With everything I know now, I’m embarrassed to have worked for this organization. The people served by the American Red Cross deserve better. I would not donate my time, money, or blood to them. The org preaches how they respect donors, but after seeing the blatant inefficiency and mismanagement, I’m extremely disappointed and have lost any trust in them.
***Incompetent Management and Co-Workers***
-Incompetent, elitist, and arrogant management filled by people in roles in which they have no experience with or understanding of which is problematic in so many ways
-Poor communication and non-existent teamwork at every level
-Most technical work is outsourced to other countries to save money, but the work is of such poor quality it causes astronomical long-term costs to fix and creates more problems (so much for American jobs at an American nonprofit, right?)
-Lack of consistency and zero expectations for team members, meetings, action items, etc.
-Uncommitted to projects and initiatives, so nothing is taken seriously
-New hires are set up to fail; no orientation or universal onboarding process
-Lack of trust — you quickly learn not to outshine your manager or colleagues
-Wildly inefficient and disorganized
-Very, very hard to get work done because everything needs to go through managers that don’t acknowledge, help, or delegate
-Annual reviews are arbitrary and based on how your manager thinks, which is a mystery
***Unethical Executive Leadership***
-Authoritarian, hostile, and elitist executive leadership and directors
-Shockingly unethical decisions being made in 2025 at the executive level
-Self-serving use of toxic positivity to make themselves feel good
-Claims all voices are heard, but pretends to listen and isn’t serious about fixing issues
-Speaking up results in being talked down to
***Unhealthy Environment***
-Expectation and pressure to self-deploy to disaster sites and put yourself in harm’s way no matter your job, expertise, or level of comfort
-People are used with no concern for health, mental health, or personal safety at on-site events, meetings, or shelters
-At least 10+ meetings about the same topic over a long time period only to never reach resolution
-Depressing environment where everyone is suspicious of each other and keeps to themselves
-There is no place for career advancement. I never once saw someone advance or be promoted on any team. Ever.
-Expectation to do other people’s jobs
-I regularly felt insulted as a professional and as a technologist
***Lackluster Organization***
-Inequitable disaster services
-Compensation is not competitive
-Hypocritical stance of encouraging the use of AI
-Worth billions of dollars but prefers to find volunteers instead of hiring quality talent to fill gaps and invest in making critical improvements
-Volunteers keep the organization running with zero appreciation in return which feels awkward as an employee
-Uses nonprofit status as an excuse for serious issues they don’t want to deal with; they get away with it because of their power and prestige while people find themselves in desperate situations
