PAPER reviews

Paper had my review removed the first time around, so I’m trying again. Those thinking about working for Paper deserve the truth. Finding the strength to leave Paper felt like getting out of an abusive relationship. Being at the company for a long time was akin to finding a sense of belonging, in a way that is reminiscent of being part of a cult. You feel desperate to fit in, and feel like you are part of something special. You wear the merchandise (that they spend unfathomable amounts of money on while simultaneously laying off their employees) and proudly tell the people in your life about your work. Being part of Paper becomes an integral part of your identity. And at the same time, it strips you of your self worth, self efficacy, and value through constant gaslighting and belittlement. This is done slowly, in a way that is so insidious that you won’t notice it until the damage has already been done. Paper is built on a culture of nepotism, toxic positivity, and deep-rooted fear. Those higher up in the company all have something in common; they are almost exclusively there based on personal relationships and friendships. The incompetence, lack of experience, and minimal qualifications of many employees at the director level and above is truly astounding. Promotions and opportunities for growth are all done in complete secrecy and announced to teams after the fact, usually with no interviews or any due process. When interviews do happen, they are biased, unprofessional, and unethical, with the outcomes determined in advance. The politics are beyond anything I have ever experienced in my life. Paper does not care about finding candidates who will be capable of the roles they are trying to fill, so long as the person “plays well in the sandbox,” will agree with everyone else in the room without bringing a different perspective, and is willing to denounce their morals and values to fit in. This means that higher up positions tend to be filled by, at worst, horrible bullies who will take every opportunity to publicly humiliate or degrade their employees, or, at best, incompetent and spineless buffoons with no experience and an inability to make decisions. One of the most telling examples of nepotism at its finest is the infamous senior director (ISD), who developed a close relationship with the COO. Nearly everyone working at Paper HQ despises her, yet she continues to be promoted. Despite a total lack of experience and no real qualifications for her role, the ISD has been the driving force for multiple reorganizations, oftentimes resulting in massacres of entire teams. She has failed to improve scheduling for tutors, leading to situations where tutors are regularly lacking hours while there are simultaneously constant calls for back-up on the platform. However, she has never faced any accountability for making poor decision after poor decision. Instead, she continues to play with people’s livelihoods with zero care or concern, acting as if this is “just business” as opposed to her own incompetence. Recently, she fired the entire team of Service Managers, leaving nearly 50 Tutor Managers without a manager. Tutor Managers, who are also frequently fired without cause, have nearly 100 tutors on their roster, and are expected to meet with each of them to provide personalized feedback every month, on top of many other responsibilities. This leaves many of them working regularly until after midnight and/or on weekends, which the ISD insists is necessary to get the job done. Because lay-offs occur on a near weekly basis, most Tutor Managers will work themselves to the bone and suffer from burn-out for fear of losing their job. This culture of fear is reinforced company-wide, with hints of impending reorganizations and subsequent lay-offs being brought up constantly. Most employees wake up anxious and afraid to come to work every day, lest they be called into a last minute meeting with HR to find that their role is being eliminated, or to be told that they’re being fired for poor performance despite zero critical feedback and only positive performance reviews. However, managers are encouraged to keep up a facade of toxic positivity, gaslighting their employees into believing that this type of environment is normal and it’s just part of the business world. The result is a workplace where people are afraid to talk to each other about their experiences, because you never know who you can trust. This leads to employees feeling isolated and unable to authentically bring up issues, further reinforcing the one-dimensional groupthink perpetuated by management. This is 100% intentional and orchestrated to exploit employees. Furthermore, there is severe micromanagement, which seems to disproportionately affect employees of color. There is an interesting dichotomy of being left on your own with minimal guidance, mixed with excessive oversight of emails, communications, and projects by managers who do not have the experience or skill to provide feedback, resulting in the inability to complete work. This is done despite many of the lower level employees being incredibly talented, overqualified, and competent. If you question anything, or even bring up suggestions about doing something differently, management will gaslight you by telling you that you “don’t understand” the business perspective or that you’re simply not experienced enough to "get it." However, that perspective is never communicated, nor is there any transparency behind decisions or policies. Ultimately, management is incapable of recognizing how deeply this type of environment hinders performance, as employees expend so much energy worrying about making the wrong move and being berated for it, or being fired without reason on a daily basis. Don’t even think about going to HR with any of your concerns. Some of the lower level employees on the HR team are genuinely amazing, but most will pretend to listen and brush any issues under the rug, no matter how serious. This is evident from the way that problematic, racist, or discriminatory employees continue to thrive at