If you have a job, do NOT quit your job to work at Surya.
If you do not have a job, and you cannot find another job, AND do not have to move to work at Surya, take the job at Surya.
DO NOT MOVE any significant distance to work at Surya.
ALWAYS look at your job at Surya as a stepping stone to a better job, and KEEP LOOKING for that better job from day one.
Realize that when you leave Surya you will pretty much be making the same as when you began there—which probably won't be much—no matter what responsibilities they add to you.
And leave you shall. The turnover rate is very high, and there are reasons for that. Few people are there more than three years or so, many not even that. Most decide they'd be better off elsewhere, others are terminated for capricious reasons.
One good thing about Surya is that it is a steady job. You probably won't make much, but you don't have to worry about the payroll being there, about being cut short on hours, or, generally, about being worked too many hours.
Of course when I say steady I mean financially steady. Workflow is always in flux. Between the high turnover rate and management sticking their fingers into the works, workflow procedures and such have to be reestablished and redrawn every 3 months or so, just when you're picking up some steam.
Also, note that Surya is currently in a bit of financial trouble due to the recent expansion into an extravagantly gargantuan $30M facility. It's hard to say how bad the situation actually is since they have a pretty closed culture. I suspect it may be rather bad based on the decisions I witnessed, possibly even to the point that you may *have* to worry if payroll will be there.
On the topic of culture, Surya definitely has the STRANGEST company culture of any place I have ever seen—not so much among the employees as from the top management down. If you want to know what it's like to work for Surya; if you've ever seen a snake or a lizard in a glass cage, it has no concept of glass. It bumps and bumps and bumps against the glass until its nose is raw and bloody. Although it never really figures out what the glass is, it does eventually realize it doesn't want a bloody nose any more and how to more or less stay clear of whatever-it-is that causes that. That is what it's like to work for Surya. You whack into the you-don't-know-what and say, "What was that?", "What was that?", "What was that?" You never really figure out what the "glass" is, but you kind of get a feel for how to keep from bloodying your nose on it—mostly. The sad thing is that 'mostly' works out to mean not caring about your job.
Which brings us to the so-called Surya Values:
"• Be passionate
Love what you do and bring an unwavering determination to push boundaries.
• Think big, move fast
Dare to take risks, embrace challenges, and act with speed.
• Empower, engage, collaborate
Work together to build a culture of excellence; encourage independent thinking, foster learning and growth, cultivate enthusiasm and unleash the greatness of others.
• Commit to long-term success
Create value by getting things done. Continuously strive for incremental improvements to build a stronger future.
• Act with integrity, responsibility and respect
Always do the right thing. Celebrate our diversity as we embrace each individual's unique contributions.
• Make a difference
Positively impact people and the environment by acting thoughtfully and responsibly.
• HAVE FUN!!! "
Generally, when a company posts a set of Company Values those are not the real values of the company; if they were, people would just see them at work and they wouldn't have to post them. In Surya's case, the company values, mostly, are the very things upper management does NOT want. It's kind of like when the company president says you can come talk to him if you have a concern you feel is not being addressed: you don't really want to do that.
Over time I came to lean strongly toward an assessment I at first rejected: that the source of the cultural weirdness at Surya is the Indian caste system. That initially sounded to me like mere anti-foreigner prejudice, but after seeing the workings, there is a clear ingrained cultural divide between the Indian upper management and everyone else; kind of like the so-called glass ceiling you hear about in American business, but way more than anything you've ever seen here. I've worked for other (not Indian) foreigners before and except for the fact you occasionally heard another language it wasn't too different from any American company. Surya IS different, and mostly that works out to whacking your nose on the what-was-that.
I know this for sure: in the time I was at Surya there were two different upper level Indians in authority over the department I worked in. From the day I walked in to the day I walked out I never had the faintest, foggiest clue or notion what either of those people actually did. The only time you had any interaction with them was at your annual review.
Now the Annual Review process is also a strange thing at Surya. Really, it's more of a scam than anything. Employees are required to do a self-evaluation (?!), rating themselves in several different categories of job performance from 1-4. Raises can "only be given at the yearly appraisal", and these ratings supposedly determine what raise you will receive. Curiously, after management reviews your self-eval the upper ratings are taken off the table altogether (i.e. no one can actually get a 4) and what is left is just bumped down one number. So if you can get a total average 2.7 out of 4, that's actually considered a pretty good rating. Seriously. So congratulations, you might get like a 10¢ raise. Seriously.
Once a month you have to come to the monthly employee meeting at 8:30 in the morning. There you will hear the company president give a *sort* of update on what is going on in the company, interspersed with bits and snatches of what he thinks is wisdom, usually partially remembered, and delivered in incomplete English. They do provide breakfast if you care for it. He puts a comedic false positive spin on things like saying that any real problem is not really a problem but actually an *opportunity*, or that it somehow makes sense to sponsor a quarter of a million dollars worth of national interior designer association functions while cutting core personnel. I generally left wondering why they have those meetings. Strangely, he recently affirmed that—since anyone could import rugs from around the world—it is the personnel that makes the difference and thus personnel that is Surya's real asset. If that were true they would not cut key personnel and would do things to keep others from walking away.
One serious and persistent problem is hiring professionals and then refusing to listen to them, putting pointless obstacles in their way, then firing them. Hopefully they'll eventually realize that the point of hiring people with expertise in their fields is to let them use their expertise, not to stand in their way and insist that they actually know more about what to do. I really doubt that will ever happen with the current management. Certainly, do not, Do Not, DO NOT leave any established position or career to work at Surya.
Imagine hiring a roofer. You carefully choose one with decades of experience who has installed many roofs.
After he starts you drop in at times to check on him.
"Why are these men wearing non-slip shoes? This looks unprofessional. I want my roofers to look professional."
"Why are you wearing that heavy tool belt? You could work faster if you didn't wear that heavy tool belt. I want my roofers working faster ...and without that heavy belt you wouldn't have to worry as much about slipping."
"Why are you putting the roofing screws there? I want the roofing screws here. Don't tell me that the roofing screws don't go here: I have seen Ty Pennington on TV, I know where the roofing screws go."
"Why should I buy silicone for the roof? None of the other trades requested silicone. The framers built the whole house and used no silicone. If you had put the screws in the right places you wouldn't be asking for silicone."
The roofer faces an unwinnable proposition. He can insist on the right way, and get fired. He can do it your way, and produce a failing roof that he has to answer for—probably getting fired. Or he can walk off the job.
This is Surya.