The reality of the IT Department is this. The department is run by the VP of Operations of the company. There are only 3 people in charge at HSI. Craig Morganson (known as The CEO), Laura Johnston (Craig's sister), and Neil Snyder (Craig's Partner). Next in line is Joe Roller (brown-noser) and Harvey Wasser (2nd brown-noser).

Laura will tout to you that she was a CIO for top fortune 500 companies for 29 years. Yeah, right! For someone to have been a CIO, she knows nothing about project planning. Her way of handing out projects is to tell you a deadline which is unspeakably unrealistic and then tell you it has to be done. She'll also tell you that the same project was done with less staff the year before and you'll just have to make sure the work is done. Her concept of making sure the work gets done is to trust no one and micro-manage everyone. She micro-manages to the point where she is standing over you watching you do the work. And then she has the gall to tout about how long she stays at the office. If she would take some of that time she wastes standing over people she might be able to do real work.

To make matters worse, she has no concept of processes to make deployments to production. Deployments are written on a white-board and hopefully nothing will go wrong. Well, of course, something always goes wrong because there are no checks and balances to confirm if the production move is going to affect something else in production. Gee!

Good luck trying to find Americans working there. We have more common sense and know we don't have to put up with how they treat you there. I can count the number of Americans on one hand. Everyone else is foreigners. Most of them are contractors on VISAs and this is their first job in the states or was convinced to go to work here. Everyone in IT is put on salary so you aren't paid overtime for the ungodly hours they are forced to put in on a daily basis. And you can't plan your life because you are always being told you have to expect to work late. Even if you work late, you're expected to be there by 8:30 a.m. the next day. These people are threatened with their VISAs if they don't agree to work and come in on the weekends. These people are bullies and they have the staff fearful to take any action against them.

And if you're smarter than Laura, forget about making it there. She will tell you the options you presented to her are unacceptable and will always have a reason why things need to be done her way. Their website is so outdated and the code is a piece of crap. You will spend more time trying to dig your way through the layers of code before you can update something.

The people working in the IT department are bright, intelligent people. But they can't take the time to code properly because they are under such time demands. So naturally they leave it as it is just to get the work done. I'm surprised someone hasn't tried to leave a worm or virus on the site considering how crappy they are treated.

All the complaints you read on this site in regards to HSI are true. People are not regarded as actual human beings there. From the moment you enter orientation, you are being brain-washed to think think the way they do. They will call you a loser and they also want you to tell on other people if they are seen doing something against their policies, such as answer your cell phone.

You are not allowed to have a personal life at work. No calls from anyone on the outside, no mail, nothing.

Managers are required to punch the time clock just like hourly employees. In fact, anyone salaried is required to punch in and out. They do this so they can keep track of whether or not you show up late. You are not allowed to be late, be sick, take any time off, or to stay there long enough to get benefits. There are a few that have managed to survive this company's idiot policies. Don't even try to figure out why they're still there.

Well, there is always more. What little time I spent there was enough. This company is poison and is a hostile working environment. Believe everything you read regarding HSI's policies and the infamouse Craig.