[HN Gopher] My CEO's rating on Glassdoor is so bad that all we a...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       My CEO's rating on Glassdoor is so bad that all we are getting are
       shitty hires
        
       Author : caaqil
       Score  : 125 points
       Date   : 2022-02-09 18:16 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (old.reddit.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (old.reddit.com)
        
       | gethoht wrote:
       | Yeah I worked for a dude like this before. He'd come into the
       | office literally in people's faces like screaming at the top of
       | his lungs. He did that to me once and I told him to never talk to
       | me again. If he needs something he can go through my manager.
       | 
       | 6 months later the board decided he was too much of a liability
       | and he resigned. He also had several sexual harassment lawsuits
       | against him.
        
         | skeeter2020 wrote:
         | I'm pretty easy-going but also a 6'5" well-off white male, so
         | I'd have no problem dealing with this sort of behaviour
         | (emotional and/or physical) right before I found the door. I
         | feel really bad with how a woman, minority or someone who
         | really needed the pay cheque would have to deal with this.
        
           | strikelaserclaw wrote:
           | what does your stature have to do with anything? This is an
           | office settings, all bullying is done verbally, so dealing
           | with this kind of behavior is more about "guts" than physical
           | strength.
        
       | serverlessmom wrote:
       | Wow this is horrifying. It's time to abandon the ship and take
       | your very valuable skills someplace they will be appreciated. In
       | my experience with people like the CEO described here they are
       | usually people whom are unable to engage in self reflection, but
       | somehow delivering that rating to the CEO to see how miserable
       | his rating is may be a much needed wake up call.
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | The primary job of the Board of Directors is to fire the CEO when
       | necessary.
       | 
       | Looks like it's time.
        
         | ipaddr wrote:
         | The primary job is to stay on the board and leverage
         | relationships and reputation for their own brand.
        
           | klyrs wrote:
           | Maybe, but this CEO is going to be a stain on their
           | reputation.
        
       | Demiurge wrote:
       | I worked at a company with a comically terrible (criminal) CEO.
       | The year I quit, the company Glassdoor rating went from average
       | to bad due to multiple reviews. Half a year later, after more
       | people quit, I see lots of fake reviews, the worst (accurate)
       | reviews gone, and the rating is back to decent. Apparently, even
       | seemingly good things can be subverted.
        
       | beepbooptheory wrote:
       | A wonderful new angle to try for possibly getting some responses
       | in the job search!
        
       | aynsof wrote:
       | I'm stunned at the board's complete lack of awareness.
       | 
       | I would have hoped that any competent board member would want to
       | view metrics around retention and morale, and that large shifts
       | would be something they'd dig into.
        
       | amriksohata wrote:
       | Brit here, slightly different topic, but related. American
       | corporate culture scares the crap out of me, I never fully
       | understood why there is such a presenteeism culture. I mean it
       | exists here and in Europe but not to the same extent and where
       | people are just numbers that are hired and fired so easily
       | without workers rights.
        
         | vidarh wrote:
         | Norwegian in London here. This is how the UK looks to me
         | compared to Norway...
        
         | JoeAltmaier wrote:
         | That's definitely a cultural thing, and in the US it's
         | generational as well. 50 years ago folks expected to work for a
         | lifetime at the same company, and moving jobs was considered a
         | big red flag.
         | 
         | But today? It's more like a gig economy, where you work at a
         | place long enough to finish a project, then reevaluate. As my
         | buddy Bob says, each year his annual review/raise is an 'offer
         | to stay'. He compares it with what he could get elsewhere, and
         | moves if that's the right decision.
        
         | digisign wrote:
         | This kind of company can't survive long, and aren't very common
         | fortunately. Lots of open positions as well, so no reason to
         | stay either. Mobility is generally a good thing.
        
       | felizuno wrote:
       | While I agree with the advice to leave, this person may be
       | reluctant to leave because their compensation package is not
       | fully vested. There is a famously toxic culture at - uh, you
       | know, a large internet retailer with a prominent web services
       | business - whose primary compensation is/was stock on 2-4 year
       | vesting schedules. I personally know people who had literal heart
       | attacks, mental breakdowns, and other serious and life
       | threatening health consequences that arose as a direct result of
       | staying in that toxic environment too long.
       | 
       | It's not worth it. My friend who had a heart attack at 40 would
       | gladly trade back the $750k in stock he got in exchange. Life is
       | short.
        
