Greatness took the fast lane to mediocrity - Technical Support Team Leader Mindbody Employee Review

I've been working here for over 5 years, and maintain a "brand" of positiveness to the point that I've been called "Mister Mindbody". Not so much in the past couple of years as one can only be amateur actor for so long, and in the a face of a growing amount of nonsense, before the "WooHoo" sheen wears off. But I aim to provide this review not as catharsis, but as a reality check against some of the more extreme opinions (on both sides) here. Naturally, as with any job, your results will vary depending on your department, your supervisor, and your abilities... to kiss butt and stay in line. Competence takes you only so far. My point of view comes from customer service, but also through the lens of employees in major departments in SLO. It boils down to this: you'll be fully indoctrinated in the Values and in WooHoo!. You'll have a longer honeymoon period than any other job you've had, or likely ever will have. Then you'll see it was more of a mirage than a honeymoon. It wasn't always this way. Upper management valued a "people first" philosophy - "let you be you", the job postings said. "You being happy means our customers are happy". And it worked; customer service calls were overwhelmingly positive. We were happy to come to work. We felt like we made a difference. That is ALL gone. The company going public brought a renewed focus on profitability, which makes sense. There was only so much venture capitalist money to take employees on trips to Costa Rica. But the corner office got conned by some existing middle managers, and external management hires, that the road to profitability ran through destroying those values and replace them with standard-issue call center playbooks. Literal ones, I might add. You might think, "well yeah, it's a job, tough luck buttercup", but productivity has been flat as the best and smartest burn out, while the mediocre who half-(posterior) their way through 50% more callers get praised (but rarely actually rewarded). This pseudo-productivity means they call again a few days (or minutes) later, so that our callers-to-clients ratio keeps climbing and climbing. But hey, the raw calls per hour keeps increasing though, so who cares? Bonuses for the VP and upper management! If you don't happen to find your place in this Golden Circle of management-adored "productive" mediocrity, prepare for trudgery bordering on misery. You'll get 4-5 stars on all your reviews, sure, because you're not actually doing anything wrong; but mysteriously your career is stalled. Hmm. Bogus "promotions" here and there, better pick of hours, and maybe you'll make it to TTL (team lead), but your paycheck remains mediocre and your new responsibility is primarily to impose upon your team the arbitrary, often juvenile decisions of those who "lead" the floor. But you'll lucky to ever (posterior)-kiss your way into this position. It's more likely you'll keep getting those good reviews, then - because a department head thinks you don't look busy enough, hates your sense of humor or thinks you're ugly - you'll get dragged to HR (or, ahem, "people and culture") and torn to shreds for something you said 6 months ago. All while your TTL wonders what the heck is going on, because - again - your "powers" are illusory, just like your actual internal opportunities for career advancement. You'll then end up leaving after being nitpicked (ahem, "coached") to heck or be flat-out fired over nonsense, like taking a 5-minutes-too-long lunch a year ago that you weren't even warned (or told) about. You'll be told you can't file for unemployment. You'll file anyway. You'll then face an avalanche of grievances you were actively told by your TTL weren't issues at all. And because the state's unemployment department has your company for a "client" - not you - you'll end up out on your (posterior). I've lost valued colleagues through both these routes, plus another who quit in protest after noticing this pattern. How does HR allow this to happen, you ask? They get told by a manager that you're no longer on their good graces for some arbitrary reason or another. HR's role isn't to investigate or do what's right, but rather to act as assistants to said manager. Your goose is already cooked. "Aren't you an employee-at-will?", I hear you asking. Sure - but try to remember this fact as you get Woohoo'd into thinking this company values you at all. It systematically does not; it's not a bug, it's a feature. The cause of this goes all the way to the CEO; not active nefariousness, mind you, but near-complete ineptitude. Just lets whoever kisses his (posterior) the most do whatever they want to those under them. A feature of any mom-and-pop small business for sure, but completely inappropriate for a budding well-being (!) empire which MBO purports itself to be. As far as what Rick actually does - he maintains a warm, charismatic figure which employees confuse for competence; reverse (posterior)-kissing, as it were. But while he speaks to you in a relatable fashion and makes you feel good about the company, those who take "direction" from him will tell you about his priorities that shift as the wind blows. Drop everything on Project A - we need to get B done right now! Scratch that, Project C is what MBO is all about, never mind B! Wait, what's going on with Project A, we needed it done yesterday! Never mind all that, everybody now focus only on be Project D! And so on. Which takes me to the product. Ah, the product. This pig has so much lipstick that it's now more lipstick than pig. No, seriously - bugfixes and GUIs and patches on top of one another to an absurd level. Combined with skyrocketing rates, tech support competence and morale both crashing, and sales policies becoming ever so rigid, and you have a noxious perfect storm. Clients now HATE us. As well they should. Our product is ugly, clunky, buggy, outdated and (now) wayyy overpriced. Not even going to go into our simply atrocious mobile app. But we're number 1! Because we're number 1. No really, our clients stick with us because they've become used to it, and anyone they hire is likely also already used to it, and their end-customers are familiar with booking on it. There's a project afoot to give the platform a ground-up refresh, but see "Project B" above. We're probably focused on applying more lipstick somewhere. So, faithful reader who is interested enough in working at Mindbody (or "MINDBODY®") that you've read all the way to the end of this review, you're probably looking for a conclusion or bottom line. There.... kind of isn't one? You're about to join a ship that's been taking on water for years, but manages to keep enough buckets on board to throw the floodwater out to sea. So come on aboard, I guess? Just try to resist the brainwashing you'll be welcomed with. The sooner you realize it's a mirage and that this job (and company) is subpar in all aspects, the sooner you'll be in the right mindset to thrive in the dead-end of your dreams. But hey, SLO! Protip: if you're on my team (or end up on it), asking me how you "can best help (me) do (my) job right now". In the long term it won't mean crud, but I'll be sure to express my gratitude by looping you in on what's really going on. Woohoo!