A Necessary Exposé of an Inept Company - Anonymous employee Pinnacle Employee Review

After seeing many of the fake 5-star reviews posted by management, I decided I couldn't hold my tongue/fingers any longer and decided to write this little exposé listing the major reasons why I can no longer work with this company, and why I would advise anyone, at any level, to stay FAR away from Pinnacle. Should we start with the incompetent and unethical managerial practices displayed at every level? Or should we start with the insanely high turn around and firing rate, making it nearly impossible for an employee to count on this company for a steady paycheck to provide for themselves and their family? Let’s dive right in, see where we land, and just hope that Pinnacle isn’t there to catch us. To any engineers who may considering working here, what this company won’t tell you is that the analyst position (the position they usually hire engineers as) is *not* a true engineering position. This position is more of a data clerk position, where you’ll pull information from one database and put it into another. You’ll spend more time making sure your columns are lined up correctly in an Excel spreadsheet and scheduling/attending pointless, time consuming meetings than applying anything close to valuable engineering skills. Actual engineering experience or ability is not necessary for the entry-level data clerk position you’ll be set up with. Good luck attempting to translate what you do at Pinnacle into any legitimate engineering position later on in your career. Oh and I won’t even speak on the laughable performance reviews. Seriously, ask *any* employee about them, and you’ll be met with groans and cringing faces, the reviews previous to this are spot on about that. After a few months, expect to start working insane hours in order to meet unreasonable deadlines set by management who has no clue how to actually perform the work they will assign to you. The work-life balance scale is tipped permanently on the side of “work”. This is because contracts are sold for extremely cheap, often without understanding how much work will actually be required to complete them. Analysts have been known to work 80-100+ hour work weeks with little to no sleep in order to meet deadlines. Management will outright DEMAND that you stay up late nights to grind out work, despite the risks to your health, and to the quality of the product, all while shouting verbal abuse to keep you “motivated” and will then question with a straight face why quality products are not being produced. This type of behavior is not only unethical and incompetent, it is downright dangerous. To any potential technicians: technicians are severely underpaid and under-recognized, earning nearly HALF of what analysts make, while they are capable, and expected, to do much of the same work. The career paths for technicians are a joke, and I can legitimately count on one hand the number of technicians who have actually made it to the analyst position in the entire history of the company. This is *not* a gamble you want to make with your career. You will not be treated well, and you will certainly feel as if you're an underling, both with how the company treats you and with your pay. Finally, and most disturbing of all in my opinion, to tie this all together, PinnacleART is a downright *dangerous* company. Remember when I said management will demand insane hours while not actually understanding what the work consists of? Well this has direct impacts to the inspection programs that they are trying to implement for their unfortunate clients who are unaware of the inner workings of Pinnacle. Imagine asking zombies running purely on caffeine and depression to develop your inspection plan in an unreasonable time period in order to cut costs. Would *you* expect something of quality under those situations? “Quality” is a buzzword that Pinnacle likes to throw around, and anyone who has ever worked here can attest that the work produced by Pinnacle is of the shoddiest quality. In a very avant-garde way, it’s impressive. Time and time again major clients of theirs have threatened to pull business away from Pinnacle and have placed holds on further work (this happens quite a few times a year) due to quality issues. Poor quality inspection packages have DIRECT results on the men and women who risk their lives and bodies to keep refineries and chemical plants running and it is appalling that Pinnacle would continue to peddle third-rate, inferior quality products to unwitting clientele. So should anyone have anything to do with PinnacleART? A resounding and highly cautionary NO! This is a company that has expanded far beyond its capabilities in the last few years and it’s unfortunate that nothing is being done to protect the industry from this disgraceful company. Expect a manger immersed in the Koolaid cup of Pinnacle to post a buzz-word laced review in retaliation to this mini expose (as they’ve already done) in an attempt to boost this subpar, 2-star company. Interestingly enough, perhaps the most honest presentation ever given at Pinnacle a couple of months back involved one manager saying that “many of you may be feeling depressed, insecure, frustrated” etc. Take it from that rare moment of honesty displayed at Pinnacle, you can expect this, and much worse, if you invest your time, money, and career at this company.