When their Glassdoor is a rinse repeat of:
1. Bad review
2. Flurry of fantastic reviews for the following weeks
3. No reviews for months
4. Go to step 1
As a hotel manager, I will 100% confirm. The GM or owner responding to the complaint is usually not the actual person who dealt with the guest. It's actually pretty cringeworthy to read our reviews and see our GM's passive-aggressive snipes at bad ones.
And in the other direction if I see a customer complaint that is snotty but the manager responds in a laid back or professional and helpful way I am more likely to go to that business.
Same with rentals for vacations.
A "complaint" that the cat was too affectionate and the neighbors next door were laughing around a fire until 10pm will actually lure me to a listing rather than repel.
I’d like to add when they use AI bots to get consumer opinions and collect data without consumer permission or transparency. Like this post lol….
Edit: by this post I mean OP. This is clearly corporate data mining. I’m so burnt out of these obvious data mining questions.
Definitely. Sub 1 year with no comments, and the only two posts are both data mining related. One vacation and the other business red flags. Account will probably be banned when Reddit notices it is not paying for their analytics and making their own.
Can you elaborate on corporate data mining, both what it is, and also how this post is an example of it?
First time I'm hearing of it, but it's 2024 so it surely won't be the last.
Does it happen a lot, and who does it benefit? Who creates the reddit account? Is it an actual bot?
Thanks
I got a job where the interview was with the husband and wife owners, during which they said the company was like a family. I lasted six weeks before bailing. Turned out it was a very dysfunctional family, with lots of yelling and emotional manipulation.
Never again.
Oh my boss pulled that line on me, I asked "should I call the cops now or when one of yall try to kill me because that's what my family did". Never heard that line again.
Surprisingly i worked once in an environment where they said this and it was actually quite good. It was a petrol station in a small town they basically wanted to transmit that its a family business that's all
At first I was very skeptic of this. I was giving them benefit of the doubt but when our HR started saying stuff like those on top of all the bs I know they're doing, HR made me believe that "We're a family" is a red flag. LOL
Genuine question, if you're going to ask about the work environment the company has, what is the appropriate answer? Seems like almost all companies would say they're a family.
My workplace has stickers on the door that are meant to discourage phone use in the building. If you stop and look the sticker, it says that health, relationships, kids, career plans, finances, and several other things “can wait.”
Career plans can wait? So openly admitting that working there will do nothing for your career? Wtf? Same thing with finances… combine that with the rest of the list and I’ve got to ask what the F is the point of working there?
One of our hospital's patient care coordinators once told me the same thing when she asked me to do straight duty (I'm a nurse) because there were limited nurses on duty for the following shift, 10 p.m.-6 a.m. (I'm off duty the next day, with work hours from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. after the day off.) When I told our coordinator I was sorry, but I had already promised my brother to care for his children, she told me I shouldn't have promised and that I should know my priorities as I was off duty after that duty. (As if work is my top priority, especially with management like that!)
Actually, there are numerous occasions in which management is a major red flag. It was not the first or last time something like this had happened. When I eventually said goodbye and filed my resignation, they were hesitant to give me my remaining leave, but I pushed for it.
Someone said “Oh, give her a two-week leave; she isn't in need of money.” No one would turn down money, I reasoned to myself, but I didn't want to waste any more time staying here.
I'd add that another sign is you see a bunch of fresh out of school people and a few people in their late 50s and beyond but nobody in their 30s or 40s. There's a reason.
Happened to my girlfriend. She worked at a company that ended up being supppper toxic. Managed to stay on without losing her sanity and earn a bag but one day kinda looked around and realized she was the second most senior in terms of years there. She'd worked there for one year. Everyone else who came in with the CEO when he was given the company had worked there for 5. There was no one else in between, they'd run them all off. She lasted another 6 months then threw in the towel herself.
My two cents, there’s a company in town that is literally hiring all the time. The turnover is so high that if you are desperate for a job, it’s the place.
I run training for our technicians where I work. During a meeting with all 20 of them I said "we're not family here folks, never will be, you all have your own family at home. However we are on the same team"
I was legit scolded by my boss for saying we're not family.
I ran a company for a long time. I told them the same thing… “you’re all very important to me, but you’re not family. To say otherwise is disrespectful to the actual family you have.” To be clear, a couple of the team members always talked about the company as a family. That was fine, as long as they selected into that vernacular and didn’t have it thrust upon them by leadership.
He'll have been promoted most likely. Family evokes a standard of tolerance for bullshit that won't fly in a properly ordained professional setting, which ought to be sacrosanct in its own right.
I heard "family" at Target and immediately knew I was fucked, but I had no idea how quickly it would happen. I signed on for two to three days a week because it was a *part time* position and the second I dropped some cautiously hidden knowledge about my lack of commitments outside of work to the guy banging the family drum the hardest those hours cranked up to 60 plus of minimum wage red eye shit I *did not* sign up for. It was always too late to change the schedule, sometimes because next week's hadn't been posted yet.
Even more of a red flag if they literally are a family, because nothing tops the respect that other family members get, even if a particular family member doesn’t know Jack shit
… definitely not speaking from experience
I got a “Welcome to the family” email when I was hired for my current job. It sent a chill up my spine.
Turned out to be an ok job, but the “family” thing felt weirdly violating. Don’t assume for a minute that I love my coworkers as much as I love my family.
"Any other duties as deemed necessary by management."
Translation at a major Pharma manufacturer I worked for: during prolonged major maintenance, all of you, no matter your position or educational credentials are going to be on your hands and knees scraping paint from the concrete floors.
That happened once and never again after the exodus that took place as chemists, biologists and engineers fled within months.
Working as a bartender I've also found the opposite to be true. They expect me to keep my schedule open and drop everything when it's busy, and to make do with 10 hours a week or less when it's not.
