Pros
Discount on product, great co-workers
Cons
Gaslighting, nepotism, exploitation, verbal abuse, bullying, and more - Please read below for all that was experienced as a full-time employee: -COVID-19 policy– nonexistent for quite some time. Owners and HR did not care to implement guidelines for health and safety. As soon as employees started getting sick again (end of 2021), those sick employees had to demand that there be some sort of protocol in place. -E-commerce staff is severely underpaid and being exploited while managers and favored employees travel abroad for lavish work trips Poor and highly unqualified leadership that are the owners– they do not have any real business experience or credentials: --They will sugar coat your experience with amazing future plans that include designer furniture, opening aesthetically pleasing new stores, and chasing brand partnerships for clout (NB, Nike, Vans, and Salomon). --Decisions are NOT made to support growth for employees or the business as a whole. All that is important to them is what is going to make them appear sophisticated, highly developed, and "trendy" --The owners preach “ask for forgiveness, not permission” to their employees and if they are not pleased, they will gaslight you until you’re blue in the face. They are the ultimate hypocrites. --Any time a constructive thought or mention of feedback is given to the owners to help move the needle forward, you will be called negative, gaslit, and taken out of important meetings. --As an extremely small business (less than 50 ppl) owners will only meet or communicate with specific individuals. Each time you request to meet, they are too busy for you or have too much going on. --You’re expected to read the owners minds to please them without any documented guidance, direction, or onboarding --Owners will bring up work topics to you during your UNPAID lunch hour in an extremely unprofessional manner that will catch you off guard and make you very uncomfortable -During a massive company-wide transition to a new warehouse- warehouse workers were forced to work in a space with no working bathrooms, no electricity, and no air conditioning during the middle of the summer. -Verbal abuse and bullying is tolerated while hard work and dedication is completely overlooked -EXTREME disorganization within every single department -Expensive products are NOT taken care of properly by warehouse workers– stepped on, collects dirt and dust. The owners know this, see it, and they don’t care. -No onboarding, training, or meetings as a new employee. You onboard yourself and you’re expected to follow standards/guidelines WITHOUT there being any standards or guidelines in place. -HR – worst human resources department I have ever experienced. It is just one person and they are there to protect and side with the owners. They do NOT care about your growth, success, or support during your employment. They will also not be present for any important/significant meetings you have with your manager or the owners. -HR and the owners will change up your compensation terms without telling you or scheduling a meeting with you first. -HR will repeatedly say how much the owners care about their employees while the behavior of the owners shows the complete opposite -WFH – only favored/particular people are allowed to work from home or come in late whenever they want. Everyone else HAS to be in the office everyday. -Communication between all departments/teams is nonexistent -They claim to be more than just a retail/ecommerce store and that they’re “connecting through culture, commerce, and cause” - NO one at the company actually knows what this means, nor have the owners cared to explain their mission behind this. They are indeed JUST a retail store founded upon nepotism, clout, male privilege, and toxic masculinity -Notre x Metric Coffee x Vans– the slogan for this partnership was “there are many ways of doing things besides your own”, WHILE any ideas that you want to bring to the table to have a hand in helping the business grow is frowned upon or considered to be controlling. They DO NOT practice what they preach. -Women in the office are treated noticeably different, men are usually favored -Anyone who enters the company/already works there with a significant amount of clout is treated BLATANTLY different by owners compared to those that are extremely hard working and don’t have as much “clout” -You will ask for very simple tools that you need over and over again to be successful in your role, and you will never get them. You will have to get scrappy and build everything from scratch yourself. -There is no relationship or open dialogue with online consumers which pours over into the most terrible customer service I’ve ever seen, especially for customers that don’t live in Chicago. It is a one person team, and they desperately need at least 2 more people to help elevate/turn around the ecommerce shopping experience. This is extremely obvious in every store review on google, yelp, etc. Consumers actually think the company is a scam.