       | snorkel wrote:
       | Whole situation sounds like typical startup growing pains and
       | this is the OPs first rodeo of this kind. The original crew of
       | developers was happy during the early days when it was all cozy
       | and limitless upside, but now there's new funding, new bosses,
       | new managers, new processes, new rules, new coworkers that "don't
       | get it" and that old fun and cozy vibe is lost. The new CEO will
       | likely be fired by the board too, but face it, the cozy days are
       | over. So either find yourself a role in that circus that you
       | like, or quit.
        
         | kodah wrote:
         | I've worked at a number of startups and the CEOs, beyond
         | founders, have been great. None of what is in this post sounds
         | normal.
        
         | manuelabeledo wrote:
         | This is not it.
         | 
         | Having worked at some startups before, there's a difference
         | between folks slowly getting off the boat because "party time
         | is over", and the chaos described by OP.
         | 
         | In the former situation, these people are usually easily
         | replaceable because they weren't committed to start with. I
         | have probably seen over a dozen engineers leaving over the
         | course of a year when more money required better processes and
         | more accountability, and to be frank, nothing really happened.
         | 
         | In the latter though, the high performing, highly committed
         | engineers leave in droves, and create a sort of expertise
         | vacuum that is hard to fill just with new hires.
        
         | soneca wrote:
         | I see nothing typical in a terrible CEO that causes such
         | turnover among all the company. Growing pains are communication
         | issues, less transparency, confusing career path, bad
         | onboarding, etc. This is not that.
        
         | burkaman wrote:
         | This is absolutely not normal. If you find yourself relating to
         | this post, please start looking for a new job immediately, I
         | promise it's not like this everywhere.
        
           | bduerst wrote:
           | Yeah, this feels like a no-true-scotsman, except for
           | 'startups', made to discredit OP's reality.
           | 
           | Telling OP to ignore the writing on the wall and show loyalty
           | to a toxic leader is not good advice.
        
           | gruez wrote:
           | >This is absolutely not normal.
           | 
           | Is it "normal" for a company to stay "cozy and limitless
           | upside" even as it grows to hundreds of employees?
           | 
           | >If you find yourself relating to this post, please start
           | looking for a new job immediately
           | 
           | The parent post literally mentions quitting as one option.
        
             | burkaman wrote:
             | > Is it "normal" for a company to stay "cozy and limitless
             | upside" even as it grows to hundreds of employees?
             | 
             | No it isn't, but that's not relevant to this discussion.
             | Nobody made any claim of limitless upside.
             | 
             | > The parent post literally mentions quitting as one
             | option.
             | 
             | Yes, but it implied you're likely to find the same thing
             | anywhere that's not a super early stage startup, which is
             | not true.
        
       | bell-cot wrote:
       | GTFOASAP
        
       | Traster wrote:
       | It's easy to overcomplicate this. Why work for someone who is an
       | arsehole? Leave! Why are you worrying about good people not
       | applying because of your bad glass door ratings? Do you actually
       | want good peopel to be exposed to your arsehole CEO? Will they
       | make a difference? No.
       | 
       | Either you make the judgement you can outlast the CEO, or you
       | should be thinking of your career outside of the company.
        
         | Cullinet wrote:
         | I think, as a observer, one of the best character traits of
         | American culture is the willingness to topple your leaders. We
         | don't often suffer 16 years of a Prime Minister but did 14 of
         | Thatcher and 12 of Blair. Whereas becoming a Two Term President
         | is still a big deal.
         | 
         | Unfortunately employment market culture of really far more
         | rapidly changing careers than the foundations of the American
         | industrial economy was used to, hasn't gotten updated on the
         | leadership durability model. Which has been grossly extended by
         | special voting rights and the abandonment of embarrassment for
         | misdemeanour leading to resignation which is almost gone as
         | well as the possible reason why metoo etc was so explosive when
         | we realised that some unacceptable behaviour really is
         | unacceptable.
         | 
         | There's more than merely the benefit of the doubt happening
         | here.
        