In my experience, using words like:
Rockstar = you’re expected to do every job/task asked of you for no extra pay
Team player = never say no, always agree with the boss no matter what, also don’t expect to ever be able to take time off
Social media savvy = we want you to run our social accounts for, you guessed it, no extra pay
Working well under pressure = we treat everything as an emergency and don’t plan projects well
Big family = get ready to have no boundaries and dysfunctional relationships at work!
Wanting someone reliable = we don’t pay, communicate, or schedule well, so if you end up quitting we’ll blame you
Go getter = be ready to take on work outside the job description
Edit: also if the person hiring talks badly of other applicants or employees. That’s definitely a bad sign.
But what if you demand that every morning, they have a bowl of m&m's on your desk (also the brown ones must be removed)? Then every evening you get totally wasted and trash the office? Be like, "what?!??! You said you wanted a rockstar!"
Ugh, my last job was an absolute nightmare about unnecessary chaos due to bad management and unreasonable timelines. Management was *constantly* demanding we drop everything to go fulfill their latest whim, and then had the *audacity* to lecture *us* on "discipline of closure" because they never let us work on a project long enough to actually finish it.
Almost any job has one of these. In general job ads sound less like adds and more like and feudal robber baron demands
How anyone manages to find something decent anyhow?
During an interview I was asked for my login details for all social media accounts. This was for a minimum wage call centre position. Told them to get fucked and walked out.
> Play hard
Forced to "play" with co-workers and not get paid for it. Team building is doing something that you would rather not do in the first place.
There's a ping pong table In the kitchen and you can bet your ass your "fun boss" will challenge you to matches after work time, when you want to go home
unlimited vacation days are just a way for employers to not pay out earned vacation days when someone quits or is laid off. the reality is that there is a set max number of days that the company thinks you can take before they ding you for underperformance.
A previous company policy before mine merged and adopted the other comapy's policy was unlimited PTO but that is at odds with the bonus structure that requires a certain number of billable hours in a month. The kicker? The time you took off didn't reduce the number of hours you needed for that month for the bonus. This results in any month you take any significant amount of time off (1 week+) means youre almost guaranteed not to make your bonus so why bother? Load up a month with time off and recognize you're fucked for a bonus even if you work your ass off the rest of the time you're working that month.
The new policy is fixed PTO but the bonus is based on percentage of billable hours vs the number of days worked that month.
A permanent recruitment sign outside. Honestly, if you are hiring that much, you need any large glaring sign your staff turnover must be ridiculously high.
I feel like this only applies to privately owned businesses. Chains usually have permanent hiring signs because there is almost always an opening.
No such thing as a full staff at a McDonald’s when there are 6+ locations in a 10mi radius and all of them need 20 employees as a minimum to run efficiently.
These places also constantly keep part-time positions open for young workers (16-21yrs)
That truly depends on the company- mine is unlimited PTO and people are encouraged to take it. I did confirm in my interview that that was the case though before accepting
Yeah my husband works for a company like this. His supervisor brings it up in his 1-on-1 meetings quite often. A couple weeks ago, my husband requested a Friday and Tuesday off around a long weekend. His supervisor gave him Thursday to the following Wednesday off. My husband also had to take a week off for a hospital stay, and on the Monday he came back, his supervisor said “the only problem is that you haven’t taken much vacation time yet this year.” My husband was confused because he just got back from a week off and his supervisor said that sick days are not vacation days and he needs to take more vacation.
My VP has reminded our whole group during our weekly sync meeting to take time. Literally every week for the past 2 months: "I know we're all working hard to meet this deadline. Remember to take a couple weeks off afterwards."
Good managers + unlimited PTO is amazing.
The last 5 companies I've worked at had this policy. Three were really good about it, one was ok, and one was awful. Unlimited PTO in a place that's good about it will make you never want to go back to tracked days.
The key thing to do is to ask everyone in the interview process things like:
- how many days of PTO did they take last year?
- how long was their longest vacation last year?
- what's the process to take PTO?
You can also get a good sense of this if you ask for time off during the interview. E.g. "I had planned to do a 3 week trip on [insert date that's like a couple weeks after they want you to start], is that ok?" A company with a real unlimited pto policy won't care.
Once you've had unlimited PTO at a good company that actually encouraged you to take time, you won't care about the "being paid out" thing. You'll take regular vacations rather than trying to accumulate time.
Hired to start teaching in a university. Start date the day after i quit my previous job, which they knew. I showed up to my assigned office knowing that the schedule said my first lecture was at 9am. I had no textbooks, no computer, no password to a computer if i had had one, no syllabus, no schedule, nothing. There was supposedly a professor assigned to get me started and I had been told that all that would be waiting for me. It was not. I had to ask the Dean’s secretary to look on her computer to tell me the classroom i was supposed to be in. Then I had to ask the students to tell me from the syllabus what the subject of the day was. Fortunately, I am comfortable with impromptu speeches and can talk about GI anatomy and physiology as well as different methods of tube feeding and gastric evacuation all day long. But I knew then that I was working for a poorly organized and indifferent department and that it would
only get worse. It did.
A recruiter was trying to get me an interview with a company recently and said they ‘like to see people in the office’ basically trying to sell the fact that they won’t allow people to wfh as a positive. Massive red flag seen as how the majority of my work can be done remotely, places where you need to be seen working are not places you want to work.
I had applied to be a Lineman- climbing telephone poles to hang up wires. The pay was great and it went up quickly, but the process included teaching you how the pole climbing worked. During this, the foreman was a huge ass; he was shouting at people for not going fast enough or for doing things wrong. That was expected to a point, but when somebody was about to do something stupid while we were 50 feet in the air, I called out to warn him. The foreman screamed at me, saying that if he had wanted me help then he would have asked for it.
Fuck that shit. I'm a grown ass man. I'm not working with some former high school jock who never learned to control his temper.
