Pros
Pay was decent. Free fruit and biscuits.
Cons
Not really any other way to put it but this is an awful place to work. When I was applying for this job I did look at some of the negative reviews, I just wish I’d listened to what they said, because they aren’t wrong. Take a look on Linkedin and see the who has worked there for only a short time, there is a reason for this. This was easily the worst job I have ever had, a truly awful and toxic culture. I’ve never been anywhere where so much work was done for so little result. There is an almost constant panic to hit targets which means you are always chasing your tail with plans changing weekly. The management don’t really have a clue and when the unrealistic targets aren’t hit then the blame gets passed down. The business has had some recent investment, so the management have an incentive to pass the blame for poor performance downwards so to absolve themselves of blame for the total lack of vision or planning. Since leaving Bazaar I’m working somewhere with the complete opposite culture, there is not the incessant panic, back stabbing, blaming, micromanagement and constant changing of plans. We all just get on with our work and focus on what is needed and as a result the company is doing really well and we all enjoy work and want the business to succeed. If you value your mental health the avoid this place like the plague. You’ll feel the pressure to work over weekends and evenings, most of the valuable time you have is taken up by long overblown meetings and having to backtrack on what you had previously done. You’ll be getting Teams messages at 11pm on a Saturday, followed up by another at 7am on the Sunday, If you are really sad and have no life outside work then you might just about get on OK here, for anyone else with any personal commitments or interests outside work forget it. You have to work over weekend to just keep up. The mental strain put on you is not sustainable, looking forward to the weekend to get away from it only to start dreading the upcoming week. At one point thought maybe it was just me, perhaps I wasn’t good enough at my job, but it is just the blame being passed down from above. I showed some of my friends a Teams message I had from my boss at 8.01am, the response was “your boss is a psychopath”, non of them could believe just how bad it was and that a business actually operated like this. In my interview I did find it odd that there was so much emphasis put on work life balance, which could not have been further from the truth. A big point was made of the early 4.30pm finishes (but no mention of the 8am start) as well as the 2pm Friday finish which simply does not happen. Then there is the working from home which much like the working hours you are guilted into coming into the office. I got the feeling something was not right about the attitude and culture in the interview but unfortunately for me ignored by instincts. Lastly is the nasty, narcissistic and manipulative attitude of the management. It seems like normal practice to turn staff against each other to create cliques and tension between colleagues. Culture comes from the top, it’s not something that can be decided at an away day, staff will take the attitude and practices of those at the top. In my time there I saw some of the nicer staff gradually starting to take on the style of those above, further promoting the toxic culture and general unpleasantness of the place.
