Fuji Seal Sucks – Think Twice: A Warning About Working at Fuji Seal's Information Technology Department

⚠️ Warning to Prospective IT Employees

Before accepting a position within Fuji Seal’s Information Technology department, you should be fully aware of the environment you may be entering. They’re a small shop but have lost three very talented IT professionals between 2024 and 2025. Their headquarters, located in Bardstown, Kentucky is in a plant built in 1970. It’s not the nicest place to work. If you make it past the initial phone screen interview, demand to have the second interview onsite in Bardstown and request to see the plant. You can judge for yourself. They have three other locations in North America: Jeffersonville, Indiana, Hickory, North Carolina, and Irapuato, Mexico.

The IT department has an “unofficial” comp time policy that does not address equity nor is it equally applied to all personnel. You will be expected to work many nights and weekends but do not expect a fair exchange in comp time for that work.

If you decide to go work there and if Fuji Seal makes you promises during your interview, get them in writing to keep them honest because otherwise they will not honor them.

The HR department lacks integrity and nepotism runs rampant there. HR will support fabrications from employees who have parents that have been long time employees and from their favorites leading to biased handling of claims from certain employees. The HR department lacks impartiality and endorses a culture of favoritism. And while a family-like company might sound pleasant on the surface, that framework tends to be a flag for a strikingly dysfunctional work environment.

Based on the experiences of former employees, the IT department suffers from serious leadership, communication, and organizational issues that create a toxic and unsustainable workplace. These include:

Lack of technical direction and planning — projects are often poorly scoped, under-resourced, and mismanaged.
Inconsistent or absent leadership — managers are frequently absent when needed most, don’t work a full 8 hour day (think 10a to 4p), frequently shift priorities, fail to provide guidance, and disregard employee input. One manager was busted, more than once, using a mouse “jiggler” to fake productivity while working from home.
Unrealistic workloads and expectations — IT staff are expected to resolve systemic issues without adequate tools, training, or support.
Blame culture and poor accountability — mistakes are allowed to be made that directly affect the business, while leadership avoids responsibility.
Low morale and high turnover — talented professionals regularly leave after discovering the dysfunction firsthand.

To give you an idea of the culture there, their employee handbook is littered with the phrase “heated discussions” which they refer to as “trust.” No, heated discussions are not healthy in a workplace but Fuji Seal welcomes them with open arms, creating a toxic work environment. Below are three screenshots from their employee handbook which says, “We call a heated discussion on creation ‘trust’.” But if you have a heated discussion with one of the many Gen Z’ers in their IT shop, you’re creating a hostile work environment and if you have one with your manager, they call it “insubordination.”

To go into greater detail about what makes Fuji Seal an immature IT organization that lacks structure, discipline, and alignment between technology and business goals, read on.

🧩 1. Weak Governance and Strategy

No formal IT governance framework (ITIL).
Lack of defined IT strategy aligned with business objectives.
Reactive decision-making instead of proactive planning.
No clear ownership or accountability for IT outcomes.
IT Leadership is so unqualified that they are forced to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars a year to an MSP to manage projects and thousands upon thousands of dollars a year on a security consultant

IT operates tactically — reacting to requests instead of guiding technology investment.
Business strategy and IT strategy are disconnected.
No defined mission or vision statement for the IT organization.
Staff unaware of the bigger picture — daily tasks lack context or purpose.

Example: IT is focused on “keeping the lights on,” but can’t articulate how its work supports company growth or customer experience.

No formal IT governance committee (e.g., no steering group or review board).
Decision-making is ad hoc — often dependent on individual personalities.
No defined process for project prioritization or approval.
No accountability framework for IT performance or investment decisions.
Policies created in isolation or inconsistently enforced across departments.

IT goals not tied to business KPIs.
Projects launched without business case justification.
No structured portfolio management or benefits realization tracking.

Example: The business is focused on digital transformation, but IT is still prioritizing hardware refreshes with no automation or analytics initiatives.

No IT policies or charters approved by leadership.
IT compliance treated as optional — no enforcement mechanisms.

Decisions made by gut feel rather than data or risk analysis.
No structured risk management or prioritization framework.
Frequent rework because of unclear authority or direction. Lack of guidance.
No performance reporting to executives or the board.
No ownership for outcomes — projects fail quietly with no lessons learned.
Staff evaluated on activity, not results.
No governance over vendor performance or contracts.
No empowered IT director at the leadership table.
IT leadership focused on operations, not strategy.
Lack of strategic thinkers — managers rewarded for firefighting, not planning.
No leadership development or succession pipeline.

