Pros
Home Carpet One took a chance on my admittedly fresh career, which I cannot thank them for enough. It is evident that ownership cares intently about the wellbeing of their organization, including employee satisfaction to a certain extent. There is an intimate, familial feel to the office, and I made some incredible connections that I venture to call friendships. Pay is okay, the showroom is a gorgeous space to work in, and management does an okay job of extending autonomy to some, particularly salespeople. I appreciate the level of commitment that the owning family puts into this business, but was clearly unable to make that same investment myself.
Cons
When they say "we're like a family," they mean it — for better and for worse. The interpersonal culture was, in my opinion, incredibly unprofessional. The way in which colleagues, even (and especially) management & ownership, talked to employees was often disrespectful and tense. They have an intense "if it ain't broke..." mentality, particularly regarding workplace culture, which was a difficult environment to work comfortably in.
At the time of my departure, ownership was in the early stages of succession, passing down to the owner's next family generation. This transition was proving rocky, in my perception. Incoming ownership has great and lofty ideals for the direction of the organization, but with unrealistic expectations of their implementation. When I first arrived, before new ownership, I felt an autonomy for and investment in my work that made it enjoyable and fulfilling. New ownership continued to shift my obligations towards tasks and projects I was unequipped to complete to their very high expectations. To be entirely honest, I felt as if just they disliked me out of principle, and were looking for reasons to let me go. I'm not sure if that's actually the case, but the grounds of my termination remained unethical.
I was promised a five week reevaluation period of my performance, in which I asked for a halfway check-in to ensure there were no surprises at that mark. Well, at that halfway point, they let me go with no warning and only one week of severance. This left me in an incredibly urgent position that I still am feeling the effects of much later.
If you hear one thing from this review, let it be this: they care about their employees as it serves their business. Your wellbeing is important to them, but only to the extent of improving their bottom line. They say they will make investment in their employees, but prove otherwise, clearly cut their losses quickly and unthoughtfully.
Even in months of reflection, I continue to feel disrespected by Home Carpet One. It was a decent job to start, but I would never recommend this workplace to a friend.