Interesting exprience - Anonymous employee Access Control Group Employee Review

Startup culture which allows each individual to contribute in many facets of the company. I have the ability to wear multiple hats while doing what I love - delivering best in class products. Work life balance is great.

Need to scale with the growth.

From my point of view it seems the company will take on people in a less than ideal spot in their career path, but then be toxic, insulting, narcistic, and manipulative(gaslighting) towards them because they feel they have the power to do so, and squeeze anything out of the employee until they choose to leave. Unfortunately it seems the company has been able to persist on this.

My opinion is AVOID WORKING HERE, and the following are all my opinions which are strongly negative about the company and CEO. I feel the way that employees are treated at this company is unacceptable, and it is clear to see from reviews on this page spanning 10 years this is a feeling that has been shared by any before. The source of all this horrible behavior comes from the CEO who always came off as toxic, insulting, rude, and overall just disgusting behavior. And unfortunately this was how the CEO acted towards everyone from my point of view, but was much more directed towards anyone who had to work closer to the CEO on a project, and unfortunately I was this person and had to deal with the CEO implying I was incompetent daily despite working my hardest and always providing explanations of the work I was doing and being open to receiving any guidance or suggestions(but these were never provided). Below is a list of more feelings and opinions of negative things about the company. Note: I worked at Minit Charger mostly and less on Access Control Group, but Access Control Group is owned by the same CEO and so both companies are in the same office and linked in many ways. So I am posting this review on both company pages as it applies to both. To start from the interview I was given the feeling I would be working under 2 more experienced engineers, I was led to believe this by their job positions and the way things were talked about. And while they are both great people and hard workers, however I could tell I has stronger technical skills when I arrived there very quickly. And was disappointed to not have the learning experience I hoped coming in. During my 7 months there 6 employees left the company. Within my first month of working there 2 employees already left the company which I already felt was a bad sign, along with it being clear there wasn't any long time engineers on location so there was no good transfer of knowledge. Which this lack of long time employees clearly showed itself many times in how disorganized things are and the loss of some important knowledge. The CEO would constantly say it was because they were incompetent anyways. But I always felt they had good suggestions for improvement. It just seemed the boss was impatient and wanted everything to magically completed in no time at all. When really none of the structure existed there for the company to build on and no one was ever given the chance. Instead on multiple occasions I felt the CEO came in kicking and screaming like a toddler(metaphorically) when things weren't going how the CEO wanted or not meeting a timeline that was set without any true justification. When the CEO actually could have tried to provide actual guidance instead. I felt this toxic gaslighting and narcissism. Any offering of explanation to the CEO as to why projects were going a certain way would be met with the CEOs refusal to listen and try to understand. I was often made to feel incompetent by the CEO. Despite providing thorough work and trying to recreate documentation and designs that had been lost, and incomplete, while also adding all recommended improvement suggested by multiple parties. And I respectfully asked to no be talked to that way, and I was being told I was being to emotional and to suck it up. This treatment of mental health by a CEO is disgusting. In my opinion it was very easy to constantly feel undervalued there, as any show of appreciation was rare or not forthcoming. All this is in addition to other negative experiences I haven't listed here but all were nearly as bad. But one more example is I felt a lack of urgency when I suggested purchasing an AED, when it can be life saving around high current chargers. When almost anything else especially profit related was given more urgency. My only regret is staying at the company for as long as I did and providing as much value I did to someone who in my opinion is so disgusting and undeserving of the value. I've worked for several companies in my life and I feel this CEO is clearly the worst I've worked for by a large margin. To anyone considering working here, I believe that no one should have to deal with the disrespect I dealt with here, and that the CEO does not deserve the value that you would bring here. And in my opinion this company is overall negative to the mental health of employees.