Management's leadership was unethical, lacked focus, direction and was only interested in profit. Interest in utilization hours bordered on an unspoken but strongly implied directive to get work completed by not accurately reporting worked hours. Hard work was rarely acknowledged except for those of the annointed and exclusive few who mirrored the unethical traits of management. Management was condescending, patronizing and narrow minded. I found the people I worked with to be disingenuious, lacking integrity to principle.
Ernst & Young however gave me a number of immeasurable what I call "life gifts:"
Working there taught me that a great salary can not compensate for how difficult it is to work for and with people who demonstrate a lack honesty, truth, loyalty and integrity to principle. If it is your desire to be the very best you can be professionally and personally, ones who lack a moral compass are incapable of providing a working environment that inspires one to reach those aims.
Another great lesson I learned is to never work for a company that isn't at least striving to emulate the very values it is requiring it's employees to demonstrate. Working for Ernst & Young was a wake-up call on the accountability front. Employees are daily inundated with accountability propoganda about the importance of working hard toward the objectives of the company and team, professional development, demonstrating your value. and on and on it goes. Of course, hearing and seeing this propoganda advertised on every possible front, the assumption then is that E&Y lives by the very "accountability values" it espouses. How, would E&Y not live the very values it asks its employees to demonstrate? How could it not be accountable? I found out that it is actually quite easy and saw it demonstrated almost daily.