A bad supervisor. The boss has the greatest amount of influence on a worker's quality of work life, so I'll only take a job if it's to work with someone I admire and could learn from and who really wants to work with me. That's the person who either seals or breaks the deal.
Ask a lot of questions during the interview. You'e interviewing him as much as he is interviewing you.
Too many people only see the scarcity issue from the employer's perspective. There are millions of places to work, so you are trying to find the right fit too.
This is so important that I want to add to it. I was giving my son some interviewing tips and mentioned that he should have lots of questions, especially if the interviewer was also going to be your boss. Questions for your potential boss:
How long have you been with this company? Have you been in THIS role that entire time, or were you promoted to this position? (How long ago was that?)
Describe an inter-personnel issue that arose (they happen everywhere), and how you settled the dispute?
What's been the turnover rate for the team you manage and for this company overall?
What opportunities exist here for the top achievers? Just pay raises, or are there opportunities for new responsibilities and real growth?
And more.
Kids need to remember, THEY are the prize. The employment advertisement exists because they need YOU.
Done this a couple of times…. Unfortunately the charisma I was attracted to ended up meaning they were narcissists. But after happening more than once I had to take a look at myself to see why I kept letting people like this in to my life. I now value kindness much higher than I originally did
I once had an acquaintance/friend tell me I have an opportunity for you. And that I would have to invest in it. He also asked if I had a wife or GF. Invest made me think it was a pyramid scheme but the question about if I have a wife or not really puzzled me. Anyway I said no because I'm not investing into a business. He then says it's not a business lol
Not a company I worked for, but an expensive private telehealth clinic I was referred to as a patient...
Before booking an appointment I went online and found something like 100+ one star Google reviews for them.
Not because their doctors were bad, but because the clinic decided to cut costs by having all their records, admin and reception in the Philippines, where patient data/privacy/confidentiality is apparently NOT taken seriously in the least 😥
Just dozens upon dozens of horror stories of their offshore office sending patient data to whoever willy-nilly (either by accident or just for funsies), multiple instances of payment info being stolen, receptionists *gossiping* about patients to other patients after reading through the doctors notes.
Needless to say I didn't go ahead with that particular clinic. The doctor I was referred to left after a month anyway... their physician turnover rate was also astronomical thanks to the offshore fuckery.
I really hope that insane level of unprofessionalism and disrespect for their patients was unique to only that workplace.
I have the opposite of this, my sick days are basically vacation days. As long as I dont take more than 3 in a row, I dont need a note or reason. Just a quick “i will be using a sick day today”.
Yeah my work used to keep it separate but changed from sick days and vacation days to just PTO and now I have massively more days I can take off since I never used all the sick days we used to get
Ours has been combined for about 10 years now and is actually better. We had separate vacation hours and sick hours, but sick hours didn't roll over to the next year if you didn't use them.
So people would just randomly call in sick just to use the time up. It was a real problem especially in December when everyone was calling in before year end.
Now we get the same hours but all rolled into PTO. Personal time off. And it all rolls over year to year.
The decor of the office (unprofessional/cheesy/cheap), quality of your work area. If they don't care how the office looks, they won't give a shit about you.
The most senior worker in the same position as you, has worked for the company for just a few years. You see people quitting left and right a few months in.
Run as fast as possible.
Day One, we sat through a 30 minute MLM sales pitch. I asked a coworker if this happened often. "About every few weeks. Less if they (bosses) make money. " There was no day two. Some weeks ago, I found out that they went bankrupt and have multiple lawsuits filed against them.
CEO says we don't hire juniors as they need training and fires the already trained and contributing juniors from a company he acquires.
or, the CEO publicly says "I don't know why customers pay so much for software, it's just air, there is nothing to deliver"
One of my former coworkers said to me that he knew it was a bad place to work when he first pulled into the staff parking lot. He saw only old beater cars parked there.
That was a place I worked. Everyone made $16/hr with no benefits and the owner had a Maserati and an Aston Martin. It was ridiculous. And then when I left, they didn’t pay out 16 hours of PTO. Cheap and shortsighted.
When during your interview for a role with a managers title, they inform you that you won’t have a team and you’ll be on your own most if not all of the time.
Then you find out through a LinkedIn search that pretty much everyone at the company is a “manager” or “director” of some kind, with no down-line reports. Title baiting is a massive red flag for me, in the sense that you’ll be squeezed to do the work of a whole department on your own, or you’ll be handed an entire pile of shit that someone else didn’t want to deal with and expected to figure it out on your own as the “manager”
Job description says “fast paced, dynamic environment, you need to work well under pressure.”
Translates to high workload, long hours, vague expectations, lots of shifting goalposts and your wellbeing is not a priority.
I interviewed with an organization that was trickling out information as I went through the rounds of interviews. “You’ll be managing a team of x people”, then “you’ll have to let someone go who we think needs to go but we are waiting to fire them”, then “oh the team you’re managing you’ll actually need to hire - they don’t work here yet”. They were so disorganized and the last straw was them telling me they hadn’t told existing staff that they were hiring for this position.
Anything that gives off MLM/scam vibes with very vague job descriptions.I work in sales so unfortunately have had to sift through tons of these when looking for a legit job.
Haven't actually had many different jobs. Summer jobs, family business, some side gigs and my current career job still with the same people.
But from what I have seen online and from talking to others: Family, Motivation, high turn over are some of the common nominators.
No handbook.
Other employees telling you one word: run.
A large gap between staff tenure, ie. senior 5+ years and junior less than 2.
Senior staff that tell you they made their money elsewhere.
#1 emotional instability from managers. Idc if it wasn't directed at me, if i see you flipping out im gone. I actually did that once at a walmart deli. Manager starts tearing into this kid on a personal level. I didn't return after lunch. Companies need to STOP hiring these spazzoids. Keep it calm and professional or get rid of them.
#2Turn around rate. If i see you're hiring and firing constantly or people keep quitting on you.
