The culture is exhausting, to put it mildly, and priorities shift daily. Not to mention that it feels like no one actually cares if you succeed or just survive, as long as you keep doing more and more and even more. I can't find one good thing to say about this place.
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This is a real issue. The culture tanked for years as nepotism grew.
The world outside of 3M is vastly different. For many, they have only known 3M.
I left 3M, and at my new company, people are really good and nice, they really look after everyone. But the pressure is a lot more than it was at 3M (I am not based at HQ), for slightly less pay.
So it is a balance between salary, support and mental health. You don't know how good you have it til you leave, but those who stay really get put through the wringer. Those who leave can end up (like me) in a company where it is every more challenging, but at least we have everyone all in it together from bottom to the top trying to make a change and difference.
@OP
You will fit right in!
@OP then leave
Agree wity you. Asking people to reserve desk before coming to work is really insulting. Some employees have kept their family photos on hot desks. This is really the culture we have now.
@nq you joined 3M at the end of a glory era, when HR worked for employees, Tartan was an employee hangout where employees met future spouses, and innovation was valued, not counted as a cost.
Glad you found happiness elsewhere. 3M was a world class and great company to work for until mcnerney brought in his GE style dictatorship and ki-led the goose that laid the golden eggs. Any company focused on pleasing Wall Street every quarter is doomed to irrelevance.
He went on to almost destroy Boeing with his GE tactics.
There is life after 3M. A much happier place. BB will pour out the chloroform and finally put this patient to rest, while grabbing a cool 20 million per year to suffocate this dying conglomerate.
So sad. Should have hired Monohan from Imation when Desi left.
Out after 25 years and my job since past 3 plus years at a different company, has left me more fulfilled than the 25 years in 3M, wish J had not wasted as my time .. trusting the process. But glad I left, miss some friends. But not the work culture 3M adopted..good luck to the ones, who can't opt out..
You are all WEAK, weak I tell you!!!
Is your job who you are? Is your job your life? Is your job all you have??!!!!!
Who cares if you can't bring your pet to work and have to sit in a old cubicle....You chose this life! Any other Fortune 500 company is the same. They-are-all-the-same!!!!!!!!!
Either deal with it or deal yourself out. They do not care about you!!! If they did, this would be that magical Wonderland you wanted!
Think hard and long, are you a Victim or a prisoner of your own device?
Welcome aboard!
I, too, regret joining 3M. I thought 3M was a great company when I took the job but I quickly learned I was wrong. The work environment is toxic, my manager is abusive and many of my colleagues are expert in the art of backstabbing. I am looking for a new opportunity in the Twin Cities and feel any company has to be better than 3M.
Then leave.
And leaving 3M was not a mistake.
The only positive this century was Buckley, who tried to resume focus on innovation, after Mack the Kn--e tried to Sick Sigma it out of resistance. Problem was the Board was packed with GE minded bean counters, focused on making Wall Street happy, not customers.
Inge loaded the balance sheet with debt to buy back stock shares to goose the price. This worked to scare off the activist investors who wanted to break up 3M but left little for reinvestment. Mikey was total joke and should never have risen about VP.
BB is here to disembowel what is left and leave several weakened spins while collecting his annual 20 mill. 3M Center will be sliced into a bunch of nonprofits, including Salvation Army clothing stores where laid off 3Mers can use their measly severance to buy clothes, while BB enjoys caviar and champagne on his Florida yacht and laughs off into the Gulf of America sunsets.
If you are unhappy with 3M, you can leave like Dr Torsten. Don’t complain.
I miss the 3M that I joined over 20 years ago. I left at the end of last year, and am at a different company now. The company really cares about their people, however, the work and time pressure is intense! Everyone is held accountable, which is good, but it will take some time for my body and mind to readjust to real valuable pressure.