Hemster is an emotionally destructive workplace. Anyone who works there longer than a month can recognize the sinking feeling of signing on for the day. I never thought, as an adult, I would have to ask “am I being bullied?” at work. At Hemster, I asked it so many times. In 2 years and 7 months, I was the 4th most senior member of the HQ team, inclusive of the founder and CEO. Upper level management would do well to see retention as a serious indicator, not just a “blocker.” Hemster postures itself as a diverse, woman-led startup. At this woman-led startup, I’ve been verbally encouraged to wear makeup (in an internal-only role), I’ve been called emotional, I’ve had mocking Slack messages accidentally sent to me, I’ve been teased about food and eating habits, I’ve had lies told to managers about me—you name it. I think it’s genuinely dangerous to pervert feminist talking points in order to write off critical feedback for management. Garment workers, whose industry Hemster is attempting to “disrupt,” has been over 80% women and over 80% people of color for hundreds of years. These are the individuals being mistreated by management while HQ employees twiddle their thumbs wondering if they’d be held accountable for their actions if they were men. This kind of hollow posturing is highly representative of the functions of Hemster’s “culture:” pointing to symbols of diversity without investing in systems that support said diversity—or creating a diverse workplace at all. In almost 3 years at the company, I never saw a Black employee celebrate 1 year. At no time was a Black individual hired in a permanent capacity outside of Operations, or at a salary. How can a company that prides itself on diversity ignore that they have an entirely non-Black Headquarters and, at times, an exclusively Black warehouse team? Office employees often don’t greet Ops Associates during All Hands days, and will work full days a wall apart without saying a word. In the Summer of 2022, HR didn’t so much as recognize Black History Month, Juneteenth, or LGBTQ+ Pride Month on Slack, but mustered an email for Memorial Day and a package of melted chocolate during the hottest July on record in celebration of the 4th. I think, in 2023, a fair argument can be made that this represents a culture of racism despite high-level leadership’s consistent narrative to the contrary. C-level and Director-level individuals have very limited collective experience managing hourly workers, or managing workers at all. This wouldn’t be a problem, if it weren’t for the company’s chronic lack of managers (especially within Ops). When I say chronic lack of mangers, I want to be extremely clear: I had 9 managers leave Hemster while I reported to them. Some were fired, some quit. This isn’t even all of the managers I reported to in under 3 years. Employees wait months for promised raises, only to be continually shoved off by management. Without substantive internal education and professional development, employees only grow high enough to be found lacking in training they should have been offered at work. Disciplinary action at Hemster often takes a social bent. When mistakes happen, managers skew toward interpersonal tactics like ignoring messages or cancelling scheduled meetings without warning. When disciplinary action is more traditionally documented, it contradicts policies laid out in the handbook. Former employees have compared the environment to a sorority, but I genuinely think a sorority with Hemster’s dysfunction would have been shut down by now. HR, historically, is either 23, ineffective, or conflicted by relationships to Partnerships—sometimes a particularly fragrant blend of all three. HR sent me a laptop without a “Z” key. HR misquoted NY State Employment Law to my face. HR failed to issue pay on time on several occasions. HR made me pay out of pocket to send in my computer and keys, and waited over a month to issue reimbursement. Most damning, in July 2021 HR gave out $15 GrubHub gift cards in exchange for positive Glassdoor reviews, and the company’s rating is still 2.3 at the time of this writing.