Pros
The company is small and although interaction with senior management was rare enough in itself, the times it did come about was fine and amicable
Cons
There were so many things that were wrong when working here. Firstly the management that I directly worked with were extremely unsympathetic and often accusatory. When working anywhere there is clearly one thing that can make a job a joy or a nightmare, and thats communication. The management that I worked with directly were micro-managers who barked orders and didn't want any response in return, and when a conversation was tried to be had, you were lucky if they even pretended to listen, or just waited until you stopped talking. As an example in a 1-1 I was blamed for something that happened when I wasn't there and when I tried to explain, I was told that they don't want to hear excuses. This is a start-up. Everyone is going to be learning as they go and within any startup there is and should be a general expectation that mistakes will be made. These mistakes should be points to learn and grow from as the business continues to expand. Here, however, something would happen for the first time that was often unforeseeable and management would get angry and passive aggressive to a point that was not okay or not conductive to a growing environment. A procedure was put in place to call customers at a certain point if something happened. This was done. One customer complained that they didn't appreciate the call. And when senior management brought this up and suggested that we don't call - the manager I worked under denied ever having made the procedure in the first place, despite it being of the utmost importance the day before, and made the point of condescendingly explaining it aloud in front of everyone before returning in a huff to their headphones. The company is small and although interaction with senior management was rare enough in itself, the times it did come about was fine and amicable. The main problem came from junior management who seemed to be constantly working themselves into a panic with the idea that they had something to prove and needed to be flawless. This often meant that when anything went wrong, as should be expected in a startup - as often things are wildly out of our control - blame would be created and passed down the line with an air of "you should've known better". In this sense, the management team were clearly ambivalent to their own hypocritical sense of entitlement, with one rule for them and another for everyone else. The management team that I worked directly under had one face for me and a totally different personality if others were around: possibly one of the most shocking things and a red flag if I ever saw one, was how the management team that I worked under took every opportunity to gossip and criticise everyone else in the office/company when they weren't in the room. And with anyone like that, you know that it is undoubtedly being done to you too. They forgot to pay me once too, fine in a startup, wasn't a big issue, but the only person who dealt with payroll was on holidays and they couldn't do anything about it until they came back. I told my manager I was moving house and may not have wifi one of the days and wouldn't be able to work from home. She told me that I "better get that sorted, just make sure to have wifi". I spoke to someone else and they told me that I could just use the office if needed. The senior management as a whole tried their best to paint a picture of a happy team, a family. A company that "really" cares about you. A blind statement followed through with superficial acts - Like pizza, "Isn't this a great place to work, you get free pizza?" Yeah, thanks, but I'd like communication and stock options please, as well as regular 1-1's and a manager that isn't constantly on their phone or giving aggressive one-word answers when no one is around. Doubling down on the above, the bikes were falling apart as people used them, literally wheels and handlebars and breaks falling off, check twitter people took photos - thus the company decided to close down for a period - and the happy family gave staff under a weeks pay before calling it a day for the 'happy family'. This was just after a massive seed of millions from crowd funding was raised and the furlough scheme was in full swing, but they decided to cut staff like they cut that pizza. It wasn't all bad though, they did it via phone, which was courteous, it could've been through text, email, or slack. But no, they reached into the depths of their hearts and gave staff a quick ring to let them know. One thing they didn't let them know though was that the phone call was a conference call and other staff were on the line listening in, even chiming in at the end to "make sure you give the headset back". The headset that was a "gift" only a few months earlier. They promised to offer staff their jobs back when they re-opened in the spring, which ended up being late summer. Well, on the phone, they promised staff could have their jobs back in the spring, that they'd be in touch and can't wait to work with us again. But alas, there was nothing. It was just another superficial act, superficial words. Final words, they made me write one of the above reviews with them watching me do it. They told me it would be anonymous, but they were clearly going to know who left it. They asked me to do it first thing when I came in and they get a notification anytime a review is left. When I told my manager this, she told me it would be fine that it would still be anonymous. I don't think she understood. I never returned the headset and having never opened it I gave to a charity shop.