When you go for an interview and there's a weird vibe. The staff look unhappy. I noticed this at my last job but took it anyway as on paper it looked perfect. Turns out the culture was toxic and the boss was a complete cnut!
Mandated and forceful (without discernment) for equality, diversity and such. Lip service for untested ideologies, along with double standards and policies which actually are counter productive and anti-merit based…I turn away and don’t look back.
I unknowingly interviewed for a job at a place like this. The diversity hire HR rep couldnt figure out why her teams audio didn’t work so we had to do the interview of teams dms. At the end she drops a list of criteria and say you must meet at least one of these or we won’t hire you. It was: female, disabled, visible minority. Glad I dodged a bullet but man was I salty about it when it happened
When there is a major demographic issue. I just left an engineering job that was 105k a year because I was 25 years younger than 90% of the other engineers and leadership.
None of these people had truly been in the job market for 15+ years and were delusional about the quality of benefits and resources that job offers.
They were absolutely stunned that I was leaving the job after only 4 months.
In the exit interview I straight up told them they were completely delusional about the state of pay, benefits and work/life balance they offered.
If everyone who works there is over 50 that means that younger folks typically look elsewhere for long term employment.
Any religious symbols in their branding or logos. Put a "Jesus Fish" or a cross on your business ad? I'm not your market, and you've just told me so.
They think they're conveying "you can trust us because we're Christians."
Instead they're conveying either "we prefer to do business with other Christians" which is bad enough or worse it's "we will exploit our religious identity to gain your trust".
Either way is a really bad look if you want my business.
“We work hard and play hard.”
“We are like a family.”
“We have just purchased our closest competitor and we are bringing on more staff to help build out our culture.”
Any company where all of the upper management are related and there are more people connected to them than people who aren’t.
Having someone hired as a CEO recently who has brought a lot of his former team over to the new place.
When you interview and they are late or seem uninterested.
Poor IT systems is a big one. Usually means they are cutting costs and making work life difficult. Outdated tech systems including monitors and poor offices which include lack of meeting rooms in combination of work in office 5 days policy. It will be a shit show
Calling themselves a big family. Is that the type of family with a creepy uncle who touches people up at the Christmas party or the type of family who insists the kids work unpaid in the business
When their Glassdoor is a rinse repeat of: 1. Bad review 2. Flurry of fantastic reviews for the following weeks 3. No reviews for months 4. Go to step 1
Employer only responds to bad reviews and tries to argue or call out the reviewer lmao
This! Same with hotels, if I see a rude replay under a negative review than I’m 100 sure it was well deserved…
As a hotel manager, I will 100% confirm. The GM or owner responding to the complaint is usually not the actual person who dealt with the guest. It's actually pretty cringeworthy to read our reviews and see our GM's passive-aggressive snipes at bad ones.
And in the other direction if I see a customer complaint that is snotty but the manager responds in a laid back or professional and helpful way I am more likely to go to that business. Same with rentals for vacations. A "complaint" that the cat was too affectionate and the neighbors next door were laughing around a fire until 10pm will actually lure me to a listing rather than repel.
I’d like to add when they use AI bots to get consumer opinions and collect data without consumer permission or transparency. Like this post lol…. Edit: by this post I mean OP. This is clearly corporate data mining. I’m so burnt out of these obvious data mining questions.
Definitely. Sub 1 year with no comments, and the only two posts are both data mining related. One vacation and the other business red flags. Account will probably be banned when Reddit notices it is not paying for their analytics and making their own.
Can you elaborate on corporate data mining, both what it is, and also how this post is an example of it? First time I'm hearing of it, but it's 2024 so it surely won't be the last. Does it happen a lot, and who does it benefit? Who creates the reddit account? Is it an actual bot? Thanks
When a company says "We're a family". Be prepared to be exploited by emotional manipulation.
We're a family. The Manson Family.
yes!! Should ask them when they say “we’re a family “ “are we talking Brady or Manson?”
I got a job where the interview was with the husband and wife owners, during which they said the company was like a family. I lasted six weeks before bailing. Turned out it was a very dysfunctional family, with lots of yelling and emotional manipulation. Never again.
Oh my boss pulled that line on me, I asked "should I call the cops now or when one of yall try to kill me because that's what my family did". Never heard that line again.
Surprisingly i worked once in an environment where they said this and it was actually quite good. It was a petrol station in a small town they basically wanted to transmit that its a family business that's all
At first I was very skeptic of this. I was giving them benefit of the doubt but when our HR started saying stuff like those on top of all the bs I know they're doing, HR made me believe that "We're a family" is a red flag. LOL
Genuine question, if you're going to ask about the work environment the company has, what is the appropriate answer? Seems like almost all companies would say they're a family.
My workplace has stickers on the door that are meant to discourage phone use in the building. If you stop and look the sticker, it says that health, relationships, kids, career plans, finances, and several other things “can wait.”
HEALTH AND KIDS CAN WAIT???? the FUCK?
Career plans can wait? So openly admitting that working there will do nothing for your career? Wtf? Same thing with finances… combine that with the rest of the list and I’ve got to ask what the F is the point of working there?
One of our hospital's patient care coordinators once told me the same thing when she asked me to do straight duty (I'm a nurse) because there were limited nurses on duty for the following shift, 10 p.m.-6 a.m. (I'm off duty the next day, with work hours from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. after the day off.) When I told our coordinator I was sorry, but I had already promised my brother to care for his children, she told me I shouldn't have promised and that I should know my priorities as I was off duty after that duty. (As if work is my top priority, especially with management like that!)
I can't promise I'll make my next shift
Actually, there are numerous occasions in which management is a major red flag. It was not the first or last time something like this had happened. When I eventually said goodbye and filed my resignation, they were hesitant to give me my remaining leave, but I pushed for it. Someone said “Oh, give her a two-week leave; she isn't in need of money.” No one would turn down money, I reasoned to myself, but I didn't want to waste any more time staying here.