No linkage between IT investments and strategic value.
Budgets approved without measurable benefits or ROI.
Project costs tracked inconsistently.
Funding allocated based on past spend, not future goals.
No capital planning for technology modernization.

Example: IT requests $500K for new infrastructure with no business case or TCO analysis.

Multiple IT factions (infrastructure, apps, security, helpdesk) operating with separate priorities.
No enterprise architecture function to guide technology choices.
No annual or quarterly IT planning cycle.
No prioritization framework for IT projects.
No mechanisms for evaluating completed initiatives.
No horizon scanning for emerging technologies or risks.
Plans change constantly due to lack of executive alignment.

“Just get it done” mentality overrides quality and compliance.
Resistance to governance viewed as bureaucracy.
No shared understanding of why governance matters.
Decisions driven by personalities rather than data or process.

Example: Leadership skips design reviews to “save time,” leading to preventable rework and outages.

Duplicative investments and wasted spend.
Inconsistent service delivery across business units.
Inability to measure IT value or justify budget.
Slow response to market or technology changes.
Loss of credibility with executives and business partners.
High risk exposure due to poor oversight and unclear accountability.

🧠 2. Poor Process Management

Ad-hoc processes — everyone “does their own thing.”
No documentation or process standardization.
ZERO change management, which often leads to outages.
Lack of performance metrics or KPIs to measure success.
Incident handling done manually, without root cause analysis or post-mortems.
Tribal knowledge dominates — only a few senior staff know how things really work.
Frequent unplanned outages due to unauthorized or poorly tested changes.
No root cause analysis (RCA) — same incidents repeat with no long-term fix.
Incident tickets not categorized or prioritized consistently.
No post-incident review process to learn and improve.
Bottlenecks caused by individual approvals instead of defined roles.
Inconsistent response times due to lack of SLA tracking.
Over-reliance on spreadsheets and email instead of workflow tools.
Disparate systems (monitoring, ticketing, documentation) that don’t integrate.
Automation is rare

Staff not trained on standardized processes.
Knowledge transfers happen informally or not at all.
No continuous improvement mindset — processes stagnate for years.
Process improvements made reactively instead of based on metrics.
No defined maturity roadmap
Poor handoffs between IT teams (e.g., infrastructure → security → app owners).
Duplicate work across teams because responsibilities are unclear.
No unified workflow for multi-team issues (e.g., patching, provisioning, compliance).
Finger-pointing culture when processes fail instead of shared accountability.

⚙️ 3. Weak Infrastructure and Operations

Legacy systems still in production with no upgrade path. Many systems are completely out of support.
Frequent outages and downtime due to a lack of institutional control, change management or configuration management.
No automation for patching.
Inadequate disaster recovery and business continuity planning.
Security handled reactively, often after incidents occur. They were victims of a ransomware attack a couple of years ago and it took them a year and a half to recover.
No formal architecture standards or documentation.
Unplanned growth — systems added reactively without design reviews.
“Spaghetti architecture” with overlapping or redundant systems.
Over-reliance on legacy hardware/software that’s out of support.
Single points of failure across network, compute, or storage layers.

Untracked changes — settings modified directly on production systems.
No configuration baselines or version control for infrastructure code.
Inconsistent system builds — every server is configured differently.
No automated deployment or infrastructure-as-code (IaC) practices.
No disaster recovery (DR) plan or site failover testing.
RPO/RTO not defined or aligned with business expectations.
Unsupported OS versions still in production.
Firmware rarely updated on servers, switches, or storage.
No documented EOL (end-of-life) roadmap for infrastructure components.
Overreliance on “heroes” — one or two people hold all operational knowledge.
High turnover or burnout due to constant firefighting.
No cross-training or succession planning.
IT staff spend more time fixing issues than improving systems.
Reactive support model — firefighting instead of proactive maintenance.
No standard operating procedures (SOPs) for recurring tasks.
No defined incident management process (no escalation paths, severity levels, or postmortems).
No documented runbooks for handling common failures.
Capacity planning and forecasting are ignored. They spent thousands on Cohesity and are already running out of space in two locations.
No hardening standards (CIS, DISA STIGs, etc.) for servers or network devices.
Insecure default configurations persist in production.
Patch management decoupled from vulnerability management.

