Custom Ink reviews

2.9

30% would recommend to a friend

(703 total reviews)
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David Doctorow

23% approve of CEO

23% positive business outlook

Custom Ink has an employee rating of 2.9 out of 5 stars, based on 703 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Custom Ink employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Retail & Wholesale industry (3.4 stars).

Reviews by job title

703 reviews
1.0
Aug 19, 2016

Decent money but mind-numbingly boring, stifling atmosphere

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You are essentially paid by the order, so you can make a fairly good salary if you work hard. Also, there is usually some form of free food available in the cafeteria. There are a LOT of employees, many of whom are extremely talented and bright. The friends I made here are absolutely wonderful people.

Cons

The social atmosphere resembles that of senior year in high school. Every promotion opportunity is essentially a popularity contest and actual competence is given minimal consideration when promoting. Many people in management have absolutely no history or experience in management. To make matters worse, there is very little room for upward mobility. You might go up one or two positions, but that's it. It definitely isn't a place for long term growth. Face to face interaction is generally discouraged. Employees are instead encouraged to contact one another via instant message only, or to give good or bad feedback through their intranet system. Thus, actual human contact is kept to a bare minimum. I imagine this might be a pro for you if you are a true introvert? Every order you touch is graded, and if mistakes are made money is deducted from your paycheck. Productivity is also calculated (you must complete a set amount of orders per day). Failure to do so may eventually result in termination. Company bills itself as "innovative," but most process improvement suggestions from bright, experienced employees are discarded. The pay structure is unnecessarily complicated, with different tiers for each level of productivity and mistakes and how much each correlates to in terms of dollars. It makes for very unpredictable pay checks. The physical atmosphere is okay (cubicles), although the desks and chairs are notoriously uncomfortable (most people start seeing a chiropractor within six months of starting due to the poor ergonomics). Frequent seat changes, sometimes to high traffic areas where it is difficult to concentrate, or you may move to extremely cramped quarters. In 4 years, I changed seats almost a dozen times. Overall, to me it was eventually not worth the stress and lack of long-term development opportunities.

3.0
Sep 28, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Free snacks, free lunch Thursdays - Seemingly relaxed/casual atmosphere - Nice office - Nice office location (Mosaic District) - Great training - I really learned a lot during my almost two months of training! - Great desks and computers - Good benefits

Cons

- Pay is SERIOUSLY low (too low for the DC area and too low for what the job entailed). There is a base pay with a performance-based earning on top of that, and even then it was just way too low. - Schedule sucked and was reminiscent of working nights in a retail job. Upon hire, many of us were told that we would have to work the "late" schedule but that, after 6 months, could change to a normal schedule. When we brought it up later, we were all told that would NOT be the case and that "no one ever said that." - Mandatory OT during busy season can be a killer. - Quality assurance system is overly vigilant and I dislike that it affects salary. - Micro-managing can be stifling. - I had a direct manager who was not qualified and was ill-equipped to deal with employee requests. Often, her responses were inappropriate, though it was clear this was due to her not being right for the job. - Getting promoted can sometimes mean actually taking a pay cut because of the way the performance-based earnings works out. - They rely too heavily on seniority for promotions when, sometimes, the person there longest isn't actually the best for the job. - It did not seem like management was very open to change. I got a "This is the way we do things and will always do things so don't rock the boat" kind of feeling, even over seemingly mundane things like thriving in a different type of working environment.

Viewing 61 - 63 of 703 Reviews

Glassdoor has 732 Custom Ink reviews submitted anonymously by Custom Ink employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Custom Ink is right for you.