My experience on the Customer Insights team at LendUp was a profound learning experience in a way that was much different than what I had originally anticipated.
While the Account Manager opportunity was originally NOT marketed at all as a customer service role, I quickly learned that this is indeed what the role encompassed.
Aside from an incorrectly marketed role, the Customer Insights leadership team displayed a method of "leadership" that relied on belittling and demeaning team members. From being reduced to a number on a dashboard to being chided for requesting sick days (in the face of serious illnesses) to being misled about the nature of the opportunity to leaders who seemed to have no regard for the team's well-being or professional development, my experience on the Customer Insights team provided me with more "insights" that I had originally intended to collect - insights into how leaders should NOT act (a great learning experience in itself).
I had accepted my role at LendUp as someone who was determined to make a real impact - someone who was interested in understanding the way in which this "for profit, mission driven" concept actually played out. Instead, I walked away feeling extremely disillusioned with both the model as well as the people behind this model.
My LendUp experience was a negative one due to the misaligned value systems, but placing that aside, the maltreatment of employees is something that transcends my particular value system. I wish all the best to LendUp, but at the same time, I do not want to sit silently about the way both my co-workers and I were treated throughout the process.