       | robotnikman wrote:
       | Reminds me of the CEO of my last company _shudders_
       | 
       | I still had nightmares many months after I left that place.
        
       | aerovistae wrote:
       | This brings to mind something interesting to me.
       | 
       | I have had 5 jobs in software in the past 10 years, and the first
       | four were frustrating in different ways. Frustrating coworkers,
       | bad pay, annoying location, dismal office, no vacation -- all
       | different combinations of problems.
       | 
       | My current job, however, at a reasonably well known non-FAANG
       | tech company, is in most ways perfect. I work remotely but have a
       | NYC salary. My coworkers are delightful. The work is stress-free
       | with top-of-the-line work-life balance, flexible PTO and a lot of
       | holidays. I have no complaints.
       | 
       | EXCEPT that it's insanely boring. It's just such meaningless,
       | boring work.
       | 
       | And that's the quandary. I know how stressful and frustrating
       | most jobs are. I know this job is 90% perfect other than leaving
       | me feeling unfulfilled. I know the odds of finding another job
       | with such a combination of factors is very low.
       | 
       | So I stay, even as I see talented engineers moving on as
       | described in the reddit thread and in this one. I'm not staying
       | because I can't get work elsewhere - I'm staying because I don't
       | believe I can find comparably stress-free high-paying work
       | elsewhere.
        
         | lordnacho wrote:
         | Start a side hustle to scratch your itch? Assuming you mean
         | unfulfilled in a technical sense. Of course you could also mean
         | family and friends, which is outside of work anyway.
        
         | xtracto wrote:
         | After having been in 3 very fast growing startups I got
         | completely burnt out. So I got a job like the one you are
         | describing: The pay is basically double of what I was making
         | before, it is absolutely out of all proportion for my home
         | country and the team is amazing. However it is also quite
         | boring as well, I've never been in a "largish" slow phase
         | company. I am enjoying the ride because once this is over, I
         | _know_ I won 't be able to get a similar job elsewhere.
        
       | JoeAltmaier wrote:
       | Sounds like a company I know. We placed one of our Engineer
       | contractors there - all was well. Then he joined the company
       | (perfectly agreeable all around) and instantly started getting
       | shit on by their CEO. Public criticism of everthing he did;
       | outrageous demands on their time; exclusion from company events
       | for fake emergencies; announcements that his department
       | (consisting of exactly one person, him) was under-performing the
       | other department (12 people) at company meetings.
       | 
       | So he quit; they panicked; he's now a contractor again with
       | double the pay and reporting to a VP he got along with.
        
         | Cullinet wrote:
         | That particular lousy "leader" bought your company and thought
         | that the performance of your contract engineer all alone in his
         | company could carry on at the level possible with your
         | company's obviously highly effective employees and engineering
         | engagement environmental support systems.
         | 
         | At least that explains him being isolated..
         | 
         | .. which actually foreshadows the conclusion of this story and
         | even begs for more...
         | 
         | the engineer was employed with expectations of being able to
         | perform like a entire department
         | 
         | obviously the CEO didn't grok his valuation mistake
         | 
         | and that's why after being a unacceptable ahold for a very
         | actionable sounding amount of really lousy leadership level
         | loosing litigation liability lingering low blows, the CEO was
         | prepared to re-hire at double rate
         | 
         | the CEO clearly still believes that the whole department
         | performance deal is possible and merely adjusted his salary and
         | expenses expectations by the minimum I expect he was prepared
         | to pay.
         | 
         | I don't think that the fundamental performance potential for
         | this person and that position is actually unfortunately
         | possible.
         | 
         | only positive possibility I can think of is using the CEOs
         | presumption to hire a sufficient staff to do the work and end
         | up VP/SVP report to the board up from contract engineer in one
         | job half life. I've seen the similar kind of thing done. I
         | presume your former colleague can hire your company back to buy
         | some thinking time as well. If this is a current situation I
         | hope this is some food for thought.
        
           | JoeAltmaier wrote:
           | Not sure where all that came from. They simply hired the
           | contract Engineer we were providing. We originally did all
           | their software on the particular product (cockpit display)
           | using four Engineers but when development slowed, they wanted
           | one fulltime and that was our guy. He went from being our
           | employee to being their employee, which is his right. And it
           | spiralled from there.
           | 
           | Anyway he's happy independently contracting now, so alls well
           | that ends well.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | zibzab wrote:
       | Why are you still there, with the job market being what it is
       | now?
       | 
       | I mean, you fairly quickly see where this is going to lead. Why
       | stay in a sinking ship?
        
