Best Glassdoor Post

I haven't worked in Germantown for a year or so. Seems the same asshole is still running the site (with Chad the Magnificent helping out), with his little science cohort assisting in the hot mess.

This is the best Glassdoor review I have ever read. The only way it could be better is to have it illustrated. For instance, have someone on fire running from the production area. Please, read on.

"I have been working at Alcami (More than a year)

Pros

This review is directed to you, the job seeker researching Alcami as a potential employer. My goal is to provide some additional insight, or at least a perspective I believe to be different, which along with the other reviews will help you make the most informed decision possible. Ultimately, this is so you don’t make the same mistake I did. And if you decide to join Alcami, my goal is to help explain to you what you can expect in the year and a half or so that you’ll be with us.

At the time of this review, Alcami held an uncorrected rating of 2.0 stars here on Glassdoor. As a simple exercise, I compared Alcami’s rating to those of other companies with a presence in Wisconsin, home of Alcami’s Germantown facility. (It’s a simple search on the Company Reviews page for Location = Wisconsin, US.) I tallied the results of 500 companies, which represents just shy of 6% of the 8398 total, with the reasonable assumption is that the results can be extended to the remaining Badgerland companies. For those curious, Alcami’s rating was on page 44. The results are as follows:

2.0 stars or less – 3 companies

Greater than 2.0 stars – 497 companies

Congratulations, Alcami. Of the three companies at the bottom, you tied for second, putting your rank in the lowest 0.6%. A full 8348 of the total 8398 companies are rated higher than you. How bad is that? If you listed the highest rated company at the very beginning of this review, the lowest rated at the end, and then evenly spaced the other 8396 evenly between the two, Alcami would be located at the “&” symbol at the end of this review. Worst 0.6%. People, this is really, really bad.

I should mention that the reason I used the term “uncorrected” rating above is because their 2.0 score is artificially high. A handful of 4 and 5 star fake reviews were posted by Alcami management in 2018 after it was reported that several candidates declined offers citing concerns about Glassdoor postings. The ‘ratings trend’ link above will show you when this all started, and I’ll defer to you to guess what you think Alcami’s true score should be. (My estimate puts it at 1.6, which would give Alcami sole claim to the title of , ahem, Silver Medalist.) This sounds a bit conspiratorial theory, to be sure, but once you read the posts, it’s pretty clear which ones are minimal effort, zero passion, fake reviews. Contrary to what is claimed in just the last three, Alcami is not getting better, it is far from awesome, and the only culture it is growing is in the stagnant USP water pipes ubiquitously located throughout the poorly designed facility.

Admittedly, smoke but no fire. Well, here’s more smoke: Alcami had ONE positive review in 2017 and TEN so far this year. And they have the same “leader”ship, and nothing has changed. Believe what you want, but I have no doubt that Alcami management’s approach to improving the Glassdoor score was to simply put some window dressing on the problem using minimal effort in order to mask, but not bother to fix, the real problem.

And so, as this is the PROs section, I offer my positive comment: Alcami applies a consistent approach to resolving problems: identify the problem, completely skip identifying the root cause step, and go straight to painting lipstick on the pig hoping no one notices. Beside low Glassdoor ratings, this approach is used to mask serious issues, such as product quality defects, customer concerns, and process safety deficiencies. Keep up the consistency, Alcami!!

Lowest 0.6% rated company in Wisconsin. You can’t make this stuff up!!Show Less

Cons

If you are saying: “I might still want to work at Alcami; who can I see?” I offer simply: a psychiatrist. I suspect the rest of you are here because you enjoy a good old fashioned slow motion train wreck.

To the uninformed job seeker, it may be easy to fall for some of the well-groomed statements that Alcami advertises, besides the fake reviews. “A culture of innovation, accountability, and customer focus” looks good on paper, but to those who know, it’s as empty as the reactors will be if the FDA and customers decide to take a close look. “It is our goal to be the most efficient, safe and reliable option…” is a stone’s throw from propaganda, and “World Class” is a Hale-Bopp comet ride from reality. I strongly suggest that you, dear job seeker, simply review the titles of a half dozen or so pages of Alcami reviews. If the titles alone don’t convince you what a dumpster fire this place is, then I’ll urge you to read the reviews in full. Because if you do join us, you will find these reviews accurately describe the fresh hell you will feel every weekday morning when you wake up.

