Themed Design - Designer Dillon Works Employee Review

Fun subject of work and always changing.

Lack of flexibility in work hours and processes.

Everyone is pretty reasonably nice, and most of the fabrication-level employees get along great. At face value, this company looks awesome and does some pretty cool projects.

I was hired on at this company for a contract position because I was laid off from my previous employer. Please note that I am young and female, and the only reason they even gave me a chance as a fabricator was because my fiancé convinced them to. I was hired specifically to do a single job involving plastics fabrication, which I specialize in. Usually with contract positions, since you are denied insurance, benefits, and PTO for the sake of possibly short-term employment, the expectation is that your hourly wage will somewhat compensate for your lack of benefits. In my case, I was sorely disappointed. Since I was desperate for work and would have taken anything at that point, they took advantage of me and "couldn't" (wouldn't) give me more than $18.00 per hour. For context, my fiancé, who was a full-time employee there for a year prior, was making $20.00 per hour and had been since he was hired in 2016. Again, our experience levels are about the same. For the job I was hired for, I had vastly more experience than him. In hindsight, I should have taken this as red flag number 1 and said "thanks, but no thanks." Instead, I took the job at $18.00 per hour with no benefits. That was the beginning of my 5 weeks of Dillon Works Purgatory. For the entire stretch of the job, I was consistently at odds with management for getting the proper materials and supplies, as well as with other employees who had absolutely zero sense of quality control. I am extremely glad I did not have to take full responsibility for how this particular job turned out, because it looked TERRIBLE as a finished product. I was absolutely ashamed of the quality of the product, and how nonchalant the rest of the crew was about the lack of quality work being done. After the job was finished, I was not invited to the post-production meeting, so all the complaints and suggestions I had concerning it were never heard. I believe I was labeled as “too high-maintenance” because of my demand for higher standards all around. As for the rest of the employees there, I felt genuinely sorry for the decent designers that they had on staff. There were a few fresh young faces that deserved a lot better than the treatment they received there. The disconnect between the floor staff and the design team was extremely uncomfortable, and there were several members of the design staff that made DETRIMENTAL mistakes that cost the company thousands upon thousands in lost labor and materials. On top of that, I don’t think I ever saw anyone own up to their mistakes. It’s one thing to make a huge mistake and then own up to it and work extra hard to fix it, but there was really no sense of accountability among the design and management teams. There was a lot of arguing, and a lot of deep discomfort between those people, but no honest conversations with floor staff about how to be productive and solve the issue. It seemed to me that there were a lot of repeated mistakes because management doesn’t seem to care much about the opinions of the people that have to physically do these jobs. One of the largest concerns that should be noted about Dillon Works is the lack of consistency with work flow. I’ve worked several fabrication jobs before, and I understand at times work can get slow and people get laid off. That’s just how this line of work goes, however, what is completely unacceptable is the level of consistent lack of work. Shortly after I was laid off, my fiancé was also laid off. As far as I know, they have not had consistent work since we left the company and they definitely don’t have the capacity to make consistent sales. From what I’ve gathered, they have no sales specialist on staff and Mike Dillon is the main avenue for obtaining jobs. He is the CEO. That’s not necessarily his responsibility, and I believe the rest of the company is suffering as the result of him stretching his time way too thin. In conclusion, I believe this company could have a lot of potential. The shop is great, the majority of the staff is great, and there’s definitely room for growth there, but the apparent sexism implicit in my wage and the problems listed above are in dire need of resolution.