Oriental Trading Co. Employee Reviews for Anonymous Employee

"Pros: - 40% discount on entire catalog - As many free, cheap, off-season mostly broken or defective Chinese toys and party supplies as you can haul away Cons: - The hiring managers will lie to you about for what work you are being hired (happened to me). - The data center is a mess of cables, haphazardly placed cabinets, and undersized, unsupported hardware. (If I saw this during my interview, I would not have accepted the job.) - The entire IT department is poorly organized and badly mismanaged. This was a catalog company that just decided one day to get on the Internet and it shows. There is no rhyme or reason for how work is done. The change management process is chaos, there is no method (Agile or otherwise) for how their software is developed and implemented, there is a lot of technical debt and no emphasis on or even interest in changing that. In other words, stuff breaks all. The. Time. - Managers frequently argue (and I mean *argue*) with their subordinates about their opinions, knowledge and experience when you try to use it to improve the environment (do not think this is a "fixer upper" company by any means). This is as close to the legal definition of a hostile workplace as you can get without literally discriminating against a person's sex, race or whatnot. You *will not* be treated with respect here. - The employee discount is really a con because the stuff in the catalog/website sucks. Honestly. They gave me a $25 merchant credit and, after searching the whole place, all I got was Easter candy. - You will be brought in to the department and left to fend for yourself as far as learning the environment and the corporate policies on time keeping, sick time, expense reimbursement, etc. - I could add more, but this is no place for an experienced IT professional to go. I started thinking I had made a mistake a week after I started and, after just a few months, I'm sure of it now. I am currently looking for alternate employment."