Pros
-Opportunity to collaborate with some talented and hardworking individuals at the ground level
-Networking with corporate-side workers provided some professional value
-The work itself offered the chance to develop and implement meaningful process improvements across cross-functional teams
Cons
-Zero transparency from day one. At no point during the interview process, onboarding, or throughout the duration of employment was there any honest communication about the stability of the position, the status of the contract, or the risk of layoff. This is a fundamental failure of employer-employee trust.
-Selective retention handled without professionalism. When the project contract ended, the decision to retain certain employees was communicated in a remarkably tone-deaf manner, employees were made aware of who was being kept through informal and visible means rather than through private, respectful individual conversations. This caused unnecessary distress and humiliation for those not selected, and set a culture where the situation was treated casually by leadership's inner circle while others faced abrupt job loss with less than a week's notice.
-Accountability was virtually nonexistent at the leadership level. Multiple individuals placed in supervisory and management roles demonstrated a consistent lack of engagement with their teams' day-to-day work. Direct reports regularly outperformed their managers in output and awareness, yet those same underperforming leaders are being retained and assigned to new projects, sending a clear message about what the company actually values.
-Performance was measured by presence, not output. There was an evident culture of rewarding hours logged over results delivered. Employees collecting significant overtime with little measurable output went unchallenged, while those driving real results with greater efficiency were overlooked. This misalignment of metrics created frustration and diminished morale.
-No clear performance or progress framework existed. Despite working on a defined project with a lifecycle, there were no meaningful metrics or accountability structures in place to track individual or team contributions. This made it impossible for high performers to differentiate themselves through merit alone.
-Leadership was aware of the contract situation and chose silence. It is difficult to believe that upper management did not have sufficient advance notice of the contract loss to communicate more transparently with employees. The lack of disclosure while employees continued to invest effort and goodwill into the project is a serious ethical concern.
