Hutchinson reviews

Overall vision of business is not fully clear

Deciding to accept a position at Hutchinson Sealing Systems was the biggest mistake I have ever made in my career. The position and more importantly the work environment that I was promised was an outright lie. I was told by the CEO during my interview that teamwork was king. Back-stabbing and hostility were not tolerated, and people had been fired because of it. Right off the bat, some of my co-workers informed me of the uselessness of some of the other departments. Complaints about specific individuals from those departments, which included some very unflattering nicknames, were a common occurrence. An additional comment on the environment: women were called "girls" and treated as less knowledgeable or important and asked to do things that "girls" would do back in the day. I was being trained by a retiring employee who had no idea how to train someone effectively. This employee trained by pivoting at light speed from screen to screen, talking just as fast, in no specific order, with no established training plan and no work instructions, no time given to take adequate notes, and an attitude. And showing you something once was apparently all you needed, because if you asked for help after that or didn’t remember something that was briefly pointed to on a screen three days ago, you were belittled and bullied. The CEO did walk by one afternoon, though, and told me that they were aware that this person was NOT a good trainer and then said, "God Bless you for sticking it out." Some people should NEVER be allowed to train without knowing HOW to train. There is a training plan with work instructions that need to be prepared so that if they are no longer there, the work can still be completed. The bullying I was subjected to extended beyond the job training and into the work environment. Those who had been friendly to me in the very beginning were no longer friendly and actively avoided me. I could hear the person training me whispering (loudly) to others, complaining about me. (I am pretty sure this would fall under back-stabbing.) And this had nothing to do with me as an individual! I am a very friendly person. But in this case, that didn’t matter. I was doomed to never be accepted into my department, and now that was being extended to others in the rest of the company that barely knew me in the first place. I talked to my boss, who understood exactly what I was going through and hoped that I would stay on until the position was all mine so that we could analyze and redesign it. That was the first time I felt hope. But as soon as my boss shared my struggles with the CEO, I was brought into the CEO’s office with the one training me. I was given no opportunity to refute the comments of the CEO who stated that it had been reported that my performance was "abysmal" and that the person training me was a “trusted employee of 20 years,” had been a confidant, and built up most of the systems in place. So, it was told to me that it was time to have my trainer give me timed tests and then, if the trainer agreed that I passed those tests, then the CEO would give me much more rigorous tests to pass, in order to see if my resume was "a bunch of hooey". With a bachelor's degree, an MBA, and many years of successful accomplishments, I left that office and sought out HR to resign. After I left Hutchinson, I finally got a good night's sleep!