Week 7: Organizational Culture

When I previously wrote about organizational culture I was almost exclusively positive. I talked about the relaxed work environment and the mutual respect that every seems to have for each other, and the number of laughs that we have in the office. This is all still true. At the same time though no work environment is perfect, and my experience here has been no different. One issue that I see is that some employees, especially those on the older side, have a hard time changing the way that they do things. Our lab manager is in his fifties, and youthful in most ways, but he is not good with technology. Due to this he uses almost exclusively his desktop for work, but he requested a laptop anyway to the confusion of our IT director and HR VP. Eventually he will get the computer I have been using while I am here, but his request caused some vexation. Additionally I heard a good deal about an employee who had been fired/ quit a few months ago. He was toxic, talking a lot of trash about others behind their backs while being really nice to their faces. At the same time he didn’t produce the way he should have. This is especially evident since his replacement has come in and things are running much more smoothly. Overall I’ve become more aware of people’s complaints about one employee or another, and see the importance of being open to criticism and change.