Dolly Reviews

Despite selling the vision of upper mobility, increased staffing/funding, the truth becomes apparent quite quickly. If you're hired at an hourly role for the support roles, you start at less than minimum wage (because they are a startup they don't need to match this yet), and are told that eventually you may be able to transition into a salaried position with full benefits. This won't be the case until you serve at least 2 years and meet every requirement. Given the current track record, you'll either quit or get let go before you get there. Be prepared to work anytime between 5AM and 9PM, any day of the week including (and especially) Saturdays/Sundays. An email/text from management at odd hours expecting a response on days off is not uncommon. In the Ops team, the expectations to work harder and smarter than anyone else, while being underpaid and also being responsible for any shortcomings will take a toll on your mental health. The Customer "Success" team is expected to be working non-stop by urgently handling every request that comes in the help desk via phone calls, emails, text messages, etc. Being on the phone for 4+ hours a day is not uncommon, most of which is spent dealing with highly stressful situations and unpleasant customers and contractors that work for the company. Management is not shy of publicly shaming any shortcomings, but is conservative when providing any praise or incentives to keep up the work. Parking for the building is $200/mo, and there is no program to reimburse you for your transit costs. Even if you're working on an hourly rate of $14 in one of the most expensive cities in the country. The cost of getting to and from work will essentially mean you work at least 15 hours to cover your bus fares for the month. For a being a technology company that started off with a mobile app, it's incredibly frustrating to see that the app is still plagued with issues. Customers and contractors that work for the company in the field will report and complain about app problems every day but with the entire app team consisting of 1 or 2 developers( without a product manager), it is crippling the progress of the company. The unfortunate truth is that these developers are spending the vast majority of their time troubleshooting and bug fixing rather than releasing new features. Business development forges new partnerships with stores in markets all the time, but does not take into account how the customers that shop at these stores fit the persona for the company. Having to make "one-time exceptions" all the time, and ultimately have to provide a negative experience due to customer expectations is not worth it. Bottom line, there are false promises being made all around. The company has an excellent product idea, and solves a real problem. However, the entire focus is around the customers (who have zero brand loyalty) rather than the employees and the contractors that are actually providing the service. A bad apple here or there is excusable. But when there have been over 10 employees that have either quit or been let go for the same management reasons, it serves to show there is a common denominator that poor leadership is causing the company to suffer and prevent healthy growth.

Expect, if on the Operations/Customer Success team, to be treated/compensated as second-class employees in comparison/relation to the rest of the teams within the company Expect to be overworked, underpaid, undervalued, 100% expendable, and held accountable on a daily/weekly/quarterly basis for multitudes of issues and KPI’s that are often outside of your direct control Expect to have a boss who is a faultless "yes-man" and a tool of the upper management, not an advocate or ally of yours for any frustrations that you or your team experiences. The best way to keep your job is to keep your head down and work Expect your direct boss to be an often-dishonest and (at the very least) a poor communicator and do not be surprised when something said to you in person (i.e. a praise, an expectation, etc) is changed or contradicted in an inconsiderate, impersonal manner via a late-night, cryptic email or performance review to fit their underlying motive or narrative Expect mid-level Ops management and the company leadership as a whole to not care at all about you, your short/long-term career development or goals, etc Expect the day-to-day work to increase your stress levels and decrease your mental health Expect to be answering phone calls for 4-6+ hours/shift Expect the Spring/Summer (especially end of month shifts) to be some of the most stress-inducing and soul-crushing experiences imaginable, with a never-ending stream of customers and contractors constantly calling, texting, and emailing you their problems/disputes/grievances while being anywhere on from curious to mildly frustrated to downright irate, screaming/swearing at the top of their lungs at you for something that has gone wrong during their move Expect any shortcoming of other teams/departments to be shoveled into Ops’ long list of responsibilities, especially technical bugs and problems, which the Dolly app is riddled with Expect a constantly changing set of managerial expectations or "S.O.P.'s (standard operating procedures) for various customer support scenarios. Make sure to stay up to date on these, as you can/will be punished for doing something today, which you were allowed to do yesterday Expect, during busy times (spring, summer, end of months) to have 50-100+ or more urgent customer/contract emails and texts to respond to, but also be expected to answer every incoming phone call and return every single voicemail or phone sale from impatient customers who refuse to create a Dolly on the app by themselves, regardless of how many more urgent issues await your response Expect some of these grief and stress-filled scenarios to happen while the rest of the company enjoys leisurely afternoon h'oeuvres d'oeuvres parties, (therein lies a glimpse into the 1st/2nd class company division) Expect Dolly to internally identify itself as a scrappy startup that values putting customers first. Expect to discover this^ to be nothing but hot air when you have 50+ angry customers and contractors urgently awaiting help/responses from your paper thin-stretched, understaffed support team, and the rest of the company ignores your teams’ cries for help because pizza Expect to be misled regarding potential for growth/promotion/upward mobility. Do not make the big mistake of thinking ANY patience/loyalty/long hours will be rewarded if you decide you want to climb the short ladder that exists within the Ops team/company Expect the dangling carrot on a stick metaphor to be an apt one for your prospects of becoming a salaried employee If you do get promoted into a mid-level, salaried Operations role, expect the concept of work/life balance to not exist. Whereas in other jobs this might be true or worth it because of compensation, expect that that won’t be the case at Dolly and that your skills will be compensated well-below market rate for Seattle If salaried, expect that to succeed in completing your new job responsibilities, you'll have to increase your weekly hours to that of an employee who makes double or triple your salary, and expect that complaining about this injustice could/will eventually lead to your termination Expect extremely high turnover in entry-level positions, which will lead to you/mid-level salaried Ops employees having to work overtime in order to appease the unrealistic expectations set by “leadership”