Stagnant values, products. Record profits? - Senior Design Engineer PACCAR Employee Review

-Engineers spend 80% of their time on non-engineering activities such as making PowerPoints, attending conference calls & harassing suppliers regarding cost & timing related matters (to name a few) -Too many layers of middle management, all bumbling to distort reality to conform with the Chairman's ideas on what it is or should be. --Afraid to fail, so failures are covered up or purported to be external --Importance is relative & transient. Mostly owing to the Chairman's fickle whims (i.e. the "Eye of Sauron") -Mediocre monetary compensation for someone working 40 hrs/week, let alone the actual 50+ expected -Conservative by every measure. Both in the social format of the workplace and in the willingness to expend resources toward a new idea not guaranteed to contribute to next quarter's profits -Outsourcing any actual engineering to suppliers (always the lowest bidder and/or currently in favor with Corporate Purchasing) or to India. Quality usually suffers, and engineers morph into project managers forced to ride those doing the work but with little opportunity to build any true expertise on the material. Expertise & responsibility are maligned terms, with the former presupposed on the latter & the latter nebulously defined/allocated. -Promotion to level of incompetence: Capable and reliable colleagues are rare, as those demonstrating such tendencies are either promoted elsewhere or make the determination that PACCAR is not for him/her. While not true of all, at least 60% of employees have resigned to donning a brain slug along with the tie and rely on apathy as a coping mechanism. Motivation for most is probably best summarized by, "what is the minimum amount I need to do to have the fewest number of people riding my back to get what they want?"