I’d be tempted to ask them if that sticker is intended as satire?
High turnover. A convoluted hiring process. Unhappy employees. Lots of cliques in the company.
[удалено]
I'd add that another sign is you see a bunch of fresh out of school people and a few people in their late 50s and beyond but nobody in their 30s or 40s. There's a reason.
Absolutely this cuts both ways. If the team is all 50+ and there’s no young people run!
Happened to my girlfriend. She worked at a company that ended up being supppper toxic. Managed to stay on without losing her sanity and earn a bag but one day kinda looked around and realized she was the second most senior in terms of years there. She'd worked there for one year. Everyone else who came in with the CEO when he was given the company had worked there for 5. There was no one else in between, they'd run them all off. She lasted another 6 months then threw in the towel herself.
So... Walmart?
Is one prime example among many.
Target for sure
My two cents, there’s a company in town that is literally hiring all the time. The turnover is so high that if you are desperate for a job, it’s the place.
Oof, I don’t even bother remembering names, they don’t even last a year anymore
I got written up at one job and told stop greeting new employees with "Welcome to Thunderdome"
*"We're a family here"*
I run training for our technicians where I work. During a meeting with all 20 of them I said "we're not family here folks, never will be, you all have your own family at home. However we are on the same team" I was legit scolded by my boss for saying we're not family.
I ran a company for a long time. I told them the same thing… “you’re all very important to me, but you’re not family. To say otherwise is disrespectful to the actual family you have.” To be clear, a couple of the team members always talked about the company as a family. That was fine, as long as they selected into that vernacular and didn’t have it thrust upon them by leadership.
I hope he's now a former boss.
He'll have been promoted most likely. Family evokes a standard of tolerance for bullshit that won't fly in a properly ordained professional setting, which ought to be sacrosanct in its own right. I heard "family" at Target and immediately knew I was fucked, but I had no idea how quickly it would happen. I signed on for two to three days a week because it was a *part time* position and the second I dropped some cautiously hidden knowledge about my lack of commitments outside of work to the guy banging the family drum the hardest those hours cranked up to 60 plus of minimum wage red eye shit I *did not* sign up for. It was always too late to change the schedule, sometimes because next week's hadn't been posted yet.
That is the point where you find something somewhere else, and NOPE out of there as soon as possible.
I just left a "We're a family" company. I guess that really meant no cost of living increase in over 10 years.
Even more of a red flag if they literally are a family, because nothing tops the respect that other family members get, even if a particular family member doesn’t know Jack shit … definitely not speaking from experience
Been there!!
Agreed. It's a huge red flag that they're going to emotionally blackmail you into working longer, for less.
an abusive family that will not think twice to disown you
It's especially toxic when a lot of them actually are family or long-term friends, and you're not in the clique.
So dad ruins Christmas with his gambling issues. Gotcha.
I got a “Welcome to the family” email when I was hired for my current job. It sent a chill up my spine. Turned out to be an ok job, but the “family” thing felt weirdly violating. Don’t assume for a minute that I love my coworkers as much as I love my family.
“We work flexibly as the job requires us” which basically translates to you will be expected to do significant overtime and not get extra pay.
"Any other duties as deemed necessary by management." Translation at a major Pharma manufacturer I worked for: during prolonged major maintenance, all of you, no matter your position or educational credentials are going to be on your hands and knees scraping paint from the concrete floors. That happened once and never again after the exodus that took place as chemists, biologists and engineers fled within months.
I’m all for going the extra mile but it needs to be within reason.
Working as a bartender I've also found the opposite to be true. They expect me to keep my schedule open and drop everything when it's busy, and to make do with 10 hours a week or less when it's not.
On your first day joining a department, everybody gives you their condolences.
In my experience, using words like: Rockstar = you’re expected to do every job/task asked of you for no extra pay Team player = never say no, always agree with the boss no matter what, also don’t expect to ever be able to take time off Social media savvy = we want you to run our social accounts for, you guessed it, no extra pay Working well under pressure = we treat everything as an emergency and don’t plan projects well Big family = get ready to have no boundaries and dysfunctional relationships at work! Wanting someone reliable = we don’t pay, communicate, or schedule well, so if you end up quitting we’ll blame you Go getter = be ready to take on work outside the job description Edit: also if the person hiring talks badly of other applicants or employees. That’s definitely a bad sign.
Fun fact: someone actually created a programming language and named it “Rockstar”, just to mess with recruiters looking for “rockstar developers”
Rockstar just for the cringe factor would be a huge red flag for me
But what if you demand that every morning, they have a bowl of m&m's on your desk (also the brown ones must be removed)? Then every evening you get totally wasted and trash the office? Be like, "what?!??! You said you wanted a rockstar!"
Ugh, my last job was an absolute nightmare about unnecessary chaos due to bad management and unreasonable timelines. Management was *constantly* demanding we drop everything to go fulfill their latest whim, and then had the *audacity* to lecture *us* on "discipline of closure" because they never let us work on a project long enough to actually finish it.
also add in " fast learners please" aka we dont want to properly train you and will throw you to the wolves at the nearest opportunity.
Almost any job has one of these. In general job ads sound less like adds and more like and feudal robber baron demands How anyone manages to find something decent anyhow?
During an interview I was asked for my login details for all social media accounts. This was for a minimum wage call centre position. Told them to get fucked and walked out.
that sounds illegal
It's legal before hiring, but not after. That's oversimplifying every situation, but more or less that's how it works.
No, you can pretty much tell anyone to get fucked.
That's extremely sketchy. Why would they even need that?
For harassment and discrimination purposes, obviously. (No, I don't mean *prevention* of harassment and discrimination.)
LOL this is insane. Like how much of a dead giveaway that these people are horrible people to work with than this.
Work hard Play hard
That always makes me 🤮
> Play hard Forced to "play" with co-workers and not get paid for it. Team building is doing something that you would rather not do in the first place.