So what is it about Alcami that causes it to earn these reviews: the management. One could write a doctoral dissertation about all their failures (the cynic may suggest it’s simply a matter of tying bonuses to short term revenue goals and finding top brass with a certain, um, “style” of ethics, but I digress). Rampant tyranny permeates the upper ranks, both in corporate and at the site level.

It’s often stated that people don’t leave bad companies, they leave bad managers. And at Germantown, they are leaving in droves. 30% have left year to date. The median Germantown employment tenure is 1.5 years. That’s it. 18 short months to start work, go through the honeymoon period, recognize it’s time to leave, then find and accept a new job. To put this in perspective, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the median tenure for those in the food preparation and serving related occupations is 1.9 years. Think about what this means. You will choose to leave your job at Alcami in less time than the minimum wage paid workers who prepared and served your food, then cleaned up after you, at that sub sandwich joint you recently visited.

Four years or more of college, and you’d be happier wearing a paper hat!!

There are number of factors you’ll seriously need to consider before joining this nightmare. If you have a family, let your spouse and kids know they’ll be living the life of a single parent family. And if you’re relocating, tell your kids not to make close friends; they’ll be pulled out of school again in a couple of years when you move on to your next job. Single? You’ll stay that way.

You will be working for a management team that spends 60+ hours per week at the office, plus logs a few extra hours from home throughout the evening, and expects similar commitment from you. What’s hard to understand is why their career is so much more important than their family life; what is crystal clear is that their career is much more important than your family life. That’s not me talking: that’s roughly 100 past and current employees, over a few short years, warning you about their experiences in these reviews. And since the true root cause of all of these problems can be traced to Germantown’s Patient Zero (borrowing this phrase from an anonymous posting on CafePharma’s AAI web board, even though at GT there are three patient zeros), this pattern will continue at least as long as they are employed.

My hope is that if you had been considering a career at Alcami, you’d stopped reading long ago and have moved on to reviewing the next company. But if you are still hell bent on applying, and since this is the CONs section, allow me to describe my thoughts on what to expect for the 18 months you’ll last here. It takes just three words lasting 19 seconds: Flounder Supermarket Video.Show Less

Advice to Management

Advice to management?

Why bother? They listen to no one. They don’t want to. Seemingly, they don’t have to. They were selected by the current crop of executives: cut from the same mold, driven, and unconcerned about anything but their own career. Here is more smoke: they seem to be rewarded for inflicting abuse upon the employees. I have no proof, but it certainly appears to be the case.

My first word of advice is for any job seeker to take a simple litmus test. Read the reviews, and then ask yourself: If Alcami produced baby formula, would you feed it to your newborn? My second word of advice is to the poor chap filling the mayo bottles and chopping green peppers in anticipation of the lunch &hour rush: quit complaining; it could be worse."

 

I wish I had seen something like this before wasting time and effort in Germantown. I increased the mean employment time, unfortunately.

The final straw was Car-son Subshit telling us all we weren't putting in enough time. And what a bonus.

They have spies. Seriously, when I worked there they had people snitching on each other. I think there must be some metric that enables them to be the worst, not only in Wisconsin, but nationally.

The whole group is a lost cause. Shitty management, top down, starting with stinky Steve. (More cologne, really?).

 

Lol I checked alcami here in north carolina. 4 at 2 star or lower. I stopped counting at 600 companies.

Bottom .67% here.

Alcami sucks all over the U. S.

 

Burn

 

Alcami Response
Sep. 2, 2018 - Human Resources

Thank you for your feedback. Your feedback helps us to continuously improve our employee and customer experience. We agree that we have great people who are committed to our culture of intimovation, accounting flexibility, and customer focups.

 

That's the best Gandia could come up with, or did Adam and the IQ crew in the SLT pitch in to help? Looks like a "team" effort to me.
Alcami Germantown, continuously improving for four years.
Got a couple interesting opportunities. Have to convince the spouse and then we gone.

 

Madison woke
Clock is ticking.
Stay tuned


QAanon

 

How do you fire incompetent management? With incompetent HR. Problems solved.
Where will Ted take his little man anger next?

 

The competence of HR is not in question.

