DC: Who's the boss? Despotic HR usurps dept. managers, upper management micromanages, stays oblivious.
Pros
As far as working in IT at the DC, there really isn't any good reason to work here. Pay is decent but the hourly rate thing is like day and Knight compared to salary when it comes to having a work style because EVERY department seems to be transcended by an overbearing HR gustapo. Folks such as the IT manager just let them dictate to departments like mean babysitters, either because they're insecure or inexperienced or both. Local HR managers should train their staff that Crocs recruiting hired adults who are great at what they do and HR chest pounders should stay in their own lanes.
Cons
The main problem is an overbearing HR department sticking their nose in other departments they're completely clueless about. I understand strictly policing the warehouse employees, but IT is a whole different animal. You cannot and should not expect IT to conform to the exact same policies as people who are working under strict time tables, like pickers and packers. I've worked for some pretty big companies with bigger IT staffs in my 25 year career and I have never, ever seen anyone in HR try to tell or question anyone in the IT department anything, especially what they should be doing with their time. IT managers (should) know to shield their guys (and gals!) from that kind of stuff if it happens, but I've really never seen it happen anywhere else. An IT manager should be telling pretty much anyone in HR to sit in the corner (obviously, behavioral issues like harassment or drug use or whatever, isn't what I'm referring to). Unfortunately, the IT manager doesn't stick up for his team and literally uses things like clocking in 1-2 minutes "late" DURING 12 HOUR SHIFTS as an employee being highly insubordinate (not exaggerating). Co-workers will take ideas of yours and in IT meetings talk about them like they're their own. I noticed right away when I started working there, there was no such thing as being proactive - they literally waited for stuff to break and did nothing to fix continuously repetitive issues, as if their job was to just fill in time band-aiding the exact same repetitive break-fix garbage. A couple months into the job I mentioned to my shift coworker that I was going to be proactively fixing some of those time fillers so we could re-claim the time in the future and use it on bigger projects coming up, because being proactive was the only way you could have time to plan projects that might make the company or certain processes more efficient. In the following 2 or 3 weekly IT meetings, the coworker all of a sudden starts talking about the importance of being a proactive employee and how "it helps the whole team" when you do that. A few weeks later he was promoted to a senior position because of, uh, his ideas. The workers who deal with packing and shipping the shoes (and I'll hand it to them there, those folks work hard) have strict timelines due to how they get paid for higher productivity. So the company lets their HR department harass and threaten IT with the same strictness even though the IT manager is nowhere in sight 90% if the time and the work isn't closely related in any way. And trying to stay out of the toxic drama that goes on between the different department directors and upper management is like being on a soap opera. Earbuds don't help, you're going to be hearing it constantly. I was ecstatic when I started working there because I heard they have a pro-employee culture and their motto is (literally) come as you are. Yes, they talk a good game, but when people are competing for positions and HR employees get off on the power they seem to weild I totally understand why there was so much turnover in certain areas of the business that I couldn't comprehend at first. I've worked at some big companies that have lasted 75+ years or more and there's always drama to be had, but this was pretty unbelievably crazy for a young, supposedly laid back business.