Pros
I wish I had some to share.
Cons
I interviewed for a programming position and was very honest about what I could and could not do, and two people interviewing me knew well before hand that I had no experience. I was told that the company was laid back, the pressure would be minimal, that I would have "plenty" of help onboarding and with questions. I enthusiastically accepted and started a couple of weeks later. My first week went ok, I had a computer and a desk set up for me. I met with a long-time senior employee that was supposed to "mentor" me and I immediately had a book shoved in my face and was told to understand everything there was to know. A little intimidated, I agreed and spent my nights reading and trying to understand what needed to be done. After the initial "onboarding", which was a laughable two partial days worth, I was completely on my own. When I asked for help, most everyone was on the phone, so I tried to figure out things on my own -- (hey, it made sense to me). When he got off the phone, my 'mentor' was slightly irritated that I "Didn't come to him sooner", even though I tried to for an hour prior and guess what? He was on the phone and indicated that he would be for a while -- what was I supposed to do?? This same person took long lunches and was generally unavailable for questions. When I actually did ask a him few more questions, -- since I was brand new and didn't understand anything, his hostility toward me increased. He started grilling me verbally on esoteric details on the book, and the app I was working on. Apparently I was supposed to be an expert on everything within two weeks. During the next couple of weeks, my 'mentor' would give me disgusted looks as I passed by his office; when he would come into the shared area that a few of us developers sat at, he would casually ask about progress on the developers' projects and would go out of his way to openly praise whatever progress they had made, but yet failed to say anything to me, ever. Apparently this passive-aggressive mind game was supposed to motivate me to "be more like them". After a few days of this treatment, this person then decided that I needed a fire lit underneath me because I wasn't working hard enough (despite spending all my nights and weekends on this project). He then called me into his office, shut the door, and proceeded to give a disgustingly condescending, self-aggrandizing lecture about "how successful" he was in his life, with strong insinuation that he was a better and smarter person than I am ever capable of being... I asked him about the help I was promised and he snapped back "DON'T SAY I'M NOT HELPING YOU". Other attempts to answer questions or accusations he had about me or my work ethic were met with him interrupting me and posturing the conversation to me being the problem. Satisfied that I was shut up and put in my place, he softened his tone some and kept talking about how wonderful he was and how he basically "pulled himself up by his own bootstraps" his entire life. Again, the "push yourself harder and be more like me and my favorites" method was the way to help me. Needless to say, after this, the pressure and hostility was kept on and I knew that these people had it out for me. I started looking around for other jobs, which was laughable, because the Lansing area has virtually nothing going for it. In conclusion, this was the absolute worst experience I ever had in my life. I have never seen such openly hostile management towards younger people just trying to learn and make it in the world. But this was my honest experience and it destroyed my confidence for a very, very long time.