Reliance on manual processes for deployments, patching, and monitoring.
No automation framework (PowerShell, Ansible, etc.).
Duplicated tools — multiple products doing the same job.
Siloed management systems that don’t integrate.
No central logging (SIEM or syslog aggregation).
Success measured by anecdote (“It’s working fine now”) instead of data.
Capacity, performance, and cost data not analyzed.
No roadmap for infrastructure modernization.
No documentation culture — fixes done without notes or tickets.
Blame-oriented culture after incidents.
No transparency with stakeholders about IT health or risk.
Resistance to change or modernization. Running Hyper-V because Nutanix made one manager mad.

👥 4. Underdeveloped Organization and Skills

IT Leadership is overwhelmed and sorely under qualified for their roles as individuals who are supposed to provide IT guidance to the business and manage personnel
Roles and responsibilities unclear — overlap or gaps in coverage.
Insufficient training and outdated technical skills.
High turnover due to burnout, inequitable comp time, or poor leadership.
IT leadership is self-serving with no real concern for the business.
No strategic IT vision — decisions are reactive, not roadmap-driven.
No communication of goals or expectations to the IT team.
No succession planning — knowledge leaves with key employees.
Low morale and disengagement — staff feel undervalued or overworked.
Limited onboarding for new hires — they “figure it out as they go.”
Teams work in isolation — no collaboration between infrastructure, security, network, and applications.
Information hoarding — some staff keep knowledge to maintain control.
Lack of documentation culture — critical processes not shared or standardized.
Poor coordination with business stakeholders — IT viewed as disconnected from business goals.

Performance reviews subjective (“he’s been here a long time”).
No ownership of failures or missed deadlines.
Lack of project management discipline — tasks tracked informally via email or memory.
IT seen as a cost center instead of a business enabler.
Little involvement in business planning or strategy sessions.
No culture of innovation or experimentation.
Resistance to change — “we’ve always done it this way.”
Blame culture rather than learning culture.
Focus on short-term fixes instead of long-term process or skill development.
Overreliance on external vendors or MSPs due to lack of internal expertise.
Poor vendor oversight — no SLAs, KPIs, or contract reviews.
No internal capability to validate vendor work or invoices.
Consultants perform core functions that staff should manage internally.
No knowledge transfer from third parties after projects conclude.
Frequent outages or rework due to skill gaps.
Slow project delivery and missed deadlines.
Security misconfigurations and audit findings.
Low credibility with business leaders.
Employee dissatisfaction and turnover.

💬 5. Poor Communication and Collaboration

Minimal interaction between IT and business units.
No feedback loops for user satisfaction or service improvement.
Siloed teams (e.g., infrastructure vs. application).
Limited documentation and knowledge sharing.
Dependencies missed due to lack of cross-functional awareness.
No joint planning or design sessions across IT groups.
Teams still rely on email chains instead of collaborative workspaces.
Meetings replace collaboration, with no outcomes or action tracking.
Different sites use different systems (e.g., Salesforce).
No incident communication template or protocol.
Users find out about outages through experience, not announcements.
Post-incident reports never created nor shared, so lessons aren’t learned across teams.
Helpdesk not informed of planned maintenance, causing duplicate tickets.
IT speaks in technical terms without translating impact into business value or risk.
Executives perceive IT as opaque or unapproachable.
Lack of stakeholder engagement in IT projects.
Low trust and psychological safety — employees fear raising issues or ideas.
Meetings dominated by a few voices; others disengage.
Turf wars between managers or teams over ownership of systems.
Leadership doesn’t articulate IT’s mission or roadmap.
Staff unaware of long-term goals or current priorities.
No alignment between daily work and strategic objectives.
Leadership out of loop during outages.
External communication to users inconsistent or overly technical.
No after-action communication summarizing what happened and how it will be prevented.
“Us vs. Them” mentality between IT and business.
No collaboration across functions (IT, HR, Finance, etc.).
Resistance to transparency — problems hidden to avoid blame.
No retrospectives after projects or incidents.
Business distrusts IT — bypasses them to hire outside vendors (Solstice).
Repeated misaligned expectations between IT deliverables and business needs.
Slow decision-making because information doesn’t flow efficiently.

💰 6. Ineffective Financial and Asset Management

ZERO licensing management or even activation for Window Server operating systems and for SQL.

No formal IT budget process — funding is reactive (“We’ll ask for money when it breaks”).
Lack of transparency — leadership can’t explain where IT money goes.
No clear alignment between spend and business outcomes.

