PAPER reviews

My time at Paper can be documented as some of the worst days of my life. From my first week until my last, I was in a constant state of struggle and lasted only because when the company and upper management wasn’t gaslighting me about how messed up everything was, I was gaslighting myself. Paper built its empire on district administration and leadership desperately needing to drain their pandemic funding. Less than 10% of all students actually used the platform, the majority of interactions were superficial at best, and most users were those that needed the service the least. Those who could have benefited the most from Paper definitely didn’t use it for many reasons that don’t belong in this post. Throughout my time here, I was on the receiving end of all kinds of discrimination (as were many of my peers) and harassed by upper management. Leadership and anyone who is an upper middle manager is higher is extremely incompetent and under qualified. They have no regard for their employees or students. In fact, they acquired a company, and hired its founder, who had documented allegations because he had sexually abused women in the past (everyone knew about this but looked the other way). The company is built on false promises and a dysfunctional platform that is run and upheld by underpaid employees that are mistreated and overworked. Their business model is so poor that it has changed on several occasions. They have gone through SEVERAL layoffs since the summer of 2022, having left their workforce numbers at a fraction of what they used to be. This place is an absolute nightmare and your time, qualifications, and energy will be better spent anywhere else.

I've continued to have hope for this company that week after week squanders it with a lack of direction and organization driven by people with big egos. Some of the most intelligent and experienced people I've ever worked with have been entirely dismissed and even unofficially demoted for unknown reasons beyond disagreeing with these egos. It's incredibly disappointing to feel so powerless while a group of inexperienced leaders talk down to and question all the people who've actually provided value to the company over the past several years. Especially when there is no equity in pay or promotions across teams, where people have been forced to take on triple the amount of work for nothing. We've been forced to continuously prove ourselves on teams outside of their club, while they provide no tangible support or playbooks to their teams, take no responsibility for the loss of business they've caused, and make far more money than everybody else. It's just disheartening at this point, which has brought me to writing this review in the (likely false) hope that change can still come.