         | toomuchtodo wrote:
         | Some folks need some encouraging. Encourage them!
        
       | faeyanpiraat wrote:
       | The "dead sea effect" is an interesting new concept I learned
       | from that post.
        
         | ubermonkey wrote:
         | Yeah, me too. I worked at a place in the 90s that was
         | absolutely going in that direction, but I had no word for the
         | phenomenon.
         | 
         | They were an all Vax/VMS shop in the mid-90s, and they paid
         | developers criminally low wages even for the era. I was hired
         | in an analyst/project management role at a considerably higher
         | salary, which of course made my group unpopular with the dev
         | rank and file.
         | 
         | Turnover was insane -- like, 40% a year in the dev & IT
         | department. Those that stayed were, generally speaking, those
         | that either couldn't conceive of seeking another job, or were
         | unable to do so. This is not a recipe for a functional or high-
         | achieving group even without that by-that-point religious
         | adherence to the party line on (a) the long-term viability of
         | VMS and Digital generally or (b) the wisdom of insisting that
         | damn near everything be built from scratch, even the database
         | system.
        
           | WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
           | > the wisdom of insisting that damn near everything be built
           | from scratch, even the database system.
           | 
           | NIH is literally software cancer. We've done it dozens of
           | times and it hasn't worked once...
        
         | AtlasBarfed wrote:
         | It's what I think Amazon/AWS is going through now. When they
         | were in "fun growth" mode their obnoxious Bezosisms didn't
         | really matter, but they are settling into an
         | enterprise/utility/long term company. Their raising the bar and
         | stack ranking and forced attrition and blame culture and
         | backstabbing and sacrificial hires won't work.
         | 
         | Instead, they produce a dead sea effect where you aren't
         | getting good people, you're either getting sociopaths or people
         | that don't have options to go elsewhere and not be
         | organizationally abused.
         | 
         | Because if you're good, you can go elsewhere. Other FAANG, etc.
         | 
         | Did you see all the outages in AWS in December? Utilities have
         | long-standing employees because they do long-term support and
         | know the systems. Amazon's hiring does not reward or structure
         | itself that way. It's for churning people.
         | 
         | If you get a creepy impression from the hiring (and Amazon
         | hiring should DEFINITELY do that)... well...
         | 
         | I would say most people that go there are doing it for the
         | resume and they are out within two years. The people I knew who
         | went there were exactly that. Then they cashed out to better
         | jobs.
        
       | manuelabeledo wrote:
       | > The company's solution was to mass hire to make up for the
       | losses.
       | 
       | Yeah, this company is in life support, then.
       | 
       | There is this other company where there are a handful of the
       | shittiest managers I have ever heard of in my whole career. As a
       | result, most key engineers are leaving, and the company is
       | ramping up hires.
       | 
       | They don't seem to understand that it doesn't matter how many
       | more people you hire, if all the know-how and leadership has
       | vanished already.
        
         | exdsq wrote:
         | > if all the know-how and leadership has vanished already.
         | 
         | The final nail in the coffin after this happening is a software
         | rewrite by the bad quality hired because A) maintaining and
         | extending software is hard 2) it's even harder without any
         | original engineers around to guide designs 3) it's easy to
         | blame people who aren't there for your issues so "the existing
         | software sucks".
         | 
         | I've seen this happen a few times.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | gameswithgo wrote:
       | How hard is it for an employee to request a meeting with the
       | board, generally?
        
         | axg11 wrote:
         | Very difficult, and frankly pointless. I have seen employees
         | take problems to the board in the past _if_ they already have a
         | working relationship with board members. Otherwise, you are
         | signalling yourself as an employee that cannot successfully
         | work with the company's management. At best, the board will
         | take actions based on your advice, but you will still
         | compromise your own position within the company.
         | 
         | The calculus is simple: in many startups the CEO owns 10-60% of
         | the company. A very senior early employee who negotiated well
         | on options/equity? Optimally <0.5%.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | nrmitchi wrote:
         | You'd really have to have _a lot_ to lose (in comparison to
         | just taking a new job) under the current company in order to
         | take that chance (think a large value of options, etc).
         | 
         | You'd have better luck if you already had some sort of existing
         | relationship with the board, but that doesn't really apply if
         | you're asking this question.
        
