At the top: a copy/paste Patagonia vest CEO bringing the opposite of heat via the typically weak results we've all come to expect and endure from this archetype over the last decade:
- All hands meetings that supply a mind-opening thesis of "Let's grow even more." or "The product we've been trying to hit stride with for the last four years, yeah, that's what we're doing this year too." All delivered with the charisma and allure of cold oatmeal with little to no tangible direction. Sprinkle in a few slides w/ some of the most egregiously bad AI generated "art" you can think of and you get the gist
- Company metrics are relayed as positive until layoffs come without much warning
- Inhuman buzzword corpospeak nonsense accompanies every powerpoint page ad nauseum
- Heavy push for a rushed "AI" product because AI is in vogue and heaven forbid we take the time clean up and strengthen our core, existing products instead
At large, the day-to-day working experience is at odds with messaging from the top. Your teammates will be slowly winnowed away by layoffs until you are covering a workload that was intended for multiple people. Management will all the while assure you that the company is trending upwards and that replacement hires are coming while listings will never be posted. You will be told you are doing vital work at a high level and then receive 3 out of 5's on your annual reviews as a means of preventing meaningful wage increases. You'll be provided an "anonymous" survey regarding the company which will require you to answer clarifying questions that narrow down which small team you're on all for the feedback to be ignored. It's a persistently stressful and bleak environment as a direct result of exceptionally poor management.
The core products were strong and afforded the company a lot of growth, but all of that progress was squandered with no apparent recourse (that would require the people who make higher dollar amounts to be replaced). US teams apart from Implementation were being rapidly outsourced for the sake of cost cutting. Relatient truly could have been something healthier and positive, but the C Suite is rife with greed, poor decision making, and an ever-present desire to be willfully obtuse. It's a really novel way to set things up. They will expect everything from you while themselves falling in line with the status quo 2 1/2 out of 5 stars results these sorts of roles engender in the year of our lord 2026.
A cosmic joke, if nothing else, I guess.
