4 ms·

My first tech job had a CEO who was just like that. He required all engineers and QAEs to be in the office before 9 and stay until after 5 so that we could answ

My first tech job had a CEO who was just like that. He required all engineers and QAEs to be in the office before 9 and stay until after 5 so that we could answer the phone, because we were also the entire helpdesk. He would usually call the office right at 9 to see who was there, because he was usually still home.

hylaride 8y ago
Reminds me of a startup I once worked for. It was failing and the CEO (who had money from a previous company) had the VP of sales take a photo of the emtpy office at 6pm to complain how we weren't "all in". This despite the fact that our pay was late and he was on a month-long trip to his vacation home in the south of France (we were a north american company).
- ryanmcbride 8y ago
  It's remarkable how often companies expect their employees to be completely loyal and do a bunch of work for free, while also treating their employees like free labor and cutting them loose at the smallest disagreement. I've started steering very clear of any company that talks about how important loyalty is, or how the employees are all 'like a family'. Biggest red flags for toxic management imo.
  - ben509 8y ago
    It's remarkable how often it works.
  - seanwilson 8y ago
    > It's remarkable how often companies expect their employees to be completely loyal and do a bunch of work for free, while also treating their employees like free labor and cutting them loose at the smallest disagreement. There's lots of other imbalances as well like how you have to tolerate being mistreated so you can get a good reference, and you have to actively avoid mentioning negative reasons you left a company in job interviews to avoid being labelled a trouble maker. Glassdoor was suppose to help with the above I guess.
    - mark-r 8y ago
      How does Glassdoor make money? If they're not taking money from the people that use the site, they'll never be an unbiased source of information.
    - VRay 8y ago
      FWIW, as a driver/firmware engineer, I haven't ever needed a good reference from my former employer I've just been giving out former coworkers' contact info instead, and usually they don't even get called. I'm guessing they call the former employer just to verify I actually worked there, but that's it

hylaride 8y ago

Reminds me of a startup I once worked for. It was failing and the CEO (who had money from a previous company) had the VP of sales take a photo of the emtpy office at 6pm to complain how we weren't "all in". This despite the fact that our pay was late and he was on a month-long trip to his vacation home in the south of France (we were a north american company).

ryanmcbride 8y ago
It's remarkable how often companies expect their employees to be completely loyal and do a bunch of work for free, while also treating their employees like free labor and cutting them loose at the smallest disagreement. I've started steering very clear of any company that talks about how important loyalty is, or how the employees are all 'like a family'. Biggest red flags for toxic management imo.
- ben509 8y ago
  It's remarkable how often it works.
- seanwilson 8y ago
  > It's remarkable how often companies expect their employees to be completely loyal and do a bunch of work for free, while also treating their employees like free labor and cutting them loose at the smallest disagreement. There's lots of other imbalances as well like how you have to tolerate being mistreated so you can get a good reference, and you have to actively avoid mentioning negative reasons you left a company in job interviews to avoid being labelled a trouble maker. Glassdoor was suppose to help with the above I guess.
  - mark-r 8y ago
    How does Glassdoor make money? If they're not taking money from the people that use the site, they'll never be an unbiased source of information.
  - VRay 8y ago
    FWIW, as a driver/firmware engineer, I haven't ever needed a good reference from my former employer I've just been giving out former coworkers' contact info instead, and usually they don't even get called. I'm guessing they call the former employer just to verify I actually worked there, but that's it