A Dead End for Most - Marketing The Zappos Family Employee Review

Trust me you're gonna want to expand this review and read all this; - Rampant dysfunction - Ineffective HR department - Poor leadership - Lack of goals and direction - Poor work/life balance - Lots of bullying and misogyny that goes unchecked Zappos suffers from systemic foundational issues that are frankly insurmountable. No one on the “leadership” team there has the knowledge, inclination, motivation, or support to fix it. It was a really fun experiment that is long past its expiration date. Your career growth at this company is completely dependent on the expertise that your manager came into the company with from previous work experiences because Zappos offers little in the way of manager training, support, goal setting, tracking, etc. It lacks rigor in every aspect of human resources except for its overly enthusiastic and rigorous onboarding process, which is frankly a huge waste of time and resources. Your ability to learn on the job is also completely dependent on your manager’s pre-Zappos experience. Many people in the org have been there since they graduated college or for over a decade without a lot of previous work experience so the only way they know how to do things is the broken, misguided way Zappos taught them. Zappos’ “culture” is wildly unprofessional, its hiring practices also lack rigor, and much like every other company in the entire world it is a playground for mediocre white men to high-five each other’s “accomplishments,” much to the dismay of everyone with a modicum of intelligence. But it’s a “family,” right? And much like a family, there are people who pull most of the weight, those who phone it in, and those who are hoping no one notices they snuck into mom’s wallet to get money for a six-pack this weekend. Scott the newly minted CEO is a glorified lever puller who uses words like “fornicate” in large group meetings. When Amazon announced that they would not be looking for a replacement for the former (also terrible) CEO I took it as a vote of no confidence and exited. The only feather in Zappos’ cap is the stellar customer service team which is honestly keeping this ship afloat by virtue of its amazingness. Zappos will continue to limp along making money for Amazon, carrying a gang of mediocre employees on its back, and dragging down the talented ones. That is until the day the money dries up and it finally gasps its last feeble breath, expiring to collect dust with the memories of all the other Silicon Valley startups of yore.