CT - A Stepping Stone for Learning, an Abyss for Mental Health

3.0

Aug 15, 2023

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

CT is a great place to be to learn and grow within your respective industry. The company provides a wide variety of learning materials and encourages your learning journey with consistent raises. In less than a year, I would have been lined up for a raise simply by completing my career development goals, which were a breeze and quite enjoyable to complete. CT also gives you the opportunity to work with people from all around the world, from the comfort of your own home. This was one of my favorite aspects! While CT can be fast-paced, the entire organization was generally very accommodating with any time restraints that might have popped up. If tasks had to be shuffled due to higher-priority work needing to be knocked out, it was never an issue. Collaborating with team members from other departments was also a perk for me. Learning how Digital Producers scheduled their day-to-day or picking up a few tricks from Designers was great. I was also happy with my pay, as it was an attractive salary for my country. If you're looking for a place to learn and "get your foot in the door" within your industry, I think CT is a great option.

Cons

The biggest con for me at CT was what I call the abyss for mental health, Time Doctor. If you're unfamiliar with Time Doctor, I would suggest you do extensive research on it before agreeing to become a part of the CT team. As a result of having to use Time Doctor, you will be faced with a whole lot of micromanagement. Time Doctor and micromanagement truly ruined my CT experience. I constantly felt like someone was looking over my back in my own home, on my own personal computer. This was especially upsetting when I found out through other co-workers both in my department and others, that while I had to use Time Doctor (like everyone else in the company), I seemed to be one of the only people having their Time Doctor data combed through and addressed on almost a daily basis. Time Doctor within itself is invasive, there's no denying that. But constantly having to think about what my facial expression looked like, while also working because I was constantly asked if I was "upset" or "okay" based on what I looked like in my Time Doctor pictures was very uncomfortable. During orientation you will be told that you are in "control" of your Time Doctor, only to later be advised not to delete webcam pictures or screenshots because "people have been fired for that". I felt like I was not trusted to do the job I was hired for, while also being consistently praised for doing great work - very confusing. This among other factors resulted in my abrupt departure from CT - which honestly made me pretty sad because CT was and still is a huge part of my career journey. Another con for me was the fear-mongering constantly used by leadership. It almost seemed like jobs at the company were always in jeopardy and quite frankly, it was confusing. It's almost like you would attend a company meeting and everything was fine one week and the numbers we were bringing in were really attractive and then the next meeting, you would learn that things weren't looking so great. While I understand things in the economy can change quickly and drastically, the entire ordeal greatly affected employee morale. Do we have job security or do we not? The analogies used by upper management to "explain what would happen without revenue" were also a bit morbid at times. Another con was having PTO available but not being encouraged to use it because of gaslighting. On the team I was on, PTO was ALWAYS approved, and for that I am grateful. However, the discourteous remarks upon returning from PTO or the blatant annoyance directed at other co-workers (both in their presence and absence) for using PTO was discouraging and always made me think, "Well, maybe I shouldn't", for the time I literally earned and worked for, as PTO is accrued. Since leaving CT, I have had the pleasure of experiencing other remote positions (full-time, part-time, and freelance/contract), and I can say to date that I have never experienced the level of micromanagement that I did at CT, ever. I have had the privilege of working with companies that hire people they actually trust and that TRULY prioritize the mental health and well-being of their team.

CT Response

I'll note I'm skeptical about whether this is a real review or not but will respond as if its legit. My skepticism stems from the inconsistencies with location and role to actual team members we've had. CT has relatively low turnover and smaller teams so its pretty easy to spot when something is being invented. In this case, we've never had a person in this role in this location or in a related location (thus, we know there is some built in dishonesty). The final piece of skepticism is also directed at how Time Doctor is being reported as being used- we just don't use it as a daily part of our management practice, and especially so amongst the copy team leads. Time Doctor's daily role is a simple time card function that helps us bill clients accurately for time worked. Its secondary function is that of performance monitoring- Time Doctor allows us to verify and validate that team members are accurately reporting their work (to the right clients/the right tasks, etc) and helps us spot if people are falsifying those time reports. The latter use case typically only arises when other performance issues come up. Under only extreme circumstances (malfeasance on the part of the team member, significant performance issues) is Time Doctor a part of daily management practice, but that is well qualified based on concerns about that team member. If this person's experience is semi-accurate, then its likely because they were dishonest with how they were using their time while on the clock. (Billing clients for time they weren't working, etc). We definitely don't aim to produce a culture of fear, either. The only instance I can think of that may be at play would be the COVID pandemic in 2020, but that hit every business. One week we were trending towards all time highs, and one month later, the whole world seemed to be ending. I felt like we handled that well. We let no team members go during the time period after the pandemic broke out and everything went on lockdown. We didn't hide the harsh realities of the pandemic from our team- we are bootstrapped so eat what we earn and we came dangerously close to going into the red during the early months of COVID. All of that being said, I'll review this experience with all team leads to ensure we get alignment on how some team members can interpret our approach if we're not careful in communication.

CT

A Stepping Stone for Learning, an Abyss for Mental Health - Assistant Copy Strategist CT Employee Review

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