I mean, they're a bloody suitcase company with a trust fund kid CEO who thinks they're Steve Jobs reincarnated. The whole article is worth reading. https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/5/20995453/away-luggage-ceo-steph-korey-toxic-work-environment-travel-inclusion I leave all of you young'uns with this piece of advice: never, ever put up with workplace bullying in the name of culture, hustle, or whatever BS CEOs with god complexes are peddling these days. Also, don't sacrifice your PTO for someone else's gain. YoE: 11 TC: 450k (no longer at Microsoft)
First of all if you're giving feedback (even critical feedback) by calling employees names, you're being an asshole on a power trip, not a good leader. Second of all, even when you have to give critical feedback, do it in private and then write a public memo/email/slack post about what you learned without naming names. This CEO crossed both the lines by publicly name calling employees. Not cool at all. Also, calling someone a "snowflake" doesn't reflect very well on you. Be better.
Honestly yes it would be terrible to go through this everyday. But it's just an intense place to work. I don't get all the fuss?
The CEO pretty much bullies everyone. If her behavior is OK to you because it's an "intense place to work" you're part of the problem.
I've worked in a startup smaller than Away with a lot more stress, but it never got to bullying. Again, there is a difference between intense work (tight deadlines, high expectations, wearing multiple hats, etc.) and bullying. Publicly calling employees names is way over the line.
Yeah, no way I would put up with that level of bullying. I'd have lost my cool way fucking faster and said something that would end up getting me canned
Same here. I would have called her out on it after the first couple of "offenses". I had a manager who wrote a nasty email to the whole team accusing a teammate of doing something incorrectly. I went to her and told her the language was uncalled for and that she should apologize. She said she got the same feedback from a couple of other people in the team and that she regrets her choice of words. If she did it again, I would have replied all to say that, that kind of language is uncalled for. Please hold leaders to a better standard. The old "aberrant genius" leaders model needs to die.
Heard Linus Torvalds is an asshole. Btw, I'm on a fucking visa, so would just suck it up if this happened to me.
CEO cares about company and pushes team to work hard. She could be less sarcastic but otherwise not sure what’s the problem. No PTO and mandated overtime during peak time is pretty standard. She is somewhat random but it’s typical for startup with not enough management. Her approach is counterproductive in large company as proper chain of command is not compatible with drive by management but in small company this passion produces results. Obviously it’s tiring to work in such environment but it’s also where career breakthroughs happen.
There is pushing your team (within limits) and straight up bullying. The public slack messages cross the line. There's an old adage that says praise in public, criticize in private. Publicly calling employees "brain dead" is such an asshole move.
She did not call employee brain dead to his face - it was in chat with managers. She was not focused on specific employee - she was tearing managers for not creatibg proper process. The same about toilet break - she was not against them she was flabbergasted that toilet break caused dropped/unanswered phone call and was used as excuse. Equivalent of dog ate my homework.
What a mess.
Uhhh why are you hiring these people if you think they're "brain dead?" Trust in your employees. They're probably smarter than you.
This is bullying? I didn't see one swear word or insult. Just a threat that things must be perfect. Seems pretty tame.
That's a very simplistic interpretation of bullying.
Can someone point out the bullying? I think her angry messages are childish, but see no repeated picking on any individual.
What blows my mind is the number of VC’s running to defend the company and the CEO on twitter saying this is normal... its not normal, it’s exploitive and cruel...
graduated from an ivy league college, lol, what is she doing there?
Never heard of Away luggage? You live in your Box?