Toxic Culture Starts with Management - Behavior Technician MeBe Employee Review

This company struggles with rapid growth, lack of experience, high school clique-esk drama and petty gossip among the tight knit San Diego trained and based senior staff, and an absolute unwillingness to acknowledge that their staff turn over ridiculous and their supervisors are under experienced. The company began offering services in home in WA Seattle area about two years ago, and due to poor management on the ground, micromanagement across state lines, petty infighting, and unprofessional behavior, nearly the entire seattle staff quit or was fired over a one month period early last summer. (MeBe was originally known as Autism Outreach of Washington until last June when they formally opened the clinic). The company spun the first 18 months as a “learning experience” that they swore would be different when hiring new staff. Spoiler alert, it’s not. Due to their inability to get experienced WA based BCBAs to work for them, the San Diego main office essentially shipped supervisors that are “trustworthy” up to the Seattle office, fueling an ongoing sense of lack of trust or full inclusion of the seattle location, and a insular sense that only San Diego home grown staff will ever been fully part of the team. On the technician level, it’s to the point where RBTs who have four months experience and this is their first ever position are the “old timers” because more experienced and educated RBTs are fleeing left and right like rats from a sinking ship. RBTs are formally reprimanded or fired for interpersonal disagreements with supervisors, while clinically ineffective and useless RBTs are ignored as long as they are perceived as not causing problems, to the detriment of the quality of services clients receive. The supervisors continue to show sunny faces and claim that MeBe is an inclusive and collaborative work environment, while pretending that their RBTs won’t be thrown under the bus the moment it might save them or the company the slightest bit of inconvenience or money. San Diego upper management seems to be in complete denial that any (or all) of the Seattle chaos is their fault. I would not recommend anyone work with MeBe at this point. The toxicity can’t be starting at anywhere but the very top, and I doubt they’ll be willing to change any time soon. It is not normal to have an office operate like that, it is not normal to treat your staff like that, and it is not normal to constantly try to sweep all issues under the rug and pretend that everything is sunshine and roses when everyone knows that’s a lie.