QBP Reviews

For decades, QBP has trumpeted a relaxed culture and sane work-life balance in lieu of competitive wages. But since waves of layoffs swept the company in 2013, management has piled work and additional hours on remaining staff. A hiring freeze remains in most departments, morale is low, and many long-time veterans are jumping ship for higher wages and better working conditions with other companies. The company paints its much vaunted “culture” as a kind of bicycle utopia; a place where hippie values fuse with profitable business practices. In reality, corporate politics are rife, radiating from Q’s secretive and cultish upper management. They regularly finger whole departments for psy-op-style purges, making even high-performing individuals run a gauntlet of unobtainable objectives. The result? High-profile firings and wage freezes for the lucky survivors. It’s lousy for morale, but great for the bottom-line—at least in the short term. Finally, with an aging demographic, the long-term outlook for the bicycle industry as a whole is uncertain. And as increasingly savvy competitors encroach in a market once dominated by QBP, it is uncertain how long they can maintain their roost as “the industry’s leading bike parts distributor.” So banking on a prosperous, long-term career in this sector is a dubious prospect.

Every employee at QBP is severely underpaid when compared to any company I’ve ever worked with. The company uses their history of great culture as a replacement for a fair wage, and the problem has become much worse during the pandemic. Upper management made clear to the entire company that nobody is getting a bonus or a raise between 2021 and 2022, possibly until the summer of 2023. I genuinely believe QBP is rapidly deteriorating as a company. 50+ people were laid off this week (8/31/2022) to “make the company more lean”, and the same happened towards the start of the pandemic. Most of my coworkers are looking elsewhere so they can avoid the shipwreck that QBP is quickly becoming. Oh and job prospects at QBP! I almost forgot. If you work in one department, you are competing with every one of your colleagues for very few positions within the company. So many people want to move up (I think to get better pay) that everything is extremely competitive to move even slightly past entry level. On diversity: 95% of my department is made up of white men, and they all think liking beer can be a personality trait. The rest of the company is not much different.