Beware the Poisonous Apple - Anonymous employee GlobalMac IT Employee Review

First and foremost, don’t be fooled by buzzwords like “core values”, “culture”, “team”, “reflection” as it’s just alphabet soup at this company and there is no action behind these words. The leadership team remains mostly in tact and although the founder appears to have given up his CEO title as of late fall 2023. I’m still incredibly skeptical of working here and especially for the founder/CEO and his other business ventures. There were red flags for me from the beginning but I proceeded ahead and chose to ignore discrepancies within the leadership team. I was hired in the fall of 2022 and gave my two weeks notice two days before my 1-year anniversary. During this time out of 20 employees, 7 were fired/laid off and 2 (including myself) resigned. Nearly half of the employees at a small company during one year are gone. Let that sink in. When I was hired the leadership team discussed their previous round of large firings/lay-offs from a year before as “the purge” (their words, not mine) and explained it away as those people were not “A-players” (again, their words). I am quite certain that this new round of letting people go will be re-branded as The Purge 2.0 with the attitude that it was a lack of A-players again (it’s not me, it’s you!!!). But don’t be fooled, these folks that were let go are absolutely A-players, but the decision makers are far from good at any sort of management or basic human respect. The CEO/Founder has dubbed himself as a “Visionary” which is quite the title since that title is usually reserved for folks that have accomplished more than building a small MSP/cybersecurity company of 20-ish people in Twinsburg, Ohio. Unfortunately, instead of reflecting on what can be improved, something that we are asked to do consistently in our work, I haven’t seen any reflection or actually attempts at growth. Surrounding yourself with Yes-people, is not going to move your company forward and only create a toxic work environment. While working with the CEO I have never felt so de-humanized and unconfident in myself and my work and I say this as someone who has been in the my field for over 10 years. Micro-managing occurs constantly and prevents anyone from getting anything done and moved forward. Our working-relationship ended about 8 months or so into my tenure when I was unceremoniously replaced by a virtual assistant from overseas. Being replaced wasn’t even the issue for me, it was the way it went down. I saw that our standing calendar appointments had been deleted but there was no indication why and then a company-wide Slack message went out introducing the new VA and a brief impersonal thanks to me. There wasn’t the slightest bit of respect shown to me to have a face-to-face conversation on being replaced, thanking me for my work and sharing the new plan going forward to support another manager. I felt completely disrespected as a human, this isn’t about a boss/employee relationship it’s about being open, honest and treating others as a human by utilizing simple communication tools. While working for the CEO I was constantly worried I would be let go as I never received positive feedback and the expectations of how to be successful were not clear at all. I expressed concern to others and was just told this is how the CEO is. Additionally, the term “A-Player” is used quite a bit at this company. If you think an A-player is someone who completes all their work in a timely manner with excellent quality, asks for additional projects and shows initiative in completing new ideas, brings a positive attitude to work everyday, is a perfectionist with a strong need to people please and exceed expectations, well think again. At this company an “A-player” could be described as someone with blind-loyalty to the company/leadership team first and foremost. In my experience I f you are motivated to come to work and achieve success to provide for your family you are not deemed a team player and shouldn’t be considered for a raise based on current rates and/or merit. And to be clear, this happened to me and in fact the request for salary review was completely ignored for 4 months with zero responses. For me, it wasn’t just about being paid fairly but more than that, about feeling like a valued member for the team. If the budget didn’t currently allow for a raise, I wanted to hear it would be something that could be considered in the future and in the meantime my contributions and experience were important to the team. Instead, I received dead air and found out I wasn’t considered an A-player. I could go on but there is a character limited to these reviews. If you are a current employee and have questions, hit me up. If you are a potential employee… RUN! Believe the negative reviews and not the positive ones that leadership has asked employees to write to make it look better than it really is. Bye!