Beyond, Inc. reviews

The non-compete is still horrible and still severely limits future career opportunities. Overstock conveniently brings the non-compete up for the first time on the first day of work after you've uprooted your life, relocated, and turned down other job offers but before they give you access to walk through any doors by yourself. The same non-compete is used for both experienced employees in key roles and new hires fresh out of college. Since the new non-compete was not made available when it was announced, and the Senior Vice President - Technology / CTO took a determined stance to not make it available until either a position title change occurs or a new bonus is given, here's how the CTO phrased the non-compete changes. These are his exact words as best as I can remember. "We've had a lot of complaints about the non-compete and so sat down with our lawyers to update it. We decided the clause basically limiting employees from working for anyone with a website was overly broad since basically everyone has a website now." He continued "So we've changed that part to say anyone with a transactional website." The updated non-compete wording still limit's everything from a mom and pop shop which competes with Overstock because they sell t-shirts on the internet and so does Overstock, to Microsoft because Microsoft sells tablets on their website and so does Overstock. Don't forget Google because Google sells advertising space and Android phones on their website and so does Overstock. Combine that with Overstock's unpredictable business models which have ranged from selling vacation packages, to insurance, to cars, to homes, in addition to overstocked merchandise and the scope grows even more. Essentially if Overstock chooses to come after you, the non-compete wording forces you or your new employer to take the matter to court, in Utah, or quit your new employer and find another job. Overstock has done this in the past for relatively low level people. Over the last few years the non-compete has been frequently updated to restrict more and more future employment options and has become required for more and more people. The CTO's opinion that this latest update removed the overly broad scope and his determined stance to keep the exact new non-compete wording private until they want you to sign it on the spot scares me. As part of the same meeting it was announced that Overstock will work to outsource 15-20% of it's relatively small development and test staff of around 150. Luckily these will all be new hires, at least for now. The cover story is they want to be able to fire 15-20% of the development staff on a whim. The CTO cited a previous year this happened and basically said better outsourced workers than you.

Oh where to begin... 1. Senior Management live in their own world completely oblivious to what is going on in reality. They are completely disconnected from the "worker bees" who really make the magic happen. 2. You might be an expert in your field, but Senior Management DOES NOT CARE. They are the VP's so they know best in their opinion. Despite most having no formal training or experience in the field they are managing. 3. Continuing with the theme, the nepotistic nature of the company, means that if you know someone and suck up enough you might get promoted to a position you hardly deserve. That leaves the rest of us wondering on a daily basis why and how these decision are made. 4. You are expected to be perfect. If you make a small mistake you could be fired so that the senior management can make an example, or appear to be handling the situation. This leads to people working in constant fear, and lying when they do make mistakes to avoid being a target. The irony being that if someone at the lowest level makes a mistake, it can be traced to the very top, and the faults of the management being the ultimate culprit. 5. On the flip side from #4 Senior management can often make mistakes, some costing the company hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, without any consequence. 6. Salaries are far from comparable. Needless to say if you work there or are considering, just look at how much the senior management makes below, and compare that to your salary (that should be a major clue for you): http://bit.ly/pmjWGI 7. I could go on, but you get the idea.