Where do I begin? First, I want to start off by saying that this is not intended to be a malicious review, but absolutely written to hopefully prevent someone else from experiencing the horrible things that I experienced with this company.
For Minorities (other than Asian or Middle Eastern) If you are Black or Mexican, you will only see your race in majority, if the person has a lower level position or a position on the bottom floor in the call center. I was made aware of this by a current employee during my first week on the job. Blacks and Mexicans are scarce above the first floor and there are less than 1 or 2 blacks in any Senior or above level positions, if that many. Again, I was told this early on which really made me feel uneasy.. While, I'm not sure if this is undercover racism at its best, this is the reality of what I was told and witnessed. Also, let me say that, I cannot speak for RealPage as a whole, but I can only speak for the LeaseStar Team that I was on as a Consultant.
Interview Process
The interview process was a pleasant experience. Both ladies who interviewed me seemed to be very nice, knowledgeable and they really made me feel like, if I were offered the position after the interview, that I would be throughly trained and that there was indeed a learning curve, so I did not have to know anything about the products to get the job, but later I found this to be FAR from the truth.
Work-Life
The Team that I was on, in the beginning, they were all very nice, but after time went on, it was made very clear that I did not fit in to be whatever it was that they were looking for.
I literally felt like the black sheep of my team although I did not understand why. Often times, most of the people on my Team would not even speak to me or would act as if I wasn't even there. When I first started out, they had me sitting on calls for hours at a time listening to sessions that were conducted by 3 different trainers in and effort for me to be "trained". I figured out early on that this method would not work and voiced my opinion and after that, I was told not to sit on any more calls, but to write out a script and flow that I would use for my trainings instead. So I did. Without any true guidance or direction. I combined notes that I had taken from all 3 trainers and combined them into a script that I had written and prepared myself. To make a long story short, once I tried to do the presentation and the training myself based on the script that I was told to write, I was told that I was doing the training wrong and was sent a document to follow. Because all 3 trainers, did their trainings in 3 different ways and I did not have any formal training, it was difficult to pick up every aspect of the training because each session is covering almost 2 hours worth of content. So, I made the changes as instructed and completely unlearned what I had previously learned, rewrote my script in its entirely and tried again to learn present the product in that way and AGAIN was told that it was wrong AGAIN as well. SO, again without any formal training or direction, I decided to simply rewrite the script and just read the script verbatim instead of learning the product because there was no way that I could do both without any formal training. Well, that did not work either because when asked a question outside of my script, I could not answer it because again, there was no formal training. I was told just to ask questions and I guess that would be my training. I guess my team members figured out that they were NOT being paid any extra to continue to train me so, I I could feel that they started not to care whether I learned the product and how to properly present it correctly or not.
After this, this is where the chaos started. I would ask a question and get 3 different answers and would be expected to somehow comprehend what the answer was.
To top it all off, I was humiliated, belittled and demeaned on several occasions by a coworker on my Team and nothing was done about it. I felt worthless at times and it made it difficult for me to even feel welcome to come to work. I would literally get sick thinking about going to RealPage, but I was determined to work hard and do my best to prove them wrong about the awful things that I was told that my team members would say about me. I was the only black person on my Team and whether they knew it or not, they let me know that I was not one of "them" on a daily basis. I was hired on with little training, so if you are expecting a position where you will have any form of decent training, please look elsewhere. Your coworkers will somehow train you and they don't really want to because they are not paid to, which I completely understand, so if any of this sounds as crazy to you as it was for me, please consider another company. It's just not worth it. RealPage is packaged like a really beautiful Christmas gift that is actually filled with lumps of coal on the inside. You are anxious to open it to see what's inside, only to find out the gift is worthless and the only thing you have of any value, is the beautifully packaged box. This is my interpretation. The training I received was comical for a company of this magnitude. The firehouse technique is used here and there is no form of "formal" training in any capacity. You are expected to simply learn from watching your peers and if you don't pick it up that way, be prepared to be let go.
I have a vast amount of experience so training myself or learning from my team members possibly could have worked, if I felt comfortable asking the people on my Team for help. There were a couple of people who were genuinely helpful, but later I found out from OTHER Teams and random people that my team members were trashing me behind my back every single day, mostly just for not understanding the product, asking too little or too many questions or just because they did not like me and didn't think a black person should be on their team. When I was told this, I literally got sick to my stomach. I believe it to be true because I was once chewed out and publicly humiliated by a team member in front of everyone on the floor because I tried to take the lead on a client and made a mistake. When I addressed the issue with my Manager, it was swept under the rug and she told me just to ask questions to someone else. Well, that did not work out because the people on my Team who I thought really wanted to train and help me, were only pretending to want to help and bad mouthing me to OTHER Teams behind my back. Every time I would leave my desk I would hear a new rumor. When I found out about all of this, I was crushed. I worked really hard to learn the product myself and I literally stressed myself out and tried to blend in to make things better. My manager made NO effort to train me and simply put the tasks on my other Team mates who acted as if they wanted to train me publicly, but really didn't. With all of this going on and me constantly hearing from other Teams about the things that "they" were saying about me, everyday at this place was like being in Hell. But I kept a smile on my face, kept my head low and tried my best to train myself. Well, that did not work out either because the training that I taught myself wasn't up to par with what they were looking for. So, when I found out from a current co worker on ANOTHER team last week, that I would be let go, a part of me was RELIEVED. But, I still did the best that I could to learn the product and teach it to myself, so I am proud of that. I believe that I was put in this position to learn a lesson about racism and discernment. The entire time, I was working so hard to understand and learn their product, they were plotting against me. The funny thing is, they would even tell me things like "there is a 6 month learning curve", "it took me forever to learn the product", "don't be so hard on yourself", but in reality these people were setting me up for failure. From what I was told by other team members, I wasn't liked from the beginning and didn't fit in with their white culture. But thankfully, I received a heads up in advance and was able to be prepared and to make other plans. I hope that the next person who comes in, is a better fit with their culture or if not, maybe they won't mind what comes with it.
Cheers to new beginnings and best of luck to everyone!
