Hide and Seek - Anonymous employee SharpDots Employee Review

1.0
Sep 24, 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

When you quit or get fired

Cons

Company has three names Sharpdots/Spacefold/Sari Art The original name of this print shop is Sari Art (owned by Peter and Teresa Tan) Their son, John Tan CEO of Sharpdots, opened a second print shop inside the same company and they were both (from my understanding) under Spacefold. My checks, yes checks (they do not offer direct deposit) were under the Spacefold name, Employee work technically for both Sari Art and Sharpdots. At first, it did seem like an ordinary company, the longer I worked there the more I started noticing. They would give extra days off here and there, exciting right? Nope, it was to drain your paid time off (PTO), you did not get sick or vacation you received what is referred to as PTO and it wasn't very much. When a fellow coworker told Peter she did not want to use her PTO of a day here and a day there, he had asked her why not. She had explained that she would like to take a small vacation, his response was only rich people take vacations. When Peter made mistakes, he would then blame the Employees for his mistakes. Peter would yell, verbally putting down employees, making a rude comment to an employee about his son's death. John was also verbally putting down employees, micromanaging, and passing off his work to employees that were already overworked while he was in the office. If john wasn't in the office your 1-2-1 meeting (private meeting between you and John) was over the phone. He made 1-2-1's weekly and mandatory, in those meetings you would have to come up with a weekly commitment idea (I'll get to that in a second) in my meeting he would put me down, yell at me and try to make me feel inferior. The weekly commitments, John would make all the employees gather into a room and hold a meeting, we would have to tell him one way that week that we would make the company better. These commitments were to outside of your job duties but had to tie into your position. In the meeting, if he decided that he did not like your weekly commitment he would as you to stay after. In this meeting you had to tell what was your last weeks' commitment, did you complete it, and your new commitment for