COVID lab: Toxic workplace culture - Avis employé Medical Laboratory Assistant Source BioScience

To be completely honest, this was the worst working experience I have ever had in my life, and I only wish I could have spent less time and energy here. To start, the shifts are extremely long and tedious, doing the same thing over and over for 11.5 hours. Which would be worth it as long as you were a) paid well and b) the culture was enjoyable. But neither of these things were true. We actually started off on a extremely low wage which was bumped up when the CEO of the company suddenly 'decided he wanted to be the top 10% paying employers' out of the blue. This being said, when I saw my job being advertised once I had left, they had the cheek to advertise it for ￡1000 less than what I had been getting paid. Then there's the toxic, awful culture. Because the COVID lab expanded so quickly, there was constantly an influx of new recruits and new 'teams' and eventually they changed our day/night shift pattern to a early/mid/day/night shift pattern which was much more disruptive to everyday life yet somehow made them more money by being able to process more samples. Managers constantly acted like they were your best friend and always an open ear, shoulder to cry on, etc, while talking openly talking behind your back. When the opportunity for promotions came along, my manager was completely unprofessional, telling me one thing and then doing another, leaving me in a constant state of not knowing where I stood. It was also obvious that the promotions were being handed out to those who had the best relationship with their supervisor and factors such as a Masters degree, previous work experience or day-to-day work ethic were considered. This kind of clear favouritism obviously results in many who know that they deserve a promotion (considering that everyone starting working there around the same time) feel completely unvalued within the company. Time after time my manager dangled a carrot and even when I did everything that was asked of me it was still just too far beyond reach. What I came to realize is that my manager just plain didn't like me, and had repeatedly denied me a promotion; something that can be grounds for harassment. When I attempted to go to higher management (twice) the issue was never resolved and I ended up continuing to go in circles with my manager. When the higher manager heard the word 'harassment', she immediately got extremely defensive and turned the situation back on me, telling me that I was just simply 'not good enough'. This kind of behaviour is also completely unprofessional but also just serves to isolate people from making complaints to higher-higher management, hence why the person who keeps commenting on these reviews has probably never heard about them. Another part of the problem is that it is easy to get really wound up with trying to do well in the company and get promoted, partially because they have created their own little 'rate race' within the lab. When I first started, there was only MLAs and Scientist and Shift Supervisor positions. However once the teams grew slightly, they decided to make a Scientist I and Scientist II position, however very little differentiates you from a MLA to even a Scientist II. And when promotions were being offered, managers expected you to act in the higher role before even getting paid for it. It is all just a scheme to make you work hard and get emotionally invested in 'progressing' within the company, even though a Scientist II at SBS is not at all equivalent to a Scientist II in other companies. After dealing with all of these issues ongoing for several months, I ended up having no energy to raise a formal grievance after being intimidated by higher management, so I just had to leave. I know for a fact I am not the only person to have this experience, I know multiple other people who were not treated well here and have since gone on to much better positions.