Toxic Positivity and Incompetent Supervisors & Staff
Pros
*Benefits are outstanding *Some departments show flexibility and some colleagues are amazing! *Faculty departments appear generally well run *Professional development is encouraged *Student interactions are fulfilling and bring purposefulness
Cons
The SEIS department is overseen by a number of leaders who are unqualified for their roles (untrained for their specific work/leadership, not knowledgeable about the program areas they are leading and do not care to learn about their program areas, etc.). Instead, the SEIS leadership focuses on pushing blind positivity and complete compliance. They will tell you they value you and want you to be your “authentic self,” but if your personality is not exactly like the supervisors', they will harass you and and tell you to your face your personality is “wrong”--or will say your personality is actually a mental health disorder. In my experience, the supervisors would also present conflicting expectations (i.e. "Your job description does not dictate what your role is," or "I can't be expected to always lead this team"). If they find something they don't like about you, they will then work to manipulate you into leaving. I personally saw my supervisor within SEIS do this to 4 employees, including myself. When supervisor's actions were reported to HR, I was told that I needed to tell my supervisor to take a more active role in leading my team. This is what I think others mean when they say Aims is not open to diversity, because they do not value diversity in thought, opinion, personality, or anything. They are like any company that is poorly run: they care about not being sued and doing anything to not rock the boat with leadership. Aims hires either people who have proven to be the exact same as their leadership or people they think they can control into complete compliance. It is a culture of fear and egotism. I am an objectively great worker, even my toxic supervisor’s review stated I was--despite my not "smiling enough" or using "enough exclamation points in emails". I understand workplace compliance and professionalism, but the compliance they are looking for blurs from professional into expecting personal information and attachment to be divulged, and they will use personal against you.
