- Stuck in the past / Senior Management is disconnected
Work culture has a very old mindset that can be contradictory. There is a lounge in the office with a full bar and games, but rarely does anyone use it unless you are there after work, have a team meeting, or HR plans something once a month. At one point I would sit at the booth and work as music played in the background and was encouraged by others not to. Senior Management made blatantly different choices for staff. For example, when I started at this company I had coworkers who had worked at Doherty even longer than I had been alive. They showed loyalty, understanding of the company, and were good teachers. When we went remote for COVID and came back, many of these people were let go because they had moved. But there were some who got to stay remote and lived in different states -- why?
- Salaries lower than industry average
I started at this company at 19 and accepted whatever they gave me. When I left the company for a similar role I received a 66% salary increase and work-from-home.
- Disorganized and needs more training/support
My title changed almost every year I was at Doherty and I lacked the training in my final role over an accounting system. The person who had the role before me was there for 20+ years and gave the company a few months of lead time before his departure. I trained with him only in his final 30 days and in my last year I struggled all the time. I had to learn the day-to-day on the fly since, after his departure, nobody could train me. And this was on top of large projects such as acquisitions/takeovers that I had no experience in. It was overwhelming and in hindsight, this role was not that difficult but the lack of training did not set me up well. My next role after Doherty was very similar and actually more hands-on in the technical (SQL database maintaining and coding) and was astonished at how much easier it was with the right mentor.
- You will burn out.
Like all accounting jobs, there are highs-and-lows for the end of the period. But at Doherty there seems to be a "fire" every day. I gained random responsibilities over the years and since it seemed to work, I held onto them even as I changed roles. This lasted for years and in my final few months had completely burned me out. The roughest section of time was in my System Admin role and I would receive calls almost every day in the middle of the night and emails with exclamation points and all caps demanding my attention at home. By the time this problem was even addressed, I was ready to leave. I should have left sooner before both my mental health and my desire to work at Doherty completely checked out, but lessons learned.
