They preach liberty but the office culture is the Soviet Union - Recensione dipendente - Dipendente anonimo presso Institute For Humane Studies

This place is a walking contradiction! It's a libertarian education org that's run like a propaganda ministry in 1980s Eastern Europe. Everything the other reviews say about the awful work culture is true - and worse than that. It's all rigidly, rigidly a top-down organization. The worst types absolutely rise up to the very top and stay in the bureaucracy forever even when they can't manage people. They spend Charles Koch's money like it's going out of style. But a LOT of wastefulness and a humongous bloated staff of admin types. They go through unnanounced mass firings a couple times a year. Entire teams get laid off without warning (especially stay clear of anything that has anything to do with marketing - that one gets cleaned out over and over and over). The firings are handled like purges too and nobody's supposed to talk about them after they happen. You'll show up at work one day and 2 or 3 colleagues you just had lunch with the day before are gone - cleared out - not to be talked about anymore. No reasons are given...i take that back...no honest reasons are ever given. The Leadership is the root of the problem. They think they're master communicators to their own staff. But nobody else does. They hold these all-staff meetings to pitch things to regular staff where they give these long rehearsed power point shows about the leadership's "strategic plan." But it's all fake - it's like they're doing a Sham-Wow commercial to convince their very own staff that they're not working for Sham-Wow. And nobody on staff believes it because it's all such fakery! The culture of fear is everywhere in this office. Fear that you're going to be marginalized. Fear that your team is going to be split up on a whim. Fear that your friends are going to get laid off. Or that they quit suddenly. Fear that your job won't even be there tomorrow because somebody on top decided to 'change directions'. Fear that you're gonna get blamed for somebody else's screw ups - and then fired. Fear that because you said something negative about how they run things it's gonna paint a target on your back. If you want a workplace where you can be happy and feel like you're making a difference for liberty this one is gonna come across strong on paper. But the Soviet Union's cenral planning bureaus also looked strong on paper.