Among other things, the role of HR is to resolve disputes between employees and management. Implicit in this is the realization that there will be situations where the manager is out of line It is HRs responsibility to do the right thing for the organization even if....no, ESPECIALLY IF...it is the employee who is in the right and the manager is in the wrong. This is true even when it is a high level manager.

In Germantown, the employees have zero expectation that HR will seek the truth and do what is right. HR blindly sides with the site management team, even when the manager is clearly out of line, leaving the employee completely exposed and vulnerable.

That isn't a matter of HR competence. It's a matter of character. And it's no wonder there is chatter of unionization.

Good luck....Brother.

 

Friday. And I wasnt called into the HR office to get fired.








Dammit

 

Be patient. If Alcami keeps this current crop of managers, we will all be called in to the big conference room and given our walking papers. Last one out locks the door.

Same thing if FDA comes to do a "real" audit

 

By "current crop" do you mean current crap?
The dynamic duo of the A Train and Mini Me twisted things up bad, hard to maintain a straight face at meetings for "metrics". Keep the spread sheets rolling, boys!

Engineering is a mess, those that are left. Cut out and gone, what, four this year?

The HR butt-boy is drowning, he has his own spread sheet of doom to deal with. Seriously, Tom should fire himself for not even attempting to connect with employee concerns. Hey asshole, what we doing? His back hurts? I'd like to kick his ass so his rear end hurts.

Two recruiters have both said they "understand" what Alcami is all about. One refuses to put anyone here. The "automated system" we have is a complete joke. Interviewing people like we have the upper hand and with no small amount of arrogance (A Train, this is you), like we have some prize position candidates are fighting for. No way I'd recommend G'town to anyone, unless I had it in for them.
BTW, customers get it, they can read. Lots of tired faces.
Here comes the winter.

 

This is the actual function of HR:

" In Germantown, the employees have zero expectation that HR will seek the truth and do what is right. HR blindly sides with the site management team, even when the manager is clearly out of line, leaving the employee completely exposed and vulnerable."

HR's main responsibility is to control costs.

They do this by ensuring the company is not sued by the employee's they have shafted on promotions or pay raises or bonuses (hahaha), employees that were injured on the job or exposed to toxic materials. HR does this through a variety of underhanded means including misleading SOPs that can be interpreted and used to the benefit of Allcrappy, delaying promotions, by keeping annual increases to the minimum and by using "performance" ratings to ensure that few if any get rewarded for their work.

FIRST and FOREMOST HR will pretend to be an advocate for the employee while doing everything in their power to hurt you.

On the flip side, when it comes to pay raises or perks for the executives or themselves then HR is very generous. Remember bobo the clown?

 

By “metrics” do you mean me tricks?

 

Me tricks to eat dicks
Germantown is a lawsuit waiting to happen on any number of fronts.

 

Did any of the 23rd street mouth breathers drown in the rain? I can see those dumb asses standing outside, looking up and not being smart enough to close their mouth while the rain poured down.

You could take them down to north front street and push them into the cape fear.....maybe someone will think PPD did it?

 

Tonight is the night, high tide with the river at flood stage no one will miss them. You may not even have to go to front street, Nun might be far enough.

 

If allshitty got swept away by a flood and everyone lost their jobs there...it would be considered an act of kindness from above

 

Well, I need this job until I can get a new one. I heard there are positions in Wisconsin but the management is awful. Well, it's pretty bad here, too. Not sure if my family can handle the winters.

I will bring a fire-proof suit, they also told me they have a problem with oxygen getting into reactors with pyrogenic materials.

 

There are two positions at Germantown. One is bent over while you grab your ankles. The other is bent over while you grab your ankles, however they use a desensitizing lube. Still getting screwed, however you may not realize it at first. This is for people they let into the outer ring of the inner circle (yeah, you're part of the boys club. Sort of. We'll keep you here while you're of value, but once we don't need you, you'll be just another casualty.)

Oxygen in a reactor fill with pyrogenics is a problem. Absolutely. Demanding that additional product be made using the same materials without a real investigation, putting the technicians running the reactors at significant safety risk (all so that the person making the demand doesn't suffer any negative career set backs) isn't a problem. It's the working description of corruption.

Don't worry about the winters. If you can make it 20 minutes through a sunrise meeting, a few months with temperatures below zero is a piece of cake.