling in sick. Use your vacation day to schedule your doctor's appointments. If there's a death in the family? Too bad. Use your vacation day to take care of those matters. If you get injured? Get a lawyer because the company will use your "time off to recover" against you in a later review and fire you. If you have kids? You better have someone else take care of them during school hours. Heaven forbid your child has a doctor's appointment or needs to leave school early due to an illness. That's on your review as well. There is no room to advance. Probably 1% of management were actually promoted from within, and those people have worked for several years before that happened. The rest are "management trainees" straight out of college. On the good side, they pay for your school and have good benefits. Just do your job and don't worry too much. Being fired and getting your "separation agreement" will be the best day of your life at this place.

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5.0
14 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

At least in the Systems department, it’s a helpful and collaborative environment.

Cons

3 days in office and potentially long commute from the city

2.0
4 Mar 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good salary, guaranteed bonus, opportunities for overtime

Cons

Management changes constantly, managers are either fresh out of college or have never done your role or both, so I felt like I was managing myself. The metric standards are so high you have to essentially be perfect month after month. The standards are completely unrealistic, robotic, and leave little room for a bad day. There is PTO but you are only allowed to take it if there are “available hours” for that day - everything is about capacity and squeezing out as much work from as many people as possible. Taking time off affects your metrics for the month, which I did not know until after I took my first week-long vacation - they are always looking at your performance in terms of the past year, so I had to try to overwork and correct the bad month I had, when in my opinion your PTO should be completely YOUR time and have no adverse effect. Mentally and physically strenuous, whether you are on the warehouse side or office side - go to the bathroom too many times in a day and it will become an issue - they expect you to be glued to your desk/post. Like I said, no room to be human.

7
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