Pros
The owner coordinates occasional free lunches.
Cons
First off - let me start with saying that this is the most dysfunctional company I have ever seen, let alone worked for and it is all due to the owners. The owners are a husband and wife team that are very much into micromanaging EVERYTHING, especially the processes that they are not qualified to lead. They do not seem like a couple, more like reluctant business partners that do not like to speak to each other. The husband runs Smartrend Manufacturing Group which buys mechanical parts from overseas and sells them to the automotive industry. The wife runs First Light Safety Products. They make school bus signs. She is super unpredictable, unstable and has shockingly bad people skills. She acts like a high school student, picking and choosing which employees she likes and treating them differently according to which list you’re on. I’ve witnessed her walk out of meetings without notice while someone is talking to her. Very catty behaviour. If you are a professional in your field, you will get hired but she will micromanage your tasks into an ineffective waste of time then blame you for it. If your expert skills in your field teach the owner something new, she becomes insecure and will fire you. If you look disinterested in a meeting, she will fire you. She genuinely fired people on the regular for this. At company standup meetings they gleefully announce how many people were let go for not exhibiting the level of excitement for the business that they want to see. It’s not based on your actual work or deliverables being met - they care about the optics more than actual performance. The owner’s ego needs constant stroking. This ensures only inept/desperate employees stay employed as they do not threaten the owner’s ego. I know what you’re thinking, what about HR? They must surely advocate on behalf of the employees. The single HR person is the owners BFF and doesn’t appear to be formally trained in HR practices. She spends most of her time collecting gossip (including eavesdropping on closed door meetings) and bringing it to the owner’s attention so the two of them can call people into the owner’s office and discipline them. It’s like the movie Mean Girls but Regina George is your boss. The production staff is made up of almost exclusively immigrants that sometimes rely on the company for their work visa. I never saw a single production employee smile. There is no casual conversation while they work. It looks like an emotionless sweatshop. Everyone lives in constant fear of upsetting the owner as the penalty for that is termination and you never know what will upset her that day. She changes her mind so often and without rational reason. The turnover is terrible. Nobody is safe when the owner is in a bad mood, which is often. Depending on the owner’s mood, anywhere from zero to 3 people get fired a week and this is a small company. The owner will send out inflammatory emails and then recall them. She sends Teams messages with false information in them, usually by accident and then will go back and edit them but pretend like she never made the error and that the recipient is lying. Very petty, insecure behaviour. This toxic environment leads to just the desperate and the downtrodden being left behind. If you do not bring new ideas to the table and only carry out the owner’s ADHD-fuelled spastic reactions each day, you will survive for at least a year. If you decide to use your experience, and training, you will be let go very quickly. If you are a professional, STAY AWAY!