         | flybrand wrote:
         | The board will say "yes" in their response cc'ing the
         | leadership.
        
         | ipnon wrote:
         | You do not want to stand out at these companies. From
         | experience, you will get fired. Morale is at rock bottom, no
         | one is working hard, the only benefit is that expectations are
         | near the limit of nothing so long as you do even the most
         | miniscule actions of value.
         | 
         | Working at Hell Corporation with CEO Satan is incredibly
         | depressing. The reason people don't leave is that interviewers
         | can smell the desperation and downtroddenness. This is coupled
         | with not having written anything except muddy meatballs on top
         | of spaghetti code for your tenure.
         | 
         | Evil CEOs are a feature in these companies. They crush the
         | souls of their workers to prevent them from being able to
         | leave. It usually works long enough for the founders to sell
         | their stakes to a witless VC before the whole operation
         | explodes in a ball of fire.
        
           | bagels wrote:
           | If you are on your way out already, the calculus changes a
           | little.
        
           | paxys wrote:
           | Getting fired (with a severance package/unemployment
           | benefits) may be preferable to voluntarily quitting out of
           | frustration and getting nothing.
        
         | onphonenow wrote:
         | Why? You take a lot of personal risk when you do end runs to a
         | board for this type of thing.
         | 
         | The normal solution is to go out and get a new job -> I've done
         | that with crazy bosses. Very simple. You can even leave on OK
         | terms.
        
       | trentnix wrote:
       | My first thought reading this is that I'm happy Glassdoor is
       | actually having an impact.
       | 
       | 15 months ago I started work as a Software Manager at a large
       | arts and crafts retailer. Much of the job seemed completely in
       | line with my interest and what I wanted to do, but two weeks in I
       | figured out the place was clownishly toxic and the CTO, despite
       | an impressive educational background, had a cartoonish
       | understanding of how software is made. So I resigned and sought
       | new opportunities. I've never worked less than 18 months at any
       | job, and that made leaving a tough pill to swallow.
       | 
       | Looking at the reviews on Glassdoor (and TeamBlind) left since my
       | departure, I can see my intuitions were spot on. Reviewers'
       | descriptions of the environment seem absurd, but unfortunately
       | they are completely consistent with what my spider-sense was
       | telling me. I hope Glassdoor has helped others avoid the misery
       | of employment there.
        
         | Cullinet wrote:
         | I gather that you didn't look at your employers Glassdoor
         | reviews until after you left?
         | 
         | I'm really confused about your apparent conflict with having
         | quit a toxic employer. Remaining only enables the a##holds to
         | survive by pointing at nice guys like you. So being conflicted
         | about leaving is likely down to the similar kind of human
         | collective survival instinct kicking in that kept the 3rd Reich
         | functioning until the organisational Medusa was finally
         | beheaded.
         | 
         | Surveys like Glassdoor probably (in my hand wavy land of
         | concrete civic ethical computability probably proven, but it
         | does seem necessary to appeal to more than one kind of human
         | evaluation to break chains like these) only contribute to the
         | problem by giving antisocial and anethical CEOs sources for
         | deriving operating limits that I suspect wouldn't work if more
         | good folk such as yourself heeded Glassdoor information prior
         | to accepting employment instead of maintaining a impossible to
         | calibrate open book according to our individual experiences,
         | which we then go right ahead and discount for being outliers
         | based on our total presumptuous imagination that the obscenity
         | of a organisation we're suffering from is actually quite good
         | and normal because obviously we started giving the boss a
         | neutral score because that's what fair unbiased scientific folk
         | do.
         | 
         | That's exactly what fair unbiased scientific folk do also with
         | great results, only every other situation where we apply our
         | fair logic we're using wildly capable arrays of the most
         | sophisticated linearized SI / ANSI calibrated measuring
         | equipment that leverage chains of custody for reference and
         | operating systems maximising the cumulative learning of mankind
         | and human ability to reject misleading but tempting fallacies
         | for fair fact.
        
