In university before co-op, many years ago, I worked for home depot part time

>There are a lot of ways to make profit and show good metrics that aren't good for line employees. Sure, but this is in line with every major (European) tech company I ever worked at. Pay employees peanuts and pay senior mangers amazing, therefore you were incentivized not to do well as an IC, but to put up with bullshit and fight your way to climb the corporate ladder to management, and then exploit the other poor schmucks who come below you with the same perverse incentive structure. Yes this leads to a huge turnover, unhappy workers, and to a lot of arguments, back-stabbings and fights. But their stocks were always rock solid and managers were always wealthy so I guess they saw that culture as a net win. It seems to be the M.O. with ever major company everywhere, I think it's called the "GE model". Paying ICs at the bottom great wages and incentivizing them with stock, is mostly uniq…

Maybe that was fine? It's possible the customers were prepared to wait and would buy regardless, in which case why have extra staff to cover short gaps? It sounds like your personal complaint is that you had to spend your whole time at work working instead of standing around?