Article Reviews

Pros

- People here care about you as a person. Of course, you are in a business and you need to show results. However, the work pressure is not likely to get you burnout; - As a growing company, there is a lot of opportunities for you to grow as well. There are a lot going on, with many good projects to work on; - The team is very diverse! We have people from everywhere from the world and you'll learn a lot from them;

Cons

- With so much growing, direction change quite a lot. You may find yourself involved in a lot of projects at the same time. It's not overwhelming, though.

Pros

There is a lot to unload so I will be as concise as possible. I am posting this with the intentions of sharing my personal experience. I first applied to Article after reading some amazing things about the company online and feeling strongly aligned with the core values which are “Be good, be direct, be better, be adventurous, be genuine." I was very impressed with the company when I first joined, it is a beautiful office space with free snacks, adorable dogs and great employees. I joined the customer care team with hopes that I would be able to soon transition into a department that would better suit my background and schooling. I did see growth for others moving out of customer care and into other departments however no opportunities came up that would suit my background. I believe there was a time of incredible growth opportunities but it seems to have slowed. The reason I stayed for nearly a year was with hopes a position would open that would suit my background but with how unhappy I had become at the end I no longer wanted to stay and worsen my personal sunk cost fallacy.

Cons

What went so wrong for me was the way the management teams handled COVID-19, which we can all agree was incredibly unprecedented, challenging, and for many companies, an insurmountable task. On the positive side, COVID-19 was an opportunity to shine and find ways to best support your employees and reinforce company wide operations. In my department in specific, our department head left at the start of the pandemic and we had a replacement with a very different management style. We were no longer a fun startup environment with managers that hired good people and allowed them room to be great, we were now all walking numbers. Instead of our schedules being managed by the day, they are now managed in increments of 15 minutes and our performance being shared team-wide daily. We were also now subject to messages from our managers on slack asking “why did you just pause for 5 minutes?” Management also now scheduled meeting after employees would have a sick day to discuss why it was taken etc. This is exactly the type of micro-management I try to avoid when being hired by a company, and this is exactly what my job had become. With a extremely large demand that spiked because of COVID-19, I often felt pressured by management into doing things I did not feel comfortable with. I clearly advised of my limitations when working from home and was asked to do things outside my limits almost on a daily basis. For example I was repeatedly asked to go back to the office during a pandemic and to take on extra hours on top of the stressful 40 hours I was already putting in. When I politely declined I’d be asked by other managers the same question. This also happened with last minute schedule changes, id decline and be repeatedly asked again and again and it started to feel deliberate and manipulative. Additionally, (I am attempting not to be too specific here) Article greatly changed their polices due to COVID-19 in regards to returns, exchanges and deliveries and decided not to correctly update the copy on the website. (I am aware the policy has now changed again and is properly reflected online, but it wasn't for nearly 3 months.) The company was knowingly and intentionally lying by omission to all of our customers. They actually chose to leave all the copy the same as before other than a small non-descript note that did not accurately describe the changes to the policies. MANY members of our care team time and time again protested and requested we are more direct about the changes online and our requests were met with gaslighting from management. We were given reasons of WHY they chose to do it this way, and while we all understood why (to keep making $) we all felt it was very wrong. What happened to be genuine and be direct? Management then relied on us in the care team to fight very unpleasant battles daily based on their decisions and it turned everyday into a nightmare of very angry customers who felt they were misled and falsely advertised to. (Which they were) The company hired a very problematic customer care department head who had conducted herself incredibly inappropriately on a zoom call with myself, and I know of another situation where she did the same to another employee. I will not speak to this in too much details because there is currently an HR investigation into this person and I want to give the company the opportunity to do the right thing. This was the breaking point for me. I pride myself in being a very direct and genuine person that takes pride in my work and I couldn’t continue to defend a company that I no longer morally agreed with. All in all looking back on my experience I am saddened, I truly enjoyed working for article in the beginning but it became a job I deeply dreaded and ruined my life and worsened my relationships with others for a period of time which lasted much longer than I should’ve let it.

Pros

1. Very deceitful company, forced to resign a contract stipulating major schedule changes. 10 hour days, weekends, start times changed each week. Threatened that if we didnt the "nature of our role would change" I later confirmed with HR that meant "termination" These changes were not mentioned to me, upon being hired only 3 months prior People let go each week, never to be beard from again. When asked, they "cannot comment on the nature of it" 2. Management style drove me bonkers. 100% micromanager. Breathed down your neck all day 3. High expectations, below or just "on par" salary. For one of Canadas fastest growing companies, weird that they do not pay more 4. HR useless, take eons to answer your inquiries (if ever)

Cons

Shady shady shady shady shady!

Pros

When I started in 2017 my manager was wonderful, they pushed me to learn and take on work. They made sure I was happy in my position and encouraged me to apply for internal position for growth. They where lucky and moved into a new role while the position I had asked for (Admin Assist) was given to a temp I trained. They took away my manager position leaving me no option for growth. I got a new manager that did not care about me, even in my 1 year review that was 4 months late they said I am a self started and can handle the position without any supervision. I pushed for some help as our department was hard to manage with 1 person. They hired someone and moved the Admin Assist duties to our role with no pay raise, no new title. I asked if I would be considered for a new admin role and that conversation was shut down. I was fired for no justice cause because I was unhappy that I put in more then 2 years worth of work only to get a manager that didn't care about me, didn't push me to be my best or even care that I was on their team. I wasn't recognized for my 2 year anniversary when another employee on my team was recognized for there 3 years 1 week before mine. Just shows that management doesn't care about the people on their team, they pick and choice who they want to see grow.

Cons

HR is terrible, they are too scared to talk to people about the major issues in the office and expect you to confront employees yourself. Office is dog friend which is awesome, there was a few aggressive dogs that had been brought to HR with nothing to be done even though many employees have been bite or snapped at. No employee hand book or rules is a bit strange for an office of 250+ Office is not ventilated so the summers are blistering hot and the winters so cold that you wear your winter jacket and gloves inside. Office promotes in house grow which could be farther then the truth for a lot of roles. New SOP are put into place every week with no communication from the top down.