Where should I start?
- Heads up to anyone applying as a contract-based PDA in the COVID diagnostic lab: you will be paid apprx. $8k less than the fulltime employees but will still be expected to perform the same tasks, work the same hours, and show the same level of dedication as the employees making more than you.
- Upon hiring, they tell you they typically convert contractors to FTE after 3 months. This is not true, and many people were/are stuck on a contract for over a year.
- Favoritism was rampant and it seemed promotions and (some) FTE offers were determined less so by work ethic and more so by a person's ability to befriend the right people.
- Personally I felt that contractors were treated with far less respect by management than FTE despite, again, doing the same exact job for far less pay (and no benefits!).
- On that note, upper management is terribly disorganized: up until June, new employees were being onboarded every week. Then came a round of layoffs. Then, as the need for testing ramped up in the fall, they found themselves understaffed, an issue further exacerbated by a bunch of people leaving. Throughout this, management expected employees to run at 150% productivity (still refused to convert contractors to FTE!) and tired to offload blame for their lack of foresight onto PDAs.
