Pros
The business appears to be well-organized in terms of workflow, and my coworkers were easy and wonderful to work with (except for owner).
Cons
Starting from the time I saw the ad on Craigslist through the interview and into my first workday I had been mislead and routinely insulted by the owner. I chalked this up to the owner’s own stress/psychological imperfections (no one’s perfect), but when I asked him simple questions, he would get upset easily. It seemed like maybe he just wasn’t aware of the context of the situation or how he was acting inappropriately, but a victim should not make excuses for the person who harassed or abused him. I have thick skin and am used to being insulted so the owner’s attitude was more laughable to me than threatening or even frustrating. I could put up with his constant barrage of put downs because they are lame put downs that aren’t actually insulting once you see what he’s doing. I have heard way better insults by people much dumber. But I did not like seeing him subtly condescend and mistreat my wonderful coworker. The owner constantly tried to blame issues or spin non-issues into something that only an idiot would fall for as being something wrong. I mean, my coworker could easily handle himself and look past the owner’s obvious flaws in judgement, but I didn’t like seeing that behavior where I spend most of my day. (He would blame him for saving a file wrong and then the coworker would show him that he didn’t but no resolve, owner constantly blamed and tried to make you feel inferior to yourself). He seems to present a classical narcissist or borderline personality - or simply said, he gets overwhelmed when faced with reality - maybe he is just in his own head too much and so not paying full attention, or maybe something else. I got a weird vibe from him right away but just put up with it because I didn’t want to be insulting, but after reading all of these negative reviews, I don’t believe it will be worth my time to put up with such cowardice. Some specific interactions that weren’t okay to me were as follows. First of all, the advertisement for the job posting was for a graphic designer, but the training I received was simple data entry and the importance of sales. Also, during the interview he tried to tell me that my creative graphic design experience was not actually graphic design but graphic art... Also, the ad does not have the company name in it so I could not look up reviews before the interview. Little shady. During the interview, the owner talked on many conversational tangents, which I put up with because I didn’t know him and didn’t want to be rude. It seems like he is more interested in whatever he is thinking about than what is actually going on around him. Once he learned that I was still interested in working there, he insulted my intelligence by telling me that I scored at the slowest level on his personality quiz, but then proceeded to tell me I was smart after I accepted his lowball salary offer. It’s the classic “hot-cold” trauma bond pattern of behavior. He boosts you up and brings you down, but doesn’t just let you be. He is probably scared of people or scared of changing himself so he distances himself in his head which is apparent if you have even one conversation with him. He expects you to literally read his mind. He will essentially be talking to himself without making sure his employees understand. When he does ask questions for clarification, the questions are irrelevant, obvious, obtuse and usually just poorly disguised put downs. During the sales meeting, he asked me to add 4 digit numbers quickly in my head and then put me down repeatedly (only “joking”) when I obviously am not a calculator and could not do that. I put him in his place gently by showing him he’s wasting time asking me pointless questions when he had a calculator and competent employees. Maybe he just doesn’t understand how learning works. I asked him a simple question and he wouldn’t answer it because I “should know the answer.” He spoke to me as though I should know everything about his busines, what he is thinking, and the details of the sales calculations even though it was the first time we were discussing it, and he acted as though I were incapable, but really he was just wasting his own time not progressing and focusing on pedantic details rather than the actual situation at hand. Like I said, he is a noob at this insult / power game and can easily be told off, but I don’t want a position where I have to constantly tell someone off or put them in their place if I’m not even getting paid enough to live without roommates. It simply isn’t an environment to foster growth in the biggest value of the company - its people. The biggest red flag for me was whenever I asked him if he would like for me to do anything (I had finished the work he gave me), if he didn’t have an answer right away he wouldn’t think about it or relax he just got emotional and said, “I’m not going to tell you what to do!” He did eventually give me something to do, but it seems like he doesn’t like being put on th spot or asked anything he doesn’t know - even though he does that to his employees. After he had his little tantrum and stepped out of the office for his millionth cigarette of the day (idc if he smokes but don’t preach health lol) my coworker told me “Don’t worry, he’s just like that.”
