Pros
The only real positive was the opportunity to work with genuinely talented and kind colleagues. I also had the chance to interact with international leaders from Portugal who were competent, humble, open minded and REAL professionalism.
Cons
Local leadership in Brazil was inexperienced in the industry and deeply insecure. Instead of leveraging the team's capabilities, they centralized control and defaulted to micromanagement and authoritarian behavior. The work environment was dominated by fear, not trust. There was low demand in customer support, yet the local manager and HR representative frequently created artificial tasks such as posting public Slack messages about meaningless dirty coffee machines to appear active and valuable to their own shallow leadership. These actions had no strategic value and only fostered embarrassment and discomfort among team members, especially when a private conversation could have resolved things constructively. This performative management created a toxic atmosphere. Instead of establishing clear rules or leading by example, they punished the team for their own inability to organize the workplace in a normal and respectful way. Several people left voluntarily due to this behavior. They also acted as if they were superior to the rest of the team one working remotely days a week, the other arriving later while demanding more from others than they were willing to contribute themselves. They didn’t advocate for fairness or equal rights within the team, reinforcing a culture of privilege and disconnect, as if they belonged to a higher caste within the operation. But in fact the operators could handle better the operation themselves.