John Merris

Dream Job Turned Nightmare Solo Stoves mission statement includes the line ?allowing you to reconnect to what matters most? while boasting a lifestyle of getting outside, putting down the phone and spending time with those you care about. Sounds pretty amazing right? Except as an employee you can?t do anything of the sort. Working here means you?re working constantly. They do not believe in a work life balance and you?re expected to be available after you leave the office and on weekends. If you don?t answer their passive aggressive pings, text or calls, you can expect some sort of impending fallout for you not being a ?team player?. Aside from the demanding schedule, the day-to-day is a mess. There is very little direction and organization. Projects are created, canceled or drastically changed at the last minute since there isn?t a calendar in place that the company follows. More than once, I was told ?the goal is to get 15 hours of work done in an 8-hour day, every day.? The upper managers tend to stay in their closed door offices and interact only through unattainably long to do list or precious time consuming meetings. You?ll typically do the same work over and over and over until it meets their idea of done, but it?s a guessing game what they?re wanting all the time. Day-to-day expectations are never clear, and in general you?ll do a TON of work and feel like you got nothing accomplished. Even if you stick it out and work to meet their ever-changing demands, there is no chance for upward growth in this company. They hire in from outside the company instead of creating a path for upward movement or career growth opportunities. In general, the upper managers will read a book, tell you to read it, and then that?s the leadership style of the company for the month. Company culture and morale are?interesting. This place was once a buzzing hub of ideas, creativity and people that thoroughly LOVED their job and what they did. It has since become a hollow shell of that. What it morphed into has become a culture of anxiety filled employees that are over-worked, under appreciated, under paid, and at their mental limits. The pressure to be ?quickly creative? for the next big idea is so intense it becomes nearly impossible to grow in your career. They try to glaze over this with a monthly Town Hall meeting where they share some sort of feel-good story and buy lunch for everyone but the moral boost typically only last through the lunch and then it?s back to bleak reality. Turnover is insanely high here and the burn out is real. Employees are becoming such a flight risk; the managers are requiring everyone to write down exactly how they do their jobs. They call this the Playbook. Instead of addressing the leadership issues that are plaguing the office, they just rinse and repeat with swapping out employees. Most people walk around feeling like they could be fired at any minute. On top of all of this, the benefits are severely lacking. PTO is lumped together as vacation and sick time totaling 15 days that are earned. (2 weeks of work translates roughly to 4.5 hours off per pay period). There is only a total of 4 paid holidays, if you?d like to take a federal holiday off such as Labor Day you have to use PTO. There is no company wide bonus structure, but if you check off things on your to do list you can get a free shirt or hat. The health, vision, and dental insurance is okay, but expensive.