Custom Ink reviews about "work environment"

Does not cover insurance for spouses — big disappointment. With all the growing in recent years there have been some major growing pains. Some teams have been overlooked. There have been gaps in leadership. Promises of change that take way too long to come to fruition. Rather than developing people from within, they have opted to hire people outside. There has been lots of horizontal growth and not enough vertical growth. Pay is a major issue for certain roles. Pay might be on par for national averages but is way below considering cost of living for some of CustomInk locations.

- They are terrible at promoting. They choose the "yes" men/women and not the most experienced/educated applicants. A good bullshitter and schmoozer is who gets the higher up positions

Ratting out your coworkers for their mistakes, and in effect literally taking money out of their paycheck and putting it into yours, creates an actively hostile work environment which I did not particularly enjoy.

- The VAST majority of personalities are awesome, but a few sour apples have a large impact, and while upper management is aware, nothing substantive is done (or at least perception is as such). - Two words: Peter. Principle. This is slowly being rectified as the company fleshes out roles. - Most of the hires in ops roles are recent grads. Not having a non-CI work environment to set a standard means sometimes people feel entitled about little things (like snarky Wanna-be-Yelp-reviewers of the free lunches), or don't know how to respond in a "grown-up" way to the challenges/expectations set upon them. Finally, this is more of a mix than a con. I saw other reviewers say that they feel it's hard to move upwards in the company. This is very true as often roles are super competitive. However, the people who succeed are ones who put their necks out and make their own opportunities. Lots of Inkers seem to feel that simply being good at their current job warrants moving up or out of their departments. Managers are looking for people who are looking to move towards something specific, not just away from their current roles.

Very fast paced...but I can't even really say that's a con because that generally means that things are going well. It would be nice if pay was a bit higher considering the cost of living in the DC area. I wish there was a bit more room to grow, as far as salary goes.

Most of the people there are in their early to mid 20's - managers included. Lack of maturity and professionalism was a bit of a problem. I didn't really realize how much I'd miss those things until they were absent from the office. When problems arose, we didn't need a friend, we needed a leader - and there was none to be found.

Some business processes are not yet concrete.

For sales and service... -Your day is very rigidly scheduled and every break is timed -Quotas are difficult to meet. It's difficult to provide excellent customer service AND hit a certain number of calls per day, especially when you're encouraged to design shirts while you're on the phone with the customer. -The sales and service teams are expected to do a little bit of everything, which is okay but it's better to have a department devoted exclusively to chat OR calls OR emails. My current company does this, and it's great -Training is two weeks long and gives future SS Reps limited phone exposure. More phone exposure would have been nice -Since HQ is in Virginia, there are more limited opportunities for advancement in Reno if you want to go to a dept like marketing, finance, HR, etc. -SS Reps all have to work overtime during busier seasons -Sometimes the company's "customers first" attitude breeds abusive or demanding customers. SS reps are often pressured to bend over backwards in the name of customer service, even in these situations -Young managers often started as SS rep and lack management experience -Low compensation (could be average for call center) isn't really enough to support yourself