Pros
While I was there the work itself was pretty good for what I did, my initial thoughts were that this place is pretty cool, people seemed friendly. But all that changes pretty quickly.
Cons
I was initially hired on with one other person and he lasted a whole 3 months before they fired him. I lasted about a year, and just to be clear, their probation period is between 6-7 months, whichever they decide. The first few things I noticed was that there are cameras EVERYWHERE! They monitor every single cube because they are paranoid about theft and personally I think they just check up on you to make sure you're working. After the shock of the cameras wore off I tried settling into my work, which was hard to do because they force you to sit in a circle of cubes with your back to several other people with no walls and no privacy at all. And I know this is similar to what a lot of companies do but get with the times, it's been proven by a lot of doctors that employees are more productive when they have even a shred of perceived privacy because they are more comfortable with their environment. Taking away all their privacy is a good way to alienate your employees right off the start and make them hate their jobs. So after a while I began noticing that most of the employees were younger people with new faces showing up often, while most of the management were older and had been there for years, some from the very beginning of Startech. This tells me that there is a high turn around rate for non-management employees. Also, this brings about a lot of gossiping among the younger crowd. Quite a bit of back stabbing was going on as well, everyone seemed to watch each other to get some dirt and then rat you out to the boss so that they could get ahead. Hence the paranoid environment, everyone seemed on edge at all times. They would pay you a very average salary, which they claim is wonderful and based on the norm for the rest of the business world. And if you're expecting any bonuses or raises, keep dreaming. After my 6-7 month probation was up I was told that I would get my review soon. What I didn't know is that they get the employees who sit around you to do your review and boy did they nit pick. I sat with the manager and was told that I take too many personal calls, and that I spend too much time talking with people around me (while the people around me could talk all they like on the phone and among themselves without any repercussions). Then when I asked if there was any raise, I was told that they don't do raises after the probation period. I would have to wait until a full year was up before they would even consider it. Then she began to tell me that she expects me to do mandatory overtime (with no extra pay) every single week, at least 1-2 hours per week was the minimum. That statement in my opinion was unacceptable, but I reluctantly agreed. I was working hard, bringing lots of new ideas to the table and even helping to implement a few great ideas that I had but I guess that wasn't enough. One day the grumpy HR lady came over to me and said she wanted to speak with me in her office. When I walked in she began to tell me that this meeting is a follow up to my review, and I thought 'a follow up to my review from a few months ago?' I'm suppose to be a full employee now right? Wrong, in this sneaky way she tied in the review as a way to have an excuse to fire me. When I asked her what I did wrong, did I not do my job? She said it has nothing to do with my work; that was fine, I'm just not the right fit for Startech. In other words, the people I worked with didn't like me so they told our boss, and she decided to fire me. My boss didn't even have the guts to call me into her office and tell me herself that there was something wrong and give me a chance to improve/change. Now I'm well aware of how things go at other companies when you get fired, they call security to escort you out, etc.. but these guys make you feel like you suddenly caught a deadly contagious disease, and I'm sure they make a spectacle out of you to keep everyone else in line. The HR lady escorted me to my desk so that I could collect my belongings, no one in the cubes would even make eye contact with me, they just talked quietly amongst themselves. When I tried to log into my workstation to delete my personal files, I could not log back in, I was told that my user was locked out. In the time that I went to the HR office the IT guy came by and locked out my workstation, seems they have this whole firing routine down to a perfectly timed art form. So I began collecting my things from the drawers and off the desk, while the HR lady kept telling me to hurry up. Once I made sure I had everything she escorted me out of the building. I have nothing against the owners, except to say that they are extremely cheap and must have blinders on to not see what kind of environment they have created for their employees. One month the company made record sales which was way above their budget, so to celebrate, the owners proceeded to walk around the office with a cooler and hand out ice-cream to everyone as a way to thank them for their hard dedicated work. Wow, how about sharing some of that hard earned wealth to make me feel like I really am appreciated? I don't want ice-cream, I want a bonus! That's what they do in the real business world. They must not feel the need to reward their employees for actually doing all this hard work and making them the millions that the company makes each year in profits. And finally, all those great banners they hang on the side of the building showing that they are a part of the '50 best companies to work for' or 'inc 500 companies' etc.. it's not like these places come to them and say, 'Hey, you guys made our list of 50 best companies to work for, congrats..' No, it's more like Startech approaches these companies, pays them a fee between $150 - $500 and then they get added to their list of companies and are reviewed in a positive way, including a free banner to hang on their office. So paying someone to make themselves look good in the eyes of the public isn't really a fair assessment of them. And as a final comment, I love their statement that they are a manufacturer of hard to find computer parts. Yet another false statement, they send their sales managers to Taiwan and Korea every year to attend local tech industry expos where they find new cheap products made by these companies. Then if they like the products they pay them to 're-brand' them in Startech boxes and sell them as their own for 300%-400% markup. Startech doesn't MANUFACTURE anything at all! Most of their products can be found at your local computer shop or on e-bay under the original asian brand name for $10-$20 vs the Startech price of $199. I have to say that the entire experience of working at Startech just left a bad taste in my mouth. Even working retail was a picnic compared to this place. If you're smart, don't even send them your resume. Between management that works you to the bone, or the employees looking for blood, chances are you won't last long. Working for Startech was the worst job of my entire life!