Within reason it's a rare change of pace or bit of variety. But don't try to make me read, Who moved my cheese? again.
There's a ping pong table In the kitchen and you can bet your ass your "fun boss" will challenge you to matches after work time, when you want to go home
Only if the workplace is a gay steel mill.
You mean 50% of people's dating profiles? 😜
"unlimited vacation days". It's not real, and it's a trap that often leads to less vacation due to the ambiguity of not knowing what is acceptable.
1. Turn up for your first day 2. Book the next 40 years as holiday 3. Retire!
If you can't get 6 weeks of PTO from your employer without puch back unlimited vacation days is not real.
unlimited vacation days are just a way for employers to not pay out earned vacation days when someone quits or is laid off. the reality is that there is a set max number of days that the company thinks you can take before they ding you for underperformance.
A previous company policy before mine merged and adopted the other comapy's policy was unlimited PTO but that is at odds with the bonus structure that requires a certain number of billable hours in a month. The kicker? The time you took off didn't reduce the number of hours you needed for that month for the bonus. This results in any month you take any significant amount of time off (1 week+) means youre almost guaranteed not to make your bonus so why bother? Load up a month with time off and recognize you're fucked for a bonus even if you work your ass off the rest of the time you're working that month. The new policy is fixed PTO but the bonus is based on percentage of billable hours vs the number of days worked that month.
A permanent recruitment sign outside. Honestly, if you are hiring that much, you need any large glaring sign your staff turnover must be ridiculously high.
I feel like this only applies to privately owned businesses. Chains usually have permanent hiring signs because there is almost always an opening. No such thing as a full staff at a McDonald’s when there are 6+ locations in a 10mi radius and all of them need 20 employees as a minimum to run efficiently. These places also constantly keep part-time positions open for young workers (16-21yrs)
A permanent recruitment sign could he for people needing work for the experience
Unlimited PTO. It means you’ll get endless shit every time you take PTO and you won’t get paid out any remaining PTO when you leave.
That truly depends on the company- mine is unlimited PTO and people are encouraged to take it. I did confirm in my interview that that was the case though before accepting
Yeah my husband works for a company like this. His supervisor brings it up in his 1-on-1 meetings quite often. A couple weeks ago, my husband requested a Friday and Tuesday off around a long weekend. His supervisor gave him Thursday to the following Wednesday off. My husband also had to take a week off for a hospital stay, and on the Monday he came back, his supervisor said “the only problem is that you haven’t taken much vacation time yet this year.” My husband was confused because he just got back from a week off and his supervisor said that sick days are not vacation days and he needs to take more vacation.
My VP has reminded our whole group during our weekly sync meeting to take time. Literally every week for the past 2 months: "I know we're all working hard to meet this deadline. Remember to take a couple weeks off afterwards." Good managers + unlimited PTO is amazing.
The last 5 companies I've worked at had this policy. Three were really good about it, one was ok, and one was awful. Unlimited PTO in a place that's good about it will make you never want to go back to tracked days. The key thing to do is to ask everyone in the interview process things like: - how many days of PTO did they take last year? - how long was their longest vacation last year? - what's the process to take PTO? You can also get a good sense of this if you ask for time off during the interview. E.g. "I had planned to do a 3 week trip on [insert date that's like a couple weeks after they want you to start], is that ok?" A company with a real unlimited pto policy won't care. Once you've had unlimited PTO at a good company that actually encouraged you to take time, you won't care about the "being paid out" thing. You'll take regular vacations rather than trying to accumulate time.
Hired to start teaching in a university. Start date the day after i quit my previous job, which they knew. I showed up to my assigned office knowing that the schedule said my first lecture was at 9am. I had no textbooks, no computer, no password to a computer if i had had one, no syllabus, no schedule, nothing. There was supposedly a professor assigned to get me started and I had been told that all that would be waiting for me. It was not. I had to ask the Dean’s secretary to look on her computer to tell me the classroom i was supposed to be in. Then I had to ask the students to tell me from the syllabus what the subject of the day was. Fortunately, I am comfortable with impromptu speeches and can talk about GI anatomy and physiology as well as different methods of tube feeding and gastric evacuation all day long. But I knew then that I was working for a poorly organized and indifferent department and that it would only get worse. It did.
A recruiter was trying to get me an interview with a company recently and said they ‘like to see people in the office’ basically trying to sell the fact that they won’t allow people to wfh as a positive. Massive red flag seen as how the majority of my work can be done remotely, places where you need to be seen working are not places you want to work.
I had applied to be a Lineman- climbing telephone poles to hang up wires. The pay was great and it went up quickly, but the process included teaching you how the pole climbing worked. During this, the foreman was a huge ass; he was shouting at people for not going fast enough or for doing things wrong. That was expected to a point, but when somebody was about to do something stupid while we were 50 feet in the air, I called out to warn him. The foreman screamed at me, saying that if he had wanted me help then he would have asked for it. Fuck that shit. I'm a grown ass man. I'm not working with some former high school jock who never learned to control his temper.
A bad supervisor. The boss has the greatest amount of influence on a worker's quality of work life, so I'll only take a job if it's to work with someone I admire and could learn from and who really wants to work with me. That's the person who either seals or breaks the deal.
This one is usually kind of hard to spot before you're already working there, though. =(
Ask a lot of questions during the interview. You'e interviewing him as much as he is interviewing you. Too many people only see the scarcity issue from the employer's perspective. There are millions of places to work, so you are trying to find the right fit too.
This is so important that I want to add to it. I was giving my son some interviewing tips and mentioned that he should have lots of questions, especially if the interviewer was also going to be your boss. Questions for your potential boss: How long have you been with this company? Have you been in THIS role that entire time, or were you promoted to this position? (How long ago was that?) Describe an inter-personnel issue that arose (they happen everywhere), and how you settled the dispute? What's been the turnover rate for the team you manage and for this company overall? What opportunities exist here for the top achievers? Just pay raises, or are there opportunities for new responsibilities and real growth? And more. Kids need to remember, THEY are the prize. The employment advertisement exists because they need YOU.
