Upper management consists of family and friends of family. Empirically, I’ve seen family members sleep in their offices (often) during core working hours, and others only work a few hours per day (2-3, often shouldering their work onto other employees). They are the last ones to arrive to work, and more often, the first ones to leave. There was no shortage of strongly supported, unfriendly comparisons made about upper management by people both vertical and horizontal, e.g. fork-tongued, Satan, etc. Anecdotally, this should lend some credence to how badly management treated some of its employees. An organization’s culture starts at the top, and this culture is one of shortcuts, sloppy work, a lack of integrity, and duplicity on the regular.
I decided to wait a year to write my review because I feared that Merit would decide to interfere with the rebuilding process of both my personal and professional life. I have my suspicions (on which I try to be objective and fair) that they have already tried.
During my time at Merit, clients were regularly deceived about samples; for example, if an analyst broke a jar, Merit would tell the client that one of its instruments malfunctioned. I remember one particular example when a sample went completely missing before analysis, and Merit decided that instead of admitting fault, it would be better to cover up its tracks, and weeks later, lie to the client. These types of situations happened regularly. Merit avoids anything that might make it seem incompetent at all costs, so the culture of the company reinforces lying to cover up mistakes rather than making simple, honest admissions.
Merit tends to hire people fresh out of undergrad for most of its positions. Merit’s hiring policy is to ask employees to re-locate close to the lab, and that’s fine, but the flip side is that they try to lowball them with a salary that is not commensurate to the work requested or to the area in which Merit is located. …from what I saw, most new hires either told Merit to pound sand and lived wherever they pleased or simply ignored the location policy. I decided to play the game by their rules and conform to the policy. Whether intentional or unintentional (my bet is on the first), I found that Merit’s location policy can act somewhat like a financial vice, discouraging you from seeking employment elsewhere. Career advancement is also a dead end (unless you have family ties). Merit has a culture of exploiting vulnerabilities in its employees – a practice that is intolerable and deplorable.
A few months after my hire, I went into work one day and was blindsided by a surprise meeting with upper management. I felt like was being cornered. I walked out of that meeting with my workload doubled, and my counterpart was moved to another position within the company without my prior knowledge. My job suddenly became two jobs (on some busier days, it was more).
I was expected to perform the work of, at minimum, two jobs while HR performed a search for a new employee (that search never happened). Despite my workload doubling, I was denied any increase in salary. Before this, separate, verbally agreed upon salary increases were promised to me as a condition of hire, i.e. “within six months of work we’ll increase your salary to X.” These planned increases went totally ignored by upper management. The only increase I did receive, I had to vigorously battle management for, and it was only 40% of what I was initially promised as a condition of hire. Regardless, I worked very arduously to attempt to meet unrealistic performance expectations. Merit’s inconsiderate, toxic, and intentional culture created undue stress. That culture and stress, along with tolerance for incompetence and encouragement of nepotism and cronyism, regularly seeped into my personal life and strained my relationships.
Before I was terminated abruptly, on a national holiday, without any prior notice (no warning, no meeting), I had to endure threats, intimidation, and surprise meetings/reviews from the leaders of this company (meetings to which others were not subjected - essentially, they were used as a form of hazing by having others take potshots at my performance as a group). As part of my termination, Merit offered to provide me a reference for my future. Skeptically, I decided to take them up on their offer, and when the time came, the e-mails sent by the companies with whom I was interviewing went completely ignored – as expected.
Working at Merit should be last on your list of potential employers, and for me, it probably would’ve been better for my career to have never worked there in the first place. If you do choose to work for Merit, be very, very cautious. One very important thing that I would have done differently would have been to ask for written copies of nearly every single agreement, discussion, or meeting because the word of management absolutely cannot be trusted, and this is the real source of its problems. There is no trust with employees and certainly not with clients because management keeps harming its partners. This company will lie, deceive, and defraud if given the chance. I feel that two stars are deserved, if only for the other rare people who were excellent team players and great co-workers, who would go out with me for lunch, helping pull me through dark days (the feeling was mutual, I’m sure). Hopefully, they will, or already, have been able to exit this absolutely horrendous company, and the vicious cycle to which the company knowingly, willingly, and intentionally subjects its lower level personnel. Caveat emptor
