The most profoundly disappointing experience of my working life - E-Commerce Copy and Site Product Merchandising Lead Dôen Employee Review

Working at Dôen was one of the most disappointing, disillusioning experiences of my life. The swerve in values and treatment from the company's first year to my last day was so drastic in terms of quality that it's clear that everything I was presented with at the beginning - the familial friendliness and appreciation that drew me in, the we're all in this together mentality that spurred such great and dedicated work - was all a facade as easily shattered as glass once the company found success and the owners started believing that this made them better and smarter than everyone around them. Everything about Dôen since then has been little more than a performance. It's true that employees are charged to attend the holiday parties and were not offered health insurance for the first two years of the company. Holiday party ticket proceeds go to Planned Parenthood. The first year, employees paid $50 a ticket to attend the holiday party - a party that Dôen then touted all over social media as an event resulting in over $10k being contributed to PP and the cause of women's health, while they did not bother to offer healthcare to their very own staff of mostly women. The designer trumpeted how great it was that she now had a business where a woman could take more than the standard maternity leave and would not have to return to work right away; she neglected to mention that this only ever applied to her, and that, when Dôen finally developed a parental leave policy, it would consist of only the state minimum they were legally compelled to offer. While the C-suite jets off to faraway locations for their beautiful shoots on the company dime (bringing their entire families along each time), and the CEO talks about how vacations are soooo important, new hires are offered a pitifully substandard five days vacation in their first year. Any early intent to create a better company than the ones they previously worked for was abandoned with head-spinning swiftness by the owners as soon as they realized they would have to care about anyone but themselves; so, indeed, they have created a company that has only ever been better for them. They desire complete control over everything down to the most minuscule and pointless detail while also acting as if their jobs are their very last priority in terms of how often they need to come in to the office or show respect for other peoples' time by showing up for meetings that they chose to schedule. The designer's insistence on complete control has resulted in everything always being behind schedule due to the expectation that her every whim will be catered to, to the great detriment of the staff and the customers who pay at the time they pre-order for items that may not be delivered for months. The higher-ups absolute unwillingness to listen to any suggestion for improvement has resulted in a culture where only yes-women succeed; where standing up for yourself, the customers, or just what's right will only result in your career advancement grinding to a halt. The owners are quick to jump to conclusions on an employee's performance when their assessments are based on their own failures of memory or communication (accusing you of not doing something they asked, only to - maybe - back down once you prove they never asked, or that they dropped the ball on responding), and prefer to assume the worst of an employee rather than bothering to treat employees like humans and ask for clarification. This aggressive, accusatory style of management benefits nobody, and yet they persist with it despite being proven wrong in their assumptions again and again. Rest assured that you have heard about every good thing that Dôen has ever done; this is because the owners do good not for its own sake, but so that they can raise themselves up as Instagrammable paragons of engagement-seeking virtue. Concerns about the lack of racial and size diversity on the site were brought to the owners' attention as early as the brand's first season in 2016. After years of inaction on that front, they received an honest, bravely written letter from an employee sharing years of customer concerns, and offering a list of suggestions on how to improve. This was basically shrugged off, and they continued to hire only white, size XS models until there was a great customer outcry later that year. They proceeded to then take every single suggestion from that letter; this was not only done without a thank you, but that employee received a negative, confrontational end of year review and was never promoted thereafter despite dedicated, exemplary work. Sadly, that is generally the result at Dôen when you speak up. Management is allowed to speak to employees in rude, condescending ways, and bringing concerns to HR will often result in HR justifying and supporting said treatment in an attempt to make you believe you deserved it. The gaslighting runs deep here, in an atmosphere where an employee may be reprimanded by HR for expressing that they feel bullied, while the person who bullied them will not bother to look inward and improve their own behavior. In fact, as an employee you may be expected to change who you are as a person entirely, with no support; while you may achieve personal change as the result of the difficult work of growth, this will never, ever be acknowledged by those who expected it from you - and they will never bother to change themselves, even when confronted with evidence of how they've hurt people. Should you ever desire an apology for poor behavior from higher-ups, know that you will only receive an "I'm sorry you feel that way" or similar phrasing that removes their own accountability entirely. Unfortunately, this is also how they approach customer relations, as if the hurt they have caused is something you manifested out of thin air unrelated to their harmful actions. Genuinely ethical companies have no reason to demand employee confidentiality when it comes to the salaries they offer, as they should be proud to compensate employees well and have management share salary rates freely to let employees know that they and their coworkers are being paid fairly. That said, please note that on the subject of salary I am referring only to my own experience. After several years in this toxic environment, things got much worse with the dawn of COVID-19 as my salary was cut; my department was forced to work with drastically reduced staff, taking on additional duties I was never thanked or compensated for, and I was taken wild advantage of as I and others worked from home on days that stretched to up to fifteen hours long. Upper management expected the same amount of hours they worked from me despite what must have been a dramatic difference in pay based on my knowledge of industry standard rates in LA County and my own deeply substandard salary of $60k/year after five years at the company doing the work of (at minimum) two people, including duties acknowledged by supervisors as management-level work that I was tasked with for years without ever having Manager in my title. Upper management consistently modeled an expectation of incredibly long days with no offer of comp days/hours, and perpetuated a stressful atmosphere where everything is deemed as urgent as a house fire despite this being a company that sells ruffled dresses. My salary cut continued through the end of 2020, long after other companies had ended theirs, with no promise of ever returning the back pay I was owed. Those in the greatest positions of power use it only to get away with lying to the people that find their (many) mistakes, while never acknowledging the skill and talent of the people working themselves to burnout for them. Hierarchies are invented and dismantled on the spot to serve the company's needs, then treated as immutable despite literally all of this being made up. Upper management will make themselves into liars just to get revenge on direct reports who stood up to them. It isn't worth it. No matter how poorly they treat the people who work so hard for them, they don't deserve their punishing schedules either - everybody deserves better than this, and it's a sad and pitiful thing to watch the mistreated go on to treat those beneath them even worse. Dôen could have been a great place to work. It's a profound shame that that possibility has been sacrificed in the name of profits and an unbelievable amount of ego.