Done this a couple of times…. Unfortunately the charisma I was attracted to ended up meaning they were narcissists. But after happening more than once I had to take a look at myself to see why I kept letting people like this in to my life. I now value kindness much higher than I originally did
I once had an acquaintance/friend tell me I have an opportunity for you. And that I would have to invest in it. He also asked if I had a wife or GF. Invest made me think it was a pyramid scheme but the question about if I have a wife or not really puzzled me. Anyway I said no because I'm not investing into a business. He then says it's not a business lol
Because your wife/GF has contacts that they can use to bolster their totally legitimate and totally not a MLM!
"We're looking for a Rockstar of a candidate."
That means I get loads of cocaine and groupies, yes?
[удалено]
The Vague perfectionist! Great name for it!! Terrible to work for
Name of my new punk band
Excessive “offshore” employees
Not a company I worked for, but an expensive private telehealth clinic I was referred to as a patient... Before booking an appointment I went online and found something like 100+ one star Google reviews for them. Not because their doctors were bad, but because the clinic decided to cut costs by having all their records, admin and reception in the Philippines, where patient data/privacy/confidentiality is apparently NOT taken seriously in the least 😥 Just dozens upon dozens of horror stories of their offshore office sending patient data to whoever willy-nilly (either by accident or just for funsies), multiple instances of payment info being stolen, receptionists *gossiping* about patients to other patients after reading through the doctors notes. Needless to say I didn't go ahead with that particular clinic. The doctor I was referred to left after a month anyway... their physician turnover rate was also astronomical thanks to the offshore fuckery. I really hope that insane level of unprofessionalism and disrespect for their patients was unique to only that workplace.
Nup sorry! I used to work for a disability provider (I lasted 2 months). Half of their team were in the Philippines too. It was chaos!
if sick days and vacation days are the same thing.
I have the opposite of this, my sick days are basically vacation days. As long as I dont take more than 3 in a row, I dont need a note or reason. Just a quick “i will be using a sick day today”.
Hmm my company has that, but it's definitely not a bad place to work. We also get a lot of time off.
Yeah my work used to keep it separate but changed from sick days and vacation days to just PTO and now I have massively more days I can take off since I never used all the sick days we used to get
Ours has been combined for about 10 years now and is actually better. We had separate vacation hours and sick hours, but sick hours didn't roll over to the next year if you didn't use them. So people would just randomly call in sick just to use the time up. It was a real problem especially in December when everyone was calling in before year end. Now we get the same hours but all rolled into PTO. Personal time off. And it all rolls over year to year.
They are at my place - but they are not limited in any way, so it dosn't matter.
The decor of the office (unprofessional/cheesy/cheap), quality of your work area. If they don't care how the office looks, they won't give a shit about you.
Or if the office has a recreation are with a pool table, ping pong, etc, but they haven’t been touched in years.
High turnover and not being profitable.
Bingo
"Local, small business"- 75% of their "inventory" is dropshipped shit from Temu/aliexpress
The most senior worker in the same position as you, has worked for the company for just a few years. You see people quitting left and right a few months in. Run as fast as possible.
'We will schedule your pay with the weekly guys' No, you will pay me according to my contract, dummy
It belongs to Elon or Donald
Family owned business where multiple family members work there. Run.
Yep that’s not a mistake you make twice.
"Fast pace environment" means large workload with high turnover and being saddled with other people's work when they quit
When their safety program "days since last incident" poster is always at zero
“ now hiring all positions”
Touting employee benifits like “free Coffe on Wednesdays” and “pizza fridays.”
"We're all family, here."
Day One, we sat through a 30 minute MLM sales pitch. I asked a coworker if this happened often. "About every few weeks. Less if they (bosses) make money. " There was no day two. Some weeks ago, I found out that they went bankrupt and have multiple lawsuits filed against them.
"Here we treat employees like family". They abuse their staff and expect loyalty from employees in exchange for shitty wages and benefits.
Wanting years of experience for an entry-level position.
High *management* turnover rate. High employee turnover rate means poor lower management. High management turnover rate means poor upper management
When they dance around compensation and won’t tell you what the job pays even after 2 interviews.
Everyone eating lunch in their cars in the parking lot
They tell you right away "We're like a family here!" ...As friendly as it sounds it's rarely a good sign.
If a tour is being done and they only show you the fun parts and public areas and they never talk about the not so fun bits
CEO says we don't hire juniors as they need training and fires the already trained and contributing juniors from a company he acquires. or, the CEO publicly says "I don't know why customers pay so much for software, it's just air, there is nothing to deliver"
“sports oriented” and “self starters” in the first sentence of their job post
the phrase "family environment" or similar
*Family*
Refusal to give you an exact pay rate. Saying "Competetive" repeatedly isn't a fucking answer.
Asking about political leaning in the interview.
One of my former coworkers said to me that he knew it was a bad place to work when he first pulled into the staff parking lot. He saw only old beater cars parked there.
Was the boss coincidentally driving a 100k+ car though
nothing but the best for management
That was a place I worked. Everyone made $16/hr with no benefits and the owner had a Maserati and an Aston Martin. It was ridiculous. And then when I left, they didn’t pay out 16 hours of PTO. Cheap and shortsighted.
Those are the best cars though. It shows money management. That they are spending their paycheque on bills and food ratjer than fancy cars
A recent pocket of 5 star reviews on Glassdoor over a short period of time
Their exclusive ‘you can only buy it from us’ products and clothing show up on Crimestoppers video stills of wanted suspects.
