This mommy museum was the most toxic working environment in my career. - Anonymous employee Stanford University Employee Review

Stanford is overloaded with spouses married to people with excellent incomes. These staff are strictly for the parental benefits. As a result it's a mediocre mommy museum on the staff side. Folks there are taking advantage of the child care benefit, and are hanging on for dear life for the college tuition benefit. As a hiring manager, it was shocking to me how many prospective employees expressed that as their reason to go to work for Stanford. What's even more shocking, is that these educated, but non-skilled people get hired. The result: an entrenched work force, low-skilled at the professional level with incredibly personal and nasty politics. Those mommies will do anything to hang on long enough to get their little darlings that generous tuition benefit, and they will stab anyone in the back if it's to their advantage. That includes a dean, the provost, and anyone else who might get in their way. And they will say as much. In public. Management is lousy, if non-existent. The HR department is a joke, especially given the number of egregious offenses that would not be tolerated in a half-way decent corporation. Toxic work environment. Stanford is the largest employer in Santa Clara county, Calif. (Silicon Valley). It has a great brand. It has long since outlived that brand as an employer. The worst.