jobbite
I worked for this health supplement company for many years, and it has taught me this...even in the health and healing industry the ego knows no boundaries as to how to make long standing employees feel like amoeba. What makes it worse is that this companies managers where only hired primarily out of family and religious bias, as well as schmoozing skills, not necessarily out of merit.
I was interviewed in an illegal manner, being questioned about my diet.
One among them even was quite boastful how great it was to be this and that, part of his family lineage, then talk to me like I'm stupid, like I'm less intelligent and uncultured, loudly proving me wrong on every point and the father of the company, well aware of this, just doesn't care.
Their company organizational skills were horrible by the time I left.
They stopped giving performance reviews along with pay increases. This was primarily because they were appraising our performance based on their surveillance techniques: hidden cameras and voice recorders.
Their management always hired a manager in my department to bully me around, no matter how hard, focused and efficiently I worked, and just as soon as I complained and they fired them, rather than promoting me, they'd hire another micromanager and bully.
One general manager who got terminated, would not promote me because he found my lack of kissing up to his illusory attitude to be unacceptable. He got fired after someone complained about his multiple accounts of repeated verbal harrassment (12 to the best of my knowledge).
My last department manager was the worst, always talking about babes, bling, booze and what he watched on TV every night of his miserable life. My work was fine till he came along, then it got worse because he would brutally micromanage me while doing some serious organizing with heavy machinery...then I'd start feeling totally self conscious and became very shaky on the forklift. The message I got from him was basically 'I don't trust you, though you've been here longer than I and have seniority'.
While me and my coworkers would be working our butts off, he'd often times go and do some rumor whispering and excessive texting in some corner. He yelled at me for taking a band aid out of the closest first aid kit while my finger was bleeding...that is incredibly callous!...and they never disciplined him once. He'd rarely, if ever, let us know when we shined, and we shined most of the time. He'd also get one of my coworkers to pallatize someone elses MLM package deal, NOT work related, and the management up front is just totally out of touch with us, no matter what they see on their camera footage.
My department manager also deliberately kept us out of the dark on company agendas, with the exception of the occasional company memo of, 'keep the fridge clean or we'll have to take it out of your pay check' style of threats. He was absolutely determined to crush any sense of individuality of mine, literally attempting to force me to use my body in ways that would make me feel uncomfortable, like stooping down frequently to pull an order, rather than adjusting my cart and my surroundings to make it efficient for me and the health of my back.
No one complains that the pay was good, and they bought us lunch every friday, but what they give in the way of heart and higher ethics is totally absent....it's no wonder they paid so well, they think that money can replace faith, trust and respect. This family owned, operated and managed company would do well to abolish the family favoritism, and put someone in charge who actually knows how to encourage people to do their best, not constantly criticize their staff in such berating and condescending ways. They focus on weakness, rather than strengths. Since it had been a while since we got our written performance reviews, it was hard for any nonmanagement employee to know exactly where the company stood with us, and the result was just nothing but bad faith and ill will.
The survey they passed around to us about how we felt about our jobs was apparently of no consequense, not to me, anyway, for they didn't take the time to call me in and address my concerns and solutions to them. Truly, most of the people who work there absolutely resent it, but won't say so for fear of vindictive attitudes and implications of 'there will be consequences' if you do this and that. Those who kissed up to management where not only able to bypass normal procedures, but where allowed be condescending to us on the one hand and on the other, to bypass procedures that were designed to keep us from working in fire hazard environments.
For example, in one instance the manager of another department was allowed to neglect her product release duties in my department for over a week, leaving the warehouse dangerously crowded with over 20 stacks of unreleased product, with no safe place to stack them legally, putting the whole company in jeopardy, while she was in her office, on the phone or the web and conducting interviews to find someone to do that job for her, so she could get the job as director of another department. If a fire would've broken out up front, there would have been no safe exit out the back door. And my department manager at that time, just went along with her, inspite of my warning. Yep, you can have your eyes on the prize, but it's not worth it if your heart has it's roots in the most sinful attitudes.
Those who bring the 'there's brothers and there's others' attitude with then to their managerial style will always been resented, and will be in perpetual denial of it. The saying goes, money can't give what the truth takes away...and the truth of this family managed company is mostly ugly.
the pros are -good pay and company meal every friday, bonuses 2-3 times a year.
the cons are - bad morale, favoritism, elitism, whispering and backbiting, bullying and intimidating behavior and speech by management.