Purple Land Management Reviews

Geez, where do you begin ? Pay: The compensation for your work was well below industry standards. When I worked there, the most you could bill for in one day was 8 hours. So even if you worked 10 hours(for example, if you worked through lunch, showed up early and worked late, like the management insists upon), you're still only being paid for 8, instead of the 10 or 11 you actually worked. Well that's odd.... but wait, it gets much, much worse. Office environment: It's absolutely miserable. They have this motto at Purple... "give more than you take". That's their way of saying "work your butt off, and expect nothing in return". It usually takes the employees a month or two to figure that one out. Once they realize that this land-broker is a career black-hole, the talent leaves. That's why PLM is always hiring. Business model: Let's be honest. Anyone with a few brain-cells and a pulse can run mineral title. The management knows that from personal experience. So they hire anyone... ANYONE to run mineral title, that's willing to do it on the cheap. "No experience ? No problem ! We'll pay you the same rate as the guy/gal that actually has valuable experience. " All it does, is slow down the project, dilute the work product of the experienced landmen, and seriously kills any morale that could have existed in that cesspool. PLM is a revolving door for employees. The talented employees leave, because they don't have to put up with the favoritism, the crappy pay, the slave-driving management, the incompetence, or the awful work environment. PLM's business model is simple: "Running mineral title is easy. We can hire the bums living under the bridge over there off of Lancaster to do this job, and pay them peanuts (in comparison to what we're being paid for their work). When they wise up and leave, we'll just hire more bums to fill the chairs. We'll keep driving our BMWs, buy a $10m building in downtown Ft Worth, while completely neglecting the life-blood of the company itself. We'll institute company-wide pay-cuts (except for ourselves, of course) that are anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000 just to make sure anyone with talent or a shred of basic human dignity leaves ASAP. As long as we have unlimited access to free-ranging bums, we're in business." Texas Workforce Commission violations: Most of their landmen were hired as Independent Contractors. Briefly, ICs are supposed to be treated differently than employees. Employees generally have access to medical insurance benefits, paid time off, maybe a 401K plan... ICs generally do not get those benefits. The benefit to being an IC (instead of an employee), is that the IC typically enjoys much more latitude in their work. They can show up when they want, quit when they want, take as much lunch-time as they want, don't have to adhere to a dress-code... and as long as an IC is getting their work done with at least satisfactory quality, nothing else matters. Well... guess what PLM did. They hired people on as ICs, but treated them like employees. So, basically, if you were an IC, you were forced to be at your desk (with your own equipment, by the way) at 8am, and not leave before 5pm. You had to adhere to their dress code (no jeans, except on Friday). If you actually took a lunch break, like any human being with a shred of dignity does, you weren't doing your job "the purple way" (see below). Oh, and if you ate lunch in 5 minutes, and worked through the rest of the day without billing for it... guess what... nobody cares. Apparently they just expect you to do that. So, basically, you got all of the burdens of an IC, and none of the benefits of an employee. PLM has had the Texas Workforce Commission called on it more than once. The one that really sticks out in my mind, is when management collected all of our name-plates from our desks right before the TWC was supposed to be there. It should tell a person something, when management in a company is willing to go so far to break the law, and commit fraud, just to screw its employees/ICs. Project managers: these guys and gals were the only good thing that company had going for it. I had the privilege of working for some great project managers, and also some crappy ones. I'd say that's a typical working experience. But guess who PLM takes a huge crap on.... the project managers and reviewers. PLM simply did not know how to treat people. The landmen were the life-blood of that place, and the project managers were the heart that pumped that life-blood. When you treat those people like garbage (not paying them a decent salary, terrible medical insurance, no retirement incentives, etc), the good ones generally leave. "Oh well... as long as we have more bums, we're in business !" Management: I have no personal knowledge of how the management was selected at PLM. But, best I can tell, the management are just a bunch of the company owners' college drinking buddies. I'm not sure exactly what they do, but I do know they're paid a lot more than the people that actually power that company. Don't believe me ? Ride in one of their cars to one of their houses. If the thought "wow. I guess this is what my work is going towards" doesn't occur to you, PLM wants you in their ranks. Management was loud, obnoxious, and privileged. It is nothing even closely resembling leadership. "The Purple Way": Anyone that has worked at PLM will tell you that this motto/mantra is everywhere in that company. The "leadership" in this company will relentlessly hound you with the statement that you should "always give more than you take". It sounds pretty noble, right ? Kinda hits you in the work-ethic department, doesn't it ? Any good employee/IC will naturally want to do right by their employer on their own. Wanna take a guess who does all of the giving, and who does all of the taking at PLM ? The employees/ICs give 100%, and the owners/management take 100%. That's where it ends. And to expect anything different, is absolutely unrealistic. "The Purple Way" was a punchline in that office. Unless PLM starts treating people like actual human beings, it always will be. "The Purple Way" has turned into the dollar-store philosophy. "Why do it right, when you can do it cheap ?" I guess that's what a TCU football "education" yields. A barely-passing grade on a GED exam, with a PhD in how to treat people like crap. Benefits: There are none, in the typical employment sense. Instead of paying their employees a decent wage, providing benefits that any real company does... they take you to go bowling once a year. If you're one of their top producers, you'll get to go to lunch with your slave master once per year, too. PLM cuts corners at every possible opportunity. They don't care about their employees/ICs. You might as well be asking about a benefits package as if you were working in a slave-labor camp in Thailand. Unless you're asking for more work, and no compensation for it, you're out of luck. Lies: I couldn't tell you how many times I caught management lying to its subordinates. This was one of my favorites: "We got an email from the owners of the parking lot next door. They're going to start charging everybody that parks there. So if you want a good parking spot, you might want to get to work at around 7:15, maybe 7:30 at the latest to get a decent parking spot". Now, like we discussed before... as an employee/IC of PLM, you can only bill for an 8 hour day. It doesn't matter if you started working at 7am, worked through lunch, and worked until 6pm (because that's when the traffic kinda eases up). You're still only being paid for 8 hours. I worked in that office for well over a year, so I knew a lot of people that worked in that building. Naturally, I asked around, to see who all got that email from the neighboring parking lot. NOBODY got that email. Seriously, there were at least a dozen other offices in that multi-story building, and NONE of them got an email about parking in the adjacent lot. It was PLMs way of trying to get its employees/ICs to show up at least a half hour earlier, without paying them for that extra work. If you're willing to work for a company like that, I have news for you.... the economy isn't that bad anymore. Go get a job anywhere, and it's better than being deceived for the sake of being taken advantage of. If they're willing to lie about that, imagine what they're doing that you DON'T know about. Overall: Working for this company was one of the most disappointing experiences of my entire life. It was absolutely the most soul-sucking job I ever had. I dumped heart and soul into that place, and it was met with purposeful indifference. As long as their 7-series BMW payment was being made, they didn't care. If you have any talent at all with title, DO NOT APPLY AT PLM. I have never spent so much time and effort in doing work at a company, and been crapped on in such fashion. Working for this company with any expectation of promotion or advancement is a pipe dream. I guess that would be fine, if they were honest about that fact from the beginning. But they're not. They'll throw their own mothers under a freight-train, just to get that extra few hours out of you. Run hard, run fast, and run far away from this sorry excuse of an employer. Seriously, if you think your application at the Exxon station as a graveyard shift cashier in that bad part of town looks promising... it's still better than working at PLM.