           | trentnix wrote:
           | _> I 'm really confused about your apparent conflict with
           | having quit a toxic employer._
           | 
           | After only two weeks (and having never experienced such a
           | thing before), it seems pretty natural to second guess one's
           | intuition.
        
         | georgeecollins wrote:
         | I feel like savvy companies can game Glassdoor. Like reviews
         | online, it may be useful to learn what to look for but not so
         | useful as an overall raring.
        
           | monksy wrote:
           | Oh they do. I worked for a place that decided to start doing
           | quarterly layoffs.
           | 
           | Their approval raiting for the ceo was 80%, recommend to a
           | friend in the 60%s.
           | 
           | The reviews were vague but still pointed out staginating
           | business and one even mentioned that the ceo was like a drunk
           | pilot.
        
           | cookie_monsta wrote:
           | They don't even have to be that savvy. I worked for a company
           | that got bought out and the new owners were terrible. The CEO
           | was a friend of the owner, had no experience in the sector at
           | all so he brought in consultants to tell us everything that
           | was wrong with this profitable enterprise, the redundancies
           | and cost-cutting started and people who had been there for
           | years started jumping before they were pushed or just
           | literally stopped working altogether and waited for their
           | redundancy offer. The company started losing money, more cost
           | cutting, that spiral.
           | 
           | The Glassdoor reviews reflected all of this - generally
           | positive until change of ownership, then a steep downhill.
           | This was a while ago and I don't think the new management
           | were even aware of Glassdoor to start off with, but somebody
           | must have showed them because all of a sudden as soon as
           | somebody posted what sounded like a very genuine negative
           | review there would be a corresponding one that was just so
           | glowing they were comical.
           | 
           | This was around the time of the Trip Advisor scandal, after
           | which they quietly dropped the "reviews you can trust"
           | slogan. The two things have stuck in my mind together ever
           | since.
        
           | rchaud wrote:
           | Glassdoor is like Yelp, bad reviews can be scrubbed for a
           | price. Companies like these may have a noble mission at the
           | start, but housing people's reviews isnt' profitable. Acting
           | as a PR firm however, is.
        
             | vorpalhex wrote:
             | Feels like it wouldn't be too hard to make a simple review
             | site on IPFS. Have a client based filter for spam - but
             | then the filter can be confirmed by every client by
             | visiting the blacklisted reviews.
             | 
             | Honestly might be a fun weekend project...
        
               | dwaltrip wrote:
               | What happens when fake reviews come pouring in?
        
             | eunos wrote:
             | Idea : Offer enterprise package for companies to scrub bad
             | review, but also offer premium account to see unscrubbed
             | reviews. Win-win.
        
               | dkarl wrote:
               | The way you pitch it makes it sound reassuringly
               | unrealistic, but it's easy to say the same thing in a
               | more palatable way. How about this: Users can see the
               | first page of a company's reviews for free, or pay for a
               | premium account with full access. Companies can pay for
               | access to select the "highlighted" reviews that appear on
               | the first page.
        
             | f68yuvibhjk wrote:
             | Throw away account for obvious reasons:
             | 
             | Someone made a claim in a review that I, or someone on my
             | team (it was unclear which from the review), tried to cover
             | up a sexual assault [and some other claims that we were
             | nasty people in general]. Investigative lawyers were hired
             | in relation to the sexual assault cover up claim, and they
             | spent the next few months trying to get to the bottom of
             | what might have happened. In the end, nothing could be
             | found. No person came forward, the lawyers investigated
             | with current and past team members, it was exhausting and
             | painful. A lot of time and money was spent, but we didn't
             | get any sign that the claim was in fact true. The company
             | asked for people to come forward with more information,
             | nothing happened. Further, the original poster from
             | Glassdoor could not be reached, it was a dead end.
             | 
             | At the end of the day, the post survived. The company tried
             | to get it removed yet Glassdoor wanted no part in censoring
             | the claim, despite it being backed by zero evidence. It
             | hurt me, it was difficult to manage with my relationship,
             | my team members...it still upsets me today. I am torn
             | between thinking maybe there was something that happened I
             | didn't know about, and that this is just an angry person
             | trying to cause trouble. I'll possibly never know, but it
             | continues to upset me even now as I write this.
             | 
             | I just went back now and checked, the post has been
             | modified to remove this claim. I know it was there for
             | about 12 months.
             | 
             | So yeah, based on this, I don't know Glassdoor offers the
             | flexibility some imply it does. I don't know what resulted
             | in it finally changing, but the damage is done in my
             | opinion.
        
