UPDATE: What it's like to work in Ft. Worth

Glassdoor is an online employment site, in many ways similar to others that have popped up over the past few years (I subscribe to a few myself). Founded in 2008, provides a number of useful services for the job seeker, including information about an employer from inside the organization (anonymous though vetted reviews from former and current employees.

Of course, all of the reviewers are self-selected, so the site could appear to be a kind of "Rate My Professor" site, in which disgruntled (or sometimes happy) students weigh in on the merits of their teachers. In examining the Glassdoor reviews for the Fort Worth Symphony, one notices a common thread from nearly every (all but one) response to the site. This is definitely an organization with severe management problems.

Calling the FWSO a "miserable place to work," a 2013 reviewer stated, "Management is clueless, customers are terrible and entitled, coworkers are all miserable. Everyone I knew there complained of being underpaid, even those in management positions. There is a general aura of hatred for the company's president, who has run the company into the ground since her induction a couple years ago, and there are many long-term employees there who seem to have given up on actually doing their jobs. The turnover rate is ridiculously high for such a small company, with something like 10 employees having been fired between the span of January and June, and countless more simply quitting their jobs."

More recent reviews are equally as vehement in their scorn. On September 30, the reviewer noted that there is, "No chance of bonus or raise in the foreseeable future. Does not recognize outstanding achievements. No work/life balance unless you are upper-upper management. Upper management does not listen when new equipment/ repairs for equipment are requested, or when more personnel is required." In November, a long-time (more than 10 years) employee wrote, "Since the new leadership took effect a few years ago the place has become a disaster. Almost all the long time staff have now left and it has become a revolving door. Morale is miserable and that has affected sales and fundraising which means budget shortfalls, resulting in lower wages and benefits along with no raises for multiple years." In terms of advice to management, the same reviewer comments, "Either get rid of the CEO or teach her how to run the organization properly".

Amy Adkins, FWSO President and CEO

While this is a very limited sample, one has to conclude that the FWSO management in a mess. It may be deemed that CEO Amy Adkins (more on her in a subsequent post) is not at all capable of heading up an orchestra with an illustrious past (more to come on that as well.

I will pose one question. Music Director Miguel Harth-Bedoya has been eerily silent throughout this entire kerfuffle. Why? He has 15 years of music red built up in the community and the orchestra; that counts for a lot, unless he's grown tired of major musician contract problems every 3-4 years...

FWSO Music Director Miguel Harth-Bedoya
in one of those typical "maestro" poses...