Pros
The recent mass exodus of talent and leadership, followed by an unexpected round of layoffs, has cast a major shadow of doubt among current employees. Once upon a time PriceGrabber was a highly energetic and successful company driven by intelligent hard working people who created a quality product and provided outstanding service. During these years of prosperity the office was vibrant and filled with enthusiasm, creating a work space people genuinely looked forward to being a part of on a daily basis. Happy hours, First Fridays, a bustling game room, collaboration, strong leadership, good life/work balance, Friday breakfast, Westwood office location, transparency, a viable business model, commission structure and friendly people were just a few of the reasons PG was a good place to call a second home. Unfortunately, those days have long since passed and any of the few remaining positives listed above don’t outweigh the lengthy, and constantly growing, list of negatives.
Cons
The technology and infrastructure are outdated and the product itself is no longer compelling. Teams are understaffed and lacking resources. Mediocre middle management has ascended to the top though attrition, not merit, and this has lead to bad business decisions and poor employee morale. Additionally, the ratio of manager to employees is completed skewed and many managers have just a single person who report to them daily, meaning one persons “job” is to make sure one other person is doing their job. The New Accounts department, which has been an essential part of the core business for the last 15 years, was recently deemed unnecessary due to a shift in business focus, and a majority of the department was laid off. New products being focused on and developed are 2-3 years late and are still not functional after nine months of implementation. Taking a long time is not something uncommon to PG and a common complaint from site users is that the load time will time out, or takes unreasonably long to return searches for basic queries.