               | mrtksn wrote:
               | I think this comment is a brilliant exposition on how
               | anonymity can be good and bad.
               | 
               | I guess you want leave these things behind and don't make
               | them public, you post an anonymous comment. The worst
               | thing that could have happened is that you are
               | astroturfing for Glassdoor but it's harmless and the
               | sincere tone makes me think that you are not
               | astroturfing.
               | 
               | On the the other hand we also have people who will lie,
               | pretend to be multiple people, cause trouble with no
               | repercussion to their characters.
               | 
               | I have this idea of censorship free web where you have
               | your identity stored but not disclosed. So the content
               | moderators can choose to delete your comments but you can
               | un-delete those if you accept revealing your identity.
               | 
               | So in your situation, you should be able to tell
               | Glassdoor, here is our investigation and we couldn't find
               | anything to indicate that the claims are true therefore
               | please remove this comment. Glassdoor removes the comment
               | and if the poster of the comment is still behind the
               | claims, clicks a button and the comment is restored but
               | this time with the identity exposed.
               | 
               | This way, you can have anonymous comments that can be
               | challenged and the commentators have a mechanism to
               | counter censorship as they have the power to override
               | censorship if they are willing to stake their persona.
        
           | rurp wrote:
           | You don't even need to be savvy. I worked for a company that
           | turned out to be really scummy in a number of ways. To combat
           | the terrible ratings on Glassdoor they implemented the most
           | obvious fake review process possible where every week two
           | employees would have to create an account and write a
           | positive review. Of course the reviews people wrote were
           | obvious fakes, just a line of two of meaningless platitudes.
           | They were posted on a consistent schedule for months while
           | pretty much every review of substance was terrible.
           | 
           | After leaving I flagged the fake reviews and reported them to
           | Glassdoor. Glassdoor did absolutely nothing. I tried
           | reporting them again a few months later and again got
           | nowhere. Last I checked the company's page was still full of
           | blatant fake 5 star reviews.
        
           | BFLpL0QNek wrote:
           | My ex company had a single review for 12 months. The review
           | wasn't a good one for the company but I didn't disagree with
           | anything in the review.
           | 
           | My company went through a big hiring spree during the
           | pandemic. They found out about the review from candidate
           | feedback and it was supposedly having a negative effect
           | hiring. Still that single negative interview remained.
           | 
           | Then more negative reviews appeared a few months on from new
           | hires who where treated badly and let go or left.
           | 
           | All off a sudden with a handful of extremely one star
           | negative reviews which I would say are true, factual and
           | reflect the company correctly, the negative reviews
           | disappeared and a stream of five star positive reviews
           | appeared specifically debunking each previous negative point
           | from previous reviews with a positive spin.
           | 
           | I know the company and CEO, the CEO is a text book
           | psychopath. It was fairly obvious he'd written the reviews
           | and somehow got the negative reviews taken down. If it was by
           | contacting Glassdoor or sending threats and lawyer letters to
           | the recent staff who left I don't know but either wouldn't
           | surprise me.
           | 
           | Any company on Glassdoor with endless positive reviews I'd
           | treat as suspicious. The useful reviews are the informative
           | negative reviews.
        
       | xtracto wrote:
       | Ha reminds me of a previous company I worked at. The amount of
       | exec and employee turnover was horrible. Yet the CEO and company
       | have good ratings on Glassdoor. And the CEO sincerely believes
       | that such turnover is a feature.
        
       | skeeter2020 wrote:
       | A very large inernational engineering company hires lots of new
       | grads, one of them a former co-worker of mine who described how
       | her boss told her "You're like an orange; we'll squeeze all the
       | juice out of you until there's nothing left but pulp and peel,
       | then you'll quit or we'll throw you away". I guess this could
       | also describe most law firms and management consultancies as
       | well. Is it better or worse when it's systemic and not just an
       | a-hole CEO?
        
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