TransPerfect reviews

You travel to work with a stone in your stomach and return ready to cry. One of my colleagues had a dispute with the General Manager and I was called by HR in London to provide evidence which could be used against my colleague. They pretended this was just an employee survey, but it was quite clear to me what they were after and I refused to corroborate the statements they presented to me. Nevertheless, my words were twisted and my statements were rephrased in such a way that they shed a very unfavourable light on my colleague. When I saw what they had made of my testimony I protested. I received a very brief acknowledgement from HR, but later the twisted version was used anyway. Three other colleagues were asked to help build the case as well, and I suspect they were too scared to protest and cooperated. We never discussed the matter among ourselves because we felt too embarrassed by having been brought in such a situation. Three months after my refusal to cooperate, my contract was terminated. This is exactly the way the colleague with the dispute had said it would end, in spite of the fact that my team manager had claimed that I had nothing to worry about. This all happened nearly a year ago, and I felt so miserable after this experience that I was unable to apply for another job until quite recently. Working at TransPerfect completely damaged my self esteem and many of my co-workers have had the same experience. There is absolutely no point in working here. There were fewer than forty people working in Utrecht, but there was no way you could get to know everyone since the turnover is so incredibly high. It was a horrible experience.

The pervasive management technique is instilling fear. The method used is quite simple: you will be praised highly and be told how very special and talented you are, and what great future is in store for you with TransPerfect. Then, when you make the slightest mistake, are unable to do overtime on a particular day or dare to question the decisions of your manager, you will be shouted at, humiliated in front of all your co-workers, be told you are a piece of s. and it would be better if you found another job. The next day, you will be praised again, told that you should not take the treatment of the previous day personally and should understand that your manager was just following orders from his manager in Barcelona. Then, after a week, the abuse will be repeated, followed by profuse reconcilliation again. This is how lover boys prey on their victims and make them completely dependend: your manager will play the same game with you. Staff turnover is unreal (between 50 and 100 per cent in any given year), pay is just above legal minimum (for project managers with a university degree) hours are long, overtime is mandatory (and unpaid). The unpaid hours are presumably compensated with time off, but taking time off is linked to meeting unreallistically high targets. You will hardly ever reach any of these, and lose the unpaid overtime hours when you quit your job. This is the standard system used at TransPerfect, and copied from the Barcelona office. Absolute dead end job - no financial prospects, no prospects of promotion in terms of job content. You will spend your days sending translation jobs to the cheapest translators you can find, trying to cut their rates even further, and fighting with Sales about impossible deadlines. This is a white collar sweatshop where workers are just a commodity; they can be used and discarded at will.