It’s a fun game Ladders employees play while they suffer through the day— how many people have been fired in the past year alone? The team-wide layoffs from the week prior give you the first 10 names, which quickly turns into 20, then 30 then 40 then 50, and soon you’ll lose count as you rattle name after name of employees that were there one day and gone the next, personal belongings shoved into a Leo’s Bagel bag and unprofessionally told by HR “I’m sure you didn’t see that coming” on their way out. Some were tenured employees with salaries the company simply could not afford as it struggled to make payroll, others were barely on-boarded and fired after only a month, with scapegoat excuses about “poor performance” when the real issue is the CEO’s unrealistic expectations and looming financial ruin.
The CEO’s unreasonable expectations for his failing company barely scratch the surface of all the problems at Ladders. It’s clear that his employees mean nothing more to him than disposable, inanimate objects—pieces on his chess board rather—that he can control and replace when they try to pull even the slightest bit away from his suffocating puppeteer grasp. At his core, Marc Cenedella has no empathy or understanding of human emotion. After firing 20% of his employees, Marc told his staff that this was a “motivator” for other employees because the firings gave people “energy”. Meanwhile, the floors are silent as people live in absolute terror that they will be next without warning. Every month employees are forced to mourn their colleagues and friends who gave their all to the company and received nothing in return. Two hours after firing over 20 people, the CEO told employees “they’ve had plenty of time to move on and deal with it, that’s just how the business world works, and everyone should expect a lot more work moving forward to pick up the slack.” Guess what...it’s not. The lucky few employees who get to quit before they’re fired make up lies about where they’re going and why out of fear of retaliation from the CEO.
Despite the surface level amenities, Ladders operates as nothing more than a surveillance state with prison-like rules, where you are constantly monitored and punished for sick days or emergencies. Working from home is prohibited, despite the fact that Marc works from home up to 3 times a week. That’s just the start of the hypocrisy. During All Hands meetings, Marc will pretend to care about the importance of work-life balance, but will message you nonstop all weekend and all hours of the night. Employees often discuss how they wake up and instantly feel dread upon seeing countless messages and requests that started at 4 AM. The CEO even approves a majority of employees PTO, and often denies time requested around holidays or attempts to guilt employees from taking time off.
Nothing is enough to satisfy the dreaded CEO, Marc Cenedella. Take a minute to imagine an outlandish scenario: If you managed to single handedly save the company from financial ruin (you certainly won’t), Marc would not show an ounce of appreciation, gratitude, or utter even a simple thank you. He speaks down to his employees, using language that makes them feel worthless, throwing verbal jabs about still not being accountable enough or working hard enough despite the work that you do that’s well above your capacity, or the pay and title you’ve been given. It’s hard to be accountable for anything when you have someone who micromanages you as much as Marc does. Don’t make a mistake, Marc decides every tiny detail of every department. Everything that every department does MUST be approved by Marc. That means finance, HR, sales, marketing, engineering, design, editorial, SEO, product, the list goes on and on. All work gets delayed as people wait and wait for Marc’s approval or feedback because it’s impossible for one person to have their hands in literally every component. And not to mention, it’s impossible for one person to have the extensive knowledge of all these different areas to make expert decisions, but Marc certainly thinks he does.
If Marc considers himself anything but a roadblock, he’s sadly mistaken. Even clients and customers of the company write and call in saying they wish the company weren’t run by an egotistical maniac. Customers constantly send furious emails complaining about services. Vendors confront employees and write to any email they can find demanding payment on overdue invoices, often to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. The credit card was constantly declined, even for transactions as low as the amount you would find in a toddler’s piggy bank. The finance team even told fellow employees that Marc claimed valid transactions were fraud so he didn’t have to pay them, and that he loves to sue both vendors and former employees. I’m sure he’ll even threaten to sue me as the writer of this review, claiming these are all lies when he and all his employees know there’s no exaggeration to these truths. Employees were promised 401K matching which never happened. Sales employees are paid late on their commissions, if they’re not fired first. Earned PTO is not paid out. Sales employees are told by finance that they need to collect payment on past deals or they won’t be able to make next week’s payroll. Meanwhile, he blames all missteps of the company on anyone but himself (seems odd since he approves every company-wide decision, no?). The lies from Marc Cenedella are endless, and he’ll make you lie too. Employees are forced to write fake reviews for his book and fake reviews for Glassdoor. (Side note: he slaps a new cover on the same book every year and tries to sell it for more and more money as a “new” edition). Every bit of this company is a scam and Marc will deny it until he’s in his grave.
Worst of all, Marc puts less experienced employees in charge of entire departments because he knows he can under pay and over work them. He’ll ask them to do director level work or above without training or notice, and degrade them in the process. What is touted as “growth” is merely work from multiple fired employees silently being pushed to already overwhelmed employees with no change in compensation or title. And the complete lack of a proper HR department magnifies the horrifying conditions of fear and intimidation that the CEO breeds at his company, with a culture that prioritizes threatening and firing employees over creating a safe environment for them.
Due to a lack of an HR department, there is no one to turn to for any issues. I heed a warning to women especially. BEWARE: official complaints about sexual harassment were brushed under the rug, and rumors about sexual assault between employees spread like wildfire across the company but they were ignored and never addressed. Inappropriate behavior runs rampant at Ladders while sexual harassers are kept on staff after complaints were filed against them. This is vile.
You will think about killing yourself every day. You will feel your heart sink as your colleagues and bosses who are terminated out of the blue despite upper management’s knowledge of their life circumstances. You will lose sleep at night as the anxiety overwhelms you. You will sit in the office wishing you’d just be fired already because it’s better than spending another second following the ill-advised orders of a disheveled dictator. Don’t work at Ladders; free (subpar) pizza on Fridays isn’t worth losing your soul. If you don’t believe me, message any current or former employee on LinkedIn. They’ll be happy to share their personal horror story.
