Chaos and hypocrisy, but opportunities to make significant impact
Pros
I've been afforded a lot of opportunities to pursue personal and professional growth through external learning, on the job training, and good ol' trial by fire. I've been thrown into critical projects, some of which I've failed at and some of which turned out to be successes. Through it all I've been encouraged to speak and write with my own unique voice, and have forged some of the strongest friendships in my life. My current position at Zappos is miles away from where I thought I would be coming out of college, but I continue to work hard because I love the immediate team that I work with on a daily basis. I believe we are all committed to making a great experience for our employees and, in turn, our customers.
Cons
Squirrel! Zappos prides itself on being innovative and daring when it comes to the company culture. One downside is that in the perpetual race to stay ahead of the curve, it likes to throw everything against the wall all at once, to see which one sticks. The problem is that all of these different difficult concepts are: A. not well thought out before they get launched to the entire company and mandated B. cause significant change fatigue with the employees, making it hard to tease out whether the efficacy (or lack thereof) of the new concept was due to an inherent incompatibility with the employee population or because they just didn't have enough energy to wholeheartedly try it. This applies to almost all of the buzzwords you hear thrown around with Zappos: holacracy, DDO, design thinking, you name it, we're probably trying it or thinking about trying it... all at the same time without being really able to focus on doing one correctly You have to be okay with living in an environment where one day you're told to do A and tomorrow you may be told to do not A, and the next day you're told that both A and not A are correct. Yes, there is chaos and lack of organizational focus, but there's also opportunities for people who are passionate about their agenda and their goals to push them through to effect change.
