Dish Network, the Meanest Company In America.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/dish-network-meanest-company-america-194008712.html?page=1The most common complaints were long hours, lack of paid holidays, and way too much mandatory overtime. Some posts suggest that merely setting foot in Dish’s headquarters is a danger to the soul. “Quit” was the recommendation to one Dish employee who sought management advice. “You’re part of a poisonous environment?…?go find a job where you can use your talents for good rather than evil.” The roundup noted one other thing: The share price was up more than 30 percent for most of the year.
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Ergen founded Dish more than 30 years ago, installing satellite systems with partner Jim DeFranco. Dish is now the second-largest satellite TV provider in the U.S., with 26,000 employees. Ergen, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has an estimated net worth of $11 billion. That puts him among the world’s richest men and makes him one of America’s greatest entrepreneurial success stories. He’s also a living rebuke to a library of management textbooks that suggest fostering happy, self-actualized employees in a transparent environment of trust and communal effort is the path to wealth.
Judianne Atencio left Dish not long after. As head of communications for a decade, she had witnessed some of the company’s biggest triumphs, including the successful launch of its satellites and the signing of its 10 millionth subscriber. She had also been around for some of its most crushing defeats, such as Murdoch’s last-minute cancellation of a planned merger and the federal government’s denial of another with competitor DirecTV.
“I didn’t have a life for 10 years,” she says. “I couldn’t even have a dog.” There were times when Ergen screamed so loud at Atencio that she packed up her stuff and had to be persuaded in the parking lot to return to work by an apologetic board member. A friend who had worked in the White House even tried to comfort her by saying, “Charlie’s like Clinton—he only screams at the ones he cares about.”
Charlie Ergen is not the solution. "Charlie Ergen" is the problem.
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I had to make a choice between Dish and Directv (just got satellite after 20 yrs. with no TV. Still debating if getting it all was a good idea! 
). I got a better feeling from Directv in the initial interactions, inquiry calls. They treated me with more respect, more intelligence, better service. I had read that Murdoch was behind Dish.
Phew! Sorry for those suffering in any case. I've worked in soul-killing jobs; it's awful!
So far, we haven't found much to watch. Flabbergasted at the coarseness and stupidity of Discover and History channels; naively had higher expectations. Our Seahawks are in the playoffs, so that's fun, but I miss watching the game at the neighbor's house!
Loved Jon Stewart last night (of course), but his is one we saved internet bandwidth for...esp. when the monologue (do they still call it that?) is good. I do like MSNBC's political programming - but we get it all on Sirius radio!
Tried Downton Abbey on Sunday, but, like Nashville, which we had also heard good things about, it was just a dressed-up soap opera. Probably didn't give either one much of a chance, but it was enough for us! So, at most an hour or less a day seems to be more than enough. Funny, because I was mostly afraid of TV stealing our time!
We have a pile of really great books to read. The TV is in the daylight basement (where the dogs and cats live), while the rest of our "living quarters" (kitchen, living rm., bedroom) are upstairs. This is good for keeping TV from creeping into every aspect of our lives.
So far the biggest winners are the house pets: the enjoy having us over to their place for an hour every evening!
