What went so wrong for me was the way the management teams handled COVID-19, which we can all agree was incredibly unprecedented, challenging, and for many companies, an insurmountable task. On the positive side, COVID-19 was an opportunity to shine and find ways to best support your employees and reinforce company wide operations.
In my department in specific, our department head left at the start of the pandemic and we had a replacement with a very different management style. We were no longer a fun startup environment with managers that hired good people and allowed them room to be great, we were now all walking numbers. Instead of our schedules being managed by the day, they are now managed in increments of 15 minutes and our performance being shared team-wide daily. We were also now subject to messages from our managers on slack asking “why did you just pause for 5 minutes?” Management also now scheduled meeting after employees would have a sick day to discuss why it was taken etc. This is exactly the type of micro-management I try to avoid when being hired by a company, and this is exactly what my job had become.
With a extremely large demand that spiked because of COVID-19, I often felt pressured by management into doing things I did not feel comfortable with. I clearly advised of my limitations when working from home and was asked to do things outside my limits almost on a daily basis. For example I was repeatedly asked to go back to the office during a pandemic and to take on extra hours on top of the stressful 40 hours I was already putting in. When I politely declined I’d be asked by other managers the same question. This also happened with last minute schedule changes, id decline and be repeatedly asked again and again and it started to feel deliberate and manipulative.
Additionally, (I am attempting not to be too specific here) Article greatly changed their polices due to COVID-19 in regards to returns, exchanges and deliveries and decided not to correctly update the copy on the website. (I am aware the policy has now changed again and is properly reflected online, but it wasn't for nearly 3 months.)
The company was knowingly and intentionally lying by omission to all of our customers. They actually chose to leave all the copy the same as before other than a small non-descript note that did not accurately describe the changes to the policies. MANY members of our care team time and time again protested and requested we are more direct about the changes online and our requests were met with gaslighting from management. We were given reasons of WHY they chose to do it this way, and while we all understood why (to keep making $) we all felt it was very wrong. What happened to be genuine and be direct?
Management then relied on us in the care team to fight very unpleasant battles daily based on their decisions and it turned everyday into a nightmare of very angry customers who felt they were misled and falsely advertised to. (Which they were)
The company hired a very problematic customer care department head who had conducted herself incredibly inappropriately on a zoom call with myself, and I know of another situation where she did the same to another employee. I will not speak to this in too much details because there is currently an HR investigation into this person and I want to give the company the opportunity to do the right thing.
This was the breaking point for me. I pride myself in being a very direct and genuine person that takes pride in my work and I couldn’t continue to defend a company that I no longer morally agreed with.
All in all looking back on my experience I am saddened, I truly enjoyed working for article in the beginning but it became a job I deeply dreaded and ruined my life and worsened my relationships with others for a period of time which lasted much longer than I should’ve let it.