Shadow IT (business units buying tools without IT oversight)..
Untracked spend or redundant tools (they have 4 different monitoring systems, all doing the same thing).
Operational costs hidden in general expenses.
No differentiation between CAPEX and OPEX.
No dashboards or reports showing IT spend vs. value delivered.
Finance and IT speak different languages — no shared understanding of cost drivers.
No price benchmarking or competitive bidding.
Vendor renewals happen automatically without review or negotiation.
No risk assessments or due diligence for vendors.
No centralized license repository.
Over-licensing or under-licensing due to poor tracking.
No compliance checks against vendor agreements.
Missed renewals caused service disruptions.
Expired or unused licenses still being paid for.
Lack of visibility into user adoption or seat utilization.
No asset lifecycle strategy — hardware replaced reactively after failure.
No warranty or support tracking.
EOL (end-of-life) hardware remains in production.
Procurement not aligned with capacity planning.
No IT Asset Management (ITAM) policy defining roles, ownership, and lifecycle steps.
No integration between ITSM, CMDB, and financial systems.
No periodic reconciliation between purchase orders and inventory.
Budgeting and tracking left to managers who lack financial training.
Finance department manages IT spend blindly, with no operational insight.
No ownership for vendor relationship management.
No accountability for optimizing total cost of ownership (TCO).
No performance metrics for cost optimization.
No quarterly vendor or asset reviews.
No ROI tracking for major IT projects.
No benchmarking against industry peers.
Spending patterns never analyzed for savings opportunities.
Frequent budget overruns and emergency funding requests.
Inability to justify IT investments to executives.
Missed opportunities for innovation due to poor financial visibility.
Business distrust of IT’s financial stewardship.

🔒 7. Immature Security and Compliance

Security as an afterthought, not baked into design.
Poor audit trail or compliance reporting.
Reactive approach — policies and actions only follow incidents or audits.
No defined risk appetite or alignment with business goals.
No standard operating procedures (SOPs) for security controls.

Inconsistent compliance documentation or lack of version control.
Security efforts are ad-hoc rather than planned and continuous.
No centralized patch management — updates applied inconsistently.
Weak access controls — shared accounts, poor password hygiene.
No formal risk assessment process or documentation.
Compliance only checked before audits (e.g., “check-the-box” mentality).
No vulnerability management or remediation tracking.
Third-party risk not assessed — vendors granted access without evaluation.
No incident response plan or only informal procedures.
No defined roles or escalation paths during incidents.
No post-incident reviews or lessons learned process.
Finger-pointing culture after incidents, not learning-oriented.
Lack of cross-functional collaboration between IT, HR, Legal, and Operations.

📈 8. Lack of Continuous Improvement

No formal review cycles or maturity assessments.
No culture of learning from mistakes.
Resistance to change — “we’ve always done it this way.”
Technology upgrades only happen after failures.
Focus on short-term fixes rather than long-term solutions.
Recurring incidents because root causes are never addressed.
Improvement activities always postponed (“We’ll fix it after the next release”).
No defined process for lessons learned or retrospectives.
Firefighting normalized — success defined by “putting out fires,” not preventing them
No structured process for evaluating and implementing improvements.
No continuous service improvement plan or owner.
Improvements made ad hoc, driven by individual initiative rather than systematic analysis.
KPIs collected but not analyzed or acted upon.
Dashboards exist, but no one owns performance improvement.
No baseline measurements to evaluate progress.
Focus on vanity metrics (ticket counts, uptime) rather than value metrics (MTTR, user satisfaction).
No linkage between metrics and business outcomes.
Leaders don’t model improvement behavior — they reward busyness over progress.
No vision for evolving IT capabilities over time.
Improvement initiatives unfunded or deprioritized.
No ownership for process, service, or maturity improvement.
Success measured by uptime, not innovation or efficiency gains.
Automation tools exist but underutilized.
Duplicate tools acquired because existing ones are misunderstood.
No periodic tool rationalization to eliminate redundancy.
No integration between monitoring, ticketing, and asset systems.
No defined roadmap for tool modernization or consolidation.
Change viewed as a threat, not an opportunity.
“We’ve always done it this way” mentality dominates.
No post-implementation reviews for projects or releases.
Lessons learned never feed back into future projects.
Service improvement requests never prioritized in planning cycles.
No alignment between project delivery and operational optimization.
Old processes and architectures persist indefinitely.
Repetitive failures that leadership calls “bad luck.”
Constantly “restarting” improvement initiatives without sustaining them.
Low morale — staff see no progress or professional growth.
Business perception of IT as stagnant and bureaucratic.

If you are a skilled, motivated IT professional seeking a healthy work environment that values expertise, collaboration, and professionalism, you may want to look elsewhere.

This warning is not written out of resentment, but out of concern for others who deserve to work in an environment where their skills and integrity are respected.

Even Google agrees:

A Cautionary Tale About Working in Fuji Seal’s Information Technology Department