TTR Reviews

For those that choose to stick it out at TTR, as they move up the management ranks within the company, they begin to notice certain things that just seem off. A former executive of TTR once asked me, “Do people realize that this is not a normal company?” She didn’t mean that comment in a good way. TTR is not a Scientology company per se. Yes, it is true that the company is owned by Scientologists. And, in past years, this was not a difficult thing to figure out. There used to be Scientology materials in the office, Scientology terms such as “hatting” (meaning “training”) were used, and the company even held mandatory training sessions on Scientology principles (although the concepts were not identified as Scientology principles by management at the time, folks Googled the unfamiliar terms used in the training and discovered that they were Scientology principles). As the company grew over time, and as press coverage of Scientology intensified, the company sought to distance itself from being associated with Scientology. Shon Holyfield, the CEO (and a Scientologist), instituted a policy forbidding the discussion of religion (i.e., Scientology) at the office. The “official” policy forbids the discussion of “politics, sex, money or religion,” but it was clear to the non-Scientologists at the office that the policy was implemented to discourage employees from discussing TTR’s connections to Scientology. I do believe that these days TTR tries its best to keep Scientology out of the office (or at least keep it from being openly discussed at the office). However, because the owners of the company (including the CEO) as well as many members of top management are Scientologists, you can still see the influence of Scientology in the management of TTR and in certain aspects of its culture. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on your perspective, but it is something that prospective employees should be aware of. The CEO holds a lot of strange beliefs that infiltrate into the management of the company. For example, one such belief is that if someone complains about something, it’s probably because they “don’t have enough work to do.” People who lodge a complaint, regardless of the legitimacy of the complaint, are labeled as “noise makers” and are assigned additional work. It is not good for your career at TTR to be labeled as a noise maker. Over time, this has created an atmosphere where people are scared to speak up about things out of fear of being labeled “noise makers” and being fired. So, people keep their heads down and try to fly under the radar, even if there are real underlying issues that need to be addressed. Another similar strange belief perpetuated by the CEO is that if person A has a grievance against person B, it’s probably because *person A* has done something bad towards person B. To a normal person this likely makes no sense. It flips the entire situation on its head, and puts someone who may have a legitimate grievance against another person immediately on the defensive. So again, best to keep your head down and not make “noise.” The owners of TTR have a real “thoughts create reality” kind of mentality. And I don’t mean “thoughts create reality” in some sort of inspirational slogan kind of way, but in a literal way. For example, suppose it’s flu season and there’s a bug going around the office and a dozen people are out sick. You are not allowed to acknowledge the simple reality that “there’s something going around the office” without receiving a scolding by Mr. Holyfield. Apparently, he believes that simply thinking or saying that there’s “something going around” will create it as reality (despite the fact that it’s already reality), and that not thinking or saying those things will prevent it from becoming reality. Another belief is that if something bad happens to you, it’s generally your fault. For example, a  previous employee had come down with the common cold and got called into Mr. Holyfield’s office. Mr. Holyfield explained, “Well in my experience, when I get sick, it’s usually because I’ve been doing something that I shouldn’t be doing.” He then proceeded to ask the employee if the employee had watched inappropriate materials on the Internet at home. Yes, the CEO of TTR asked an employee that question because the employee had a cold. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up. Personally, I’ve always subscribed to the germ theory of disease when it comes to common colds. The CEO has a very “us vs. them” mentality with respect to former TTR employees. It does not matter if those former employees were fired, laid off, or left of their own accord to pursue bigger and better opportunities. In fact, those in the last category are probably the most resented by Mr. Holyfield. It’s as though he sees it as a betrayal, and he takes it personally. In a normal company, if a professional decides to leave the company to pursue another opportunity, they give anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks notice, and then spend the remainder of their time at the company wrapping up and/or transitioning open projects that they’ve worked on. At TTR, when you give notice that you will be resigning in, e.g., 2 weeks, you are told that you will be paid out for those 2 weeks, but that you should immediately pack up your belongings and leave the TTR property - i.e., as soon as you give notice, you are no longer welcome there. At that point, you are one of the “them.” Mr. Holyfield has made derogatory comments in front of the entire company about the work performance of former employees who resigned to pursue other opportunities at established consulting firms. Why a CEO would feel the need to do that, I have no idea. Mr. Holyfield has held company-wide meetings in which he’s told employees that they could be fired for talking to certain former employees. He also told an employee that the employee’s adult daughter couldn’t come visit her at the office because the daughter used to work at TTR and “former employees aren’t allowed on the property” (the daughter was well-liked among the TTR staff, but had apparently committed the unforgivable sin of resigning from TTR over a year earlier to pursue employment in a completely unrelated industry). It really doesn’t surprise me that some previous employees have compared their experience of working at and leaving TTR to a PTSD experience. Employees, including research attorneys, are required to track and keep statistics of their tasks in a software program called “Management by Statistics.” The website for the software describes it as “proven Hubbard Management Technology.” The version of the software installed on TTR computers used to contain numerous references to Scientology creator L. Ron Hubbard, but at some point TTR scrubbed the program to remove those references, replacing L. Ron Hubbard’s name with blank spaces in the user interface. As an employee, you are given the option of having your work email accessible on your cell phone through Microsoft Outlook. I would advise against doing this. If you leave the company for any reason, TTR has the ability to erase ALL information from your phone, including your personal contacts, text messages, photos, music, apps, etc. TTR tells employees that in the event that they leave the company, the employee will be given the option of (1) physically handing their phone to TTR’s IT department and having them delete the TTR email account, or (2) having the ENTIRE phone erased remotely by TTR’s IT department. However, I know of at least one situation where an employee was terminated and all of the data on the employee’s cell phone was erased without the employee being given the option to delete just the TTR email account. In addition, it is not clear what other access TTR obtains to your cell phone when you allow them to set up a TTR email account on that device. I know of a former TTR executive who was convinced that TTR was monitoring her personal texts, based on knowledge that TTR had regarding information in those texts. Mr. Holyfield takes what is, in my opinion, an unnatural, unhealthy interest in employees’ private lives. He especially disapproves of social drinking with other coworkers after work, so if you’re the type that likes to grab happy hour drinks with your colleagues, do yourself a favor and never, ever discuss such plans at work. I’m sure that TTR will respond to this review by saying that I am a disgruntled former employee (see the canned language responses that TTR has posted to other reviews on this site that give TTR a less-than-perfect rating). That’s TTR’s general strategy - to try to discredit its critics, while failing to respond to the substance of any criticism. But here’s the thing: because reviews on Glassdoor are anonymous, it *is* possible that a disgruntled former employee could post false information about a company, just as it is possible that a company could post false positive reviews about itself. Based on the content of the 5-star reviews of TTR, I have reason to believe that many of these posts were, in fact, written by Mr. Holyfield and another senior executive at TTR. So, how does one know which reviews to believe? My suggestion would be to talk live to the dozens of former employees of TTR (or its sister company, TTCG) who are not Scientologists and ask them what their experiences were like working for Mr. Holyfield and TTR. These are bright, educated, and accomplished attorneys, other tax professionals, and sales professionals who have gone on to careers in the Big 4, other major tax consulting firms, law firms, corporate tax departments, the Oregon Department of Justice, and even academia. Find and connect with them on LinkedIn. Ask them for additional contacts that previously worked at TTR. Talk to those contacts as well. You will find that these people can corroborate the things that I’ve written in this review and that they all have the same opinion regarding their experience of working at TTR - and it’s not a positive opinion.