When during your interview for a role with a managers title, they inform you that you won’t have a team and you’ll be on your own most if not all of the time. Then you find out through a LinkedIn search that pretty much everyone at the company is a “manager” or “director” of some kind, with no down-line reports. Title baiting is a massive red flag for me, in the sense that you’ll be squeezed to do the work of a whole department on your own, or you’ll be handed an entire pile of shit that someone else didn’t want to deal with and expected to figure it out on your own as the “manager”
Unlimited PTO policy that is not accompanied by any kind of mandatory minimum. That just means you’ll be peer pressured to never take any time off.
When you want an estimate for a roof and the roofer tries to hire you.
Job description says “fast paced, dynamic environment, you need to work well under pressure.” Translates to high workload, long hours, vague expectations, lots of shifting goalposts and your wellbeing is not a priority.
Before going in for an interview, look around the parking lot. Are employees overwhelmingly driving nice cars or pieces of shit?
"Fast Paced" unless iys for a stunt driver or something. It means way too much work for one person.
Private insurance for workmans comp. Vile. Never again.
I once worked for a company that had a sign that showed the current stock price and asked what you did to help it that day.
if it's a startup making a product you want photos of the product on their website, not renders.
It’s a huge red flag if they’re willing to hire me. If they want me, I definitely don’t want them!
“I’d never join a club that would have me as a member!”
I interviewed with an organization that was trickling out information as I went through the rounds of interviews. “You’ll be managing a team of x people”, then “you’ll have to let someone go who we think needs to go but we are waiting to fire them”, then “oh the team you’re managing you’ll actually need to hire - they don’t work here yet”. They were so disorganized and the last straw was them telling me they hadn’t told existing staff that they were hiring for this position.
Anything that gives off MLM/scam vibes with very vague job descriptions.I work in sales so unfortunately have had to sift through tons of these when looking for a legit job.
Unrelated to hiring, but when a company disables comments on their social media profile.
Arbitration agreements and specifically worded overly detailed NDAs. Both mean they’ve been taken to court or burned too many times.
We are a diverse team.
Haven't actually had many different jobs. Summer jobs, family business, some side gigs and my current career job still with the same people. But from what I have seen online and from talking to others: Family, Motivation, high turn over are some of the common nominators.
Chronically understaffed.
No handbook. Other employees telling you one word: run. A large gap between staff tenure, ie. senior 5+ years and junior less than 2. Senior staff that tell you they made their money elsewhere.
Are insanely focused on culture over the actual job, Its a Mormon company....
We're looking for someone with flexibility
When the person conducting the interview tells you he considers himself a brilliant sociopath.
No posting the salary. If you don’t list it. You’re too low
#1 emotional instability from managers. Idc if it wasn't directed at me, if i see you flipping out im gone. I actually did that once at a walmart deli. Manager starts tearing into this kid on a personal level. I didn't return after lunch. Companies need to STOP hiring these spazzoids. Keep it calm and professional or get rid of them. #2Turn around rate. If i see you're hiring and firing constantly or people keep quitting on you.
Maga hat anywhere. That’s a solid nope for me.
"In God We Trust"
Family members quarelling in the background in remote interviews. Bad jobs destroy homes.
When you go for an interview and there's a weird vibe. The staff look unhappy. I noticed this at my last job but took it anyway as on paper it looked perfect. Turns out the culture was toxic and the boss was a complete cnut!
Overturn rate is a big one for me. It depends on the company too.
Mandated and forceful (without discernment) for equality, diversity and such. Lip service for untested ideologies, along with double standards and policies which actually are counter productive and anti-merit based…I turn away and don’t look back.
I unknowingly interviewed for a job at a place like this. The diversity hire HR rep couldnt figure out why her teams audio didn’t work so we had to do the interview of teams dms. At the end she drops a list of criteria and say you must meet at least one of these or we won’t hire you. It was: female, disabled, visible minority. Glad I dodged a bullet but man was I salty about it when it happened
Constant want ads.
“We’re a family here.” No, we’re not, you just want me to put work above my actual family.
“We’re like a family.” Run.
When the job ad says "Must bring your own chair and toilet paper." 🚩🪑🚽
When there is a major demographic issue. I just left an engineering job that was 105k a year because I was 25 years younger than 90% of the other engineers and leadership. None of these people had truly been in the job market for 15+ years and were delusional about the quality of benefits and resources that job offers. They were absolutely stunned that I was leaving the job after only 4 months. In the exit interview I straight up told them they were completely delusional about the state of pay, benefits and work/life balance they offered. If everyone who works there is over 50 that means that younger folks typically look elsewhere for long term employment.
anything Jesus or fundamentalist religious
Any kind of religious slogans used by a business send me running.
“Work well under pressure” overworked and underpaid
Any religious symbols in their branding or logos. Put a "Jesus Fish" or a cross on your business ad? I'm not your market, and you've just told me so. They think they're conveying "you can trust us because we're Christians." Instead they're conveying either "we prefer to do business with other Christians" which is bad enough or worse it's "we will exploit our religious identity to gain your trust". Either way is a really bad look if you want my business.
“We work hard and play hard.” “We are like a family.” “We have just purchased our closest competitor and we are bringing on more staff to help build out our culture.” Any company where all of the upper management are related and there are more people connected to them than people who aren’t. Having someone hired as a CEO recently who has brought a lot of his former team over to the new place. When you interview and they are late or seem uninterested.
I’ve always found that companies that say “When you join us you are part of our family” treat their employees like anything but.
Poor IT systems is a big one. Usually means they are cutting costs and making work life difficult. Outdated tech systems including monitors and poor offices which include lack of meeting rooms in combination of work in office 5 days policy. It will be a shit show
Asking my "pronouns"
Calling themselves a big family. Is that the type of family with a creepy uncle who touches people up at the Christmas party or the type of family who insists the kids work unpaid in the business
Employers that advertise a salary inclusive of superannuation.
Wokeness
Why does this read like some from HR wrote this...