Paper. However, anyone brave enough to bring up unethical, traumatizing, or borderline illegal actions or decisions will find themselves on the infamous blacklist. This occurred when employees pushed for DEI initiatives. After holding a few DEI meetings, entirely driven by employees of color, they were quickly shut down after a conversation was initiated about paying tutors for their time and contributions (which was refused). The head of HR spent months talking about creating a position within the company for a DEI expert, however, this never materialized, nor was a job posting ever created. In general, rather than trying to address problems within the company, HR and management focus on silencing employees (again, contributing to the culture of fear). HR instead spends their time encouraging employees to post fake Glassdoor reviews to drown out the real ones, as many other posters have already mentioned. I have been personally asked to do so in the past (surprise, here it is!!). In fact, one of the main objectives for the HR team in a recent quarter was to improve Glassdoor reviews so that they could try to fool prospective employees into thinking Paper is a good place to work. They then spend time responding to select reviews, but don’t fall for the phony attempts to meet with you; they simply want to know who you are so they can fire you. Let’s revisit our lovely Mademoiselle ISD for a moment. She can put on a charming facade, and many tutors seem to like her because she’ll often drop an F-bomb in the town hall meetings. They should hear how she speaks about them behind closed doors, with complete disdain and a lack of respect for their work. This brings me to the general attitude towards tutors, which is one of the most sickening parts about Paper. Tutors are underpaid, overworked, and faced with performance standards that are oftentimes physically impossible to meet, or not clearly communicated. They are told that they are the backbone of the service, but Paper truly sees them as dispensable, with many higher ups in the company speaking about them with annoyance or disgust. One of the main objectives on the Service team earlier this year was to fire 10% of the lower performing tutor population; this was prior to any type of performance management system, and tutors had received zero feedback. This fits with the narrative that Paper is constantly recycling employees, hiring and firing entire teams within mere weeks. Ironically, many of the tutors are more qualified than most of the directors at Paper. They are the most undervalued employees at the company (and that is truly saying something). Any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions brought forward are disregarded, with the tutor in question being blacklisted and labeled as a problem. They are then denied any opportunity for growth or systematically fired. Paper also recently fired their entire Teaching & Learning team, as well as anyone involved in Learning & Development efforts. The reasoning behind this was that Paper decided that training and resources for tutors was no longer necessary, as their professional development is not seen as a priority. Cutting costs is nearly always at the expense of tutors. They are thrown onto the ever-growing roster of a severely overworked Tutor Manager who cannot possibly provide more than surface level feedback, given minimal training and guidance, and still expected to show up as a top performer from day one. On that note, I must touch on Paper’s view of education in general. Paper identifies itself as an educational support system, but views education as entirely transactional. They preach about equity, but this is all for show. One of the core values of the company is that “winning is a decision,” which is in direct opposition to their stated mission to democratize education and provide educational equity for those who are not born with privilege. Management genuinely does not recognize, understand, or care that some students simply do not have access to Paper because they don’t have devices or a proper internet connection at home. When asked about how Paper is working to reach these students in meetings or town halls, management responds defensively and avoids the question. This likely has to do with the fact that both CEO and COO come from backgrounds of extreme privilege and genuinely don’t understand what it is like to not be afforded every opportunity. The CEO likes to discuss his time as a teacher and how Paper was born from his desire to reach students who could not afford tutoring, but he worked at a wealthy private school and never actually taught in a classroom. To date, only around 10% of students who have access to Paper have ever signed onto the platform for help. Of those, many interactions are superficial, or at worst, students sexually harassing tutors or sending them racial slurs, which management does not address in any serious way. Instead of doing any kind of research or attempting to understand why students are not using Paper, management focuses on throwing money into short-lived, meaningless new features based on zero data. There is no long term vision, coherence, or reasoning behind decisions that are made. Nor is there any evidence that Paper has proven to have any kind of positive impact on students using the service. The current goal is to have 10 million activities this school year, which Paper will count as a “win” regardless of whether students are finding any meaning in those interactions. Overall, starting a job at Paper will initially feel like a breath of fresh air. You will feel excited and validated and will believe you will be making a true difference in the lives of students, because that is what has been marketed to you. I promise you, that feeling will not last for long. Ultimately, you will leave (of your own volition or not) feeling like a shell of the human you once were. Do not let yourself be fooled by the facade that is Paper. If you genuinely care about education, value yourself, and have any integrity, then RUN, do not walk, from seeking out any association with Paper.