I’m going to try to conceptualize all of my thoughts about how bad of a company this is to work for into a few brief paragraphs. If you are even considering applying for this company, I STRONGLY URGE you to read this ENTIRE review thoroughly before even beginning the interview process.
Let’s start with management, because indeed, the entire morale of the company is set from above. Individuals that are in a direct management position in this company 100% rule by fear (think Stalin, Mao’s China, etc.). Micromanagement just doesn’t exist at this company - it is in fact a way of life. Meaningless “hustle” sales metrics are tracked, analyzed, and harped on (# of dials, talk-time on the phone, # of emails sent), and unrealistically high metrics are expected every single day. Management at this company would promote a well-trained monkey that made 250 cold calls a day before promoting someone with “low” activity, no matter what the quality of that activity was.
This leads me to my next point about management - extreme bias. If you are a college wrestler, you will likely walk in on your first day and get promoted. Management give preferential treatment to employees that were college athletes, offspring of former colleagues, and fitness freaks. Quite honestly, if you aren’t any of the above, don’t even waste your time here. Management openly makes fun of people who “aren’t like them”, and try to get everyone to conform to their way of life, whether that is inside or outside of the office. “How do they do that?”, you might ask.
I’m so glad that you did. Here is a list of things that have occurred in the office/come directly from management’s mouth. Ask yourself as you read them, “Do I want to work for a company whose management conducts themselves this way?”
- “We only hired this intern because she is pretty, and we will send videos of her pitch our product to F1000 customers”
- “Mandatory” 5am “team building” workouts, where if you did not attend, your motives and commitment to the company were immediately questioned. Not to mention, a particular manager held a bias against half of the business development team for not attend a day-before Thanksgiving 6am run when it was sub-20 degrees outside.
- Management requiring employees to participate in a book club. Employees were required to read stupid sales books that all go over the same thing, then write a page paper on what they learned. When did we go back to high school?
- “You don’t need that cheeseburger for lunch, looks like you’ve put on a couple of pounds”
- Upper management openly ignores employees who they’ve deemed in their minds “can’t cut”. A direct quote from a senior manager was “if I stop talking to you, that means you need to find another job. I won’t give you any feedback, because I’ve given up on you, and you mine as well be dead to me”. Think about that. If you don’t conform to exactly what management’s flawed perception of success is, they will immediately cut you off.
- Why do you think free lunch was provided? Any employee that leaves the office from 7am-6pm local time (depending on your territory) is immediately scrutinized, and their determination is questioned. Doctor’s appointment? Doesn’t matter. Funeral? Better have proof that the person is dead. Additionally - one senior manager even removed the cable box from the common room because employees were watching TV on their lunch break. Their reasoning? “You come to work to work, not watch TV”.
- Management will put on impromptu role playing training for sales folks at the worst times of days, taking their people away from actually driving revenue to their product. Additionally, management judges these contests, and often advance people who they favor, even though their messaging/pitch is far less superior than their peers. Justification for these contests? “You always need to be perfecting your message, don’t ever question when we have one of these”.
- Upper management mandates that employees share things on social media, and management take unnecessary swipes at “industry giants” on social media. Funny thing about that? CloudGenix is not even a blip on their radar. And if they were, they would have been seriously approached about being acquired by now.
That was a lot. But there is more.
Upper management will pitch promotion to you from the day you walk in the door, but honestly, they have no plans to promote you. Outside talent is being brought in to fill position that were assured to employees that were hired a long time ago. “If you put in the work, you’ll get promoted” is the biggest lie in the world.
Do you like spending time with your family, spouse, significant other? Well, at CloudGenix, family and friends do not matter. PTO is considered sac-religious, and if you take any time off, you better be ready to plea for it. One employee even cancelled a trip because they thought it would please management and show their dedication to the company. This company wants to wear you down and work you like a dog, only to toss you to the wind and find the next “go-getter” to run through the wire/use and abuse.
If you’ve made it this far, you probably are filled with a lot more questions than answers. I implore you to reach out to one of the many former employees of CloudGenix to hear about their experiences, and get those waining questions answered. They will be open with you about their experience. You may also be asking yourself “why did someone go through all of this just to write a negative review about a company on Glassdoor?”.
CloudGenix was the source of much stress, hardship, and unwanted negative energy in my own life for way too long. I learned a lot about myself during my time at this company, but it put an enormous, undeserved stress on my social, personal, and work life. The culture at this company is as toxic as the air at Chernobyl currently, and I cannot downvote this company far enough.
If you take anything away from this review, let it be this - this is a facade of a company, promising riches, promotions, and glory to those who “hustle, grind, and put in the work”. It is in fact a place were promising careers get derailed for the amount of time that it takes for employees to realize that they made the biggest mistakes of their professional career by leaving a stable company and coming to this poorly run, extremely bias, naive start-up.
