An interesting convergence of success and dysfunction - Sales and Marketing Department IXL Learning Employee Review

I have numerous gripes with IXL that resulted in me leaving, but before reading any further I want to preface that these are just my observations and hopefully the company can work to improve over time. The difficulty with a dysfunctional workplace is that folks like me end up "checking out" when things do not improve, and we end up becoming disgruntled ex-employees once we have alternatives or go full-on OfficeSpace and stop caring altogether. I would never tell anyone reading my review to reject a secure job that provides them enough income to support them and their family (unless they had alternatives). My advice is to take any review with a grain of salt and use your own judgements to see if the remarks align with observations made during interview(s). Additionally, there are a number of roles at IXL so my perspective may not apply. Who knows, maybe you are the person this company needs to reorient their direction? -Peter Principle: Much of the management is comprised of veteran employees who have shown lots of loyalty from when the company was very small, but aren't necessarily a good fit for roles where they are expected to mentor and oversee other workers. Days were almost always chaotic, which then led to stress and lots of "bad moods" on their faces. (Aside: much of management is strangely involved in some of the minutia of their previous roles, despite being overwhelmed) -Work/Life balance: I recall being quite excited about the "flexible hours" touted on IXL's hiring page. Turns out this was far from the truth: I was denied days off, was given no opportunities to work from home, was expected to travel and/or work on weekends, and had to work a rigid 9-6 schedule every single day. Management's idea of charity was to surprise workers before holiday weekends with a 1-hour early dismissal. -Odd workplace culture: While many individuals were incredibly friendly and great people, the overarching mood was extremely antiseptic. Social events consisted of generic once-a-month birthday celebrations and the occasional lunchtime sports game (But of course, who wants to play kickball at lunch when your day is miserably boring and you want some time to relax?). -Vertical paranoia: Extreme concern for keeping contact information under wraps, emails and other writing addressed to customers was very formulaic and revolved around a handful of talking points. Very little information about production schedules or even the company's history were shared with employees. Most decisions/projects relied on personal approval and involvement of senior management, causing things to move very slowly. Despite seemingly rolling in new revenue, unwillingness to spend money on office hardware and other expenses.