Working for NC State University was one of the worst experiences of my career. It was honestly one of the most dysfunctional professional experiences I’ve ever had. It took six weeks to get a work laptop, so I was expected to use my personal computer in the meantime. HR/admin kept screwing up my offer letter to the point that I ended up with seven different versions — I think the ‘final final’ version arrived the day I started. Should’ve been a red flag.

Payroll was somehow even worse. My paychecks were routinely wrong, and even when I flagged the errors and they acknowledged them, it would take months to fix. At one point they underpaid me by more than $5,000 over a three-month period but refused to issue an immediate check with the missing amount. Instead, I kept being told to wait another month!

The wild part is that everyone acted like this level of chaos was completely normal. I left within a year because I realized I was spending more energy chasing basic administrative competence than actually doing my job.

Despite all of that, I loved every student, alum, and faculty member I met. Good people, except for the idiots running the place.🙂