I will break this down by things that are general to anybody to things that were more specific to me.
the building:
- super old (70s) and the type of people reflect that
- feels like an abandoned middle school
- only the part you will enter and interview has been renovated, so don't let that trick you. take 20 second to walk anywhere else to feel the reality of it
- smelled like wet socks constantly
- somehow was hotter/more humid inside than it was outside (which is insane for texas)
interview/hr:
- make sure you understand who your manager will be. my manager changed from the one I was told it was during the interview process (and enjoyed) to another person who interviewed me and was clueless.
- make sure you understand what your tasks will be in reality. what was told to me as things they wanted to do where radically different than what they had planned for me (and never communicated).
- on day 1, during benefits sign up... I was looking at the plan to choose and saw two numbers for the cost. I asked the hr lady, "what is this second number?" the reply, "oh, that is what flex will pay for you". so i asked, "why show that number?" the reply, "so you can be grateful" ... are you kidding me!?!
- your benefits do _not_ start on day 1. they start on the 1st of the month. so if you start on the 15th... you're waiting a couple weeks for any benefits to be active. that was _never_ communicated to me and was a big shock on day 1, and for a guy with a 3 month old baby... was not a very good shock.
team/manager:
- this is specific to me or anybody going into the global/corporate networking team
- there is an enormous divide in talent... you have the somewhat knowledgeable architects and then the operations team that are basically all new people learning networking concepts. this breeds a huge attitude and power trip by the architects who hog any training for themselves to pad their resumes.
- nobody was accountable for anything. in fact, during a week long exercise to do something, the last day there was time set aside to do a "lessons learned"... which was quickly de-railed by somebody changing the subject because the lessons learned would point out their mistakes.
- my situation is pretty obvious... i had a manager that was a 'yes man' and failed up and was clueless about anything related to network automation/programming. so anything i said was just falling on deaf ears with a glazed over look and then thrown out the window.
- I actually heard the phrase "I expect you to learn from these things" and when I asked what "things" he was referring to (literally, was never defined), the reply was "I don't have any examples, but I expect you to learn from it. And I have now officially said this to you, so please learn" ... you can imagine that a completely ridiculous statement like that from your manager is very scary. I mean, "learn X" without defining X. wtf is that?! so weird.
