The red flags began before I even started, with barely a 72hr turnaround from the invitation to interview to the job offer. I understand this is not necessarily all that abnormal in this age but given that I came out of the interview feeling it didn’t go as well as I’d hoped I thought it odd that they seemed desperate to drop other candidates and take me on ASAP. Upon starting, I was told I would not be given any equipment to work from home, despite the role being advertised as fully remote, and would instead be given software to download to my personal PC to work from a remote desktop. The software was horrendously outdated, and the servers, despite being upgraded during my time here, were abysmal, crashing at least once a day, making it impossible to complete any project as at least 80% of the work set required a solid internet connection. I was not given any training. I had a brief induction with about 5 other new starters (only 2 of us lasted longer than 3 weeks, they clearly had more sense that I!) where we were showed how to access the system then given a brief (and I mean brief – I was there almost a year and I still don’t know how to properly use it) introduction to the system to log our work and communications and that was it. This was an entry level role and you were just expected to know what to do from day 1. And if you didn’t, your managers are virtually unreachable and if things don’t get done to the correct standard (which you aren’t told what that standard is) you are publically shamed via email, with your entire team CC’d in. The worst part is you are micromanaged to hell. You need at least a degree to work here, and most of my colleagues had some form of post graduate education, so this is a team of competent adults, but we were treated like children! I had to email two line managers every time I logged in, went to and returned from lunch, and logged out. I was also expected to send over my daily workplan in the AM, and my completed tasks for the day when I logged out (side note – they tell you to keep to a 9-5 work day and not work into the evening, but it is very much an unspoken expectation to remain online until very late into the evening). It created a sense that you were not to leave your desk at all during the workday. The job was nothing like it was described to me – I was promised “exciting policy research”, but what I actually got was more cold calling than I did when I worked in an actual call centre at university. The work is dull, long and nothing as advertised, and the staff turnover is incredibly high – in my time there it felt there was someone leaving every week! And the pay! I understand this is an entry level job, but paying your graduate employees £21,500 while the head of the editorial team manages to own a second property in central London is, frankly, obscene. I lived around 2 hours away from where the monthly meetings were held in Bracknell, and was expected contractually to attend. Ok, fine, normal. But why, if I’m travelling to these meetings and I am expected to do so, are you refusing to even entertain the idea of mileage reimbursement? There were months where I was getting myself even further into crushing debt to pay for petrol and the obscene parking charges in central Bracknell, or god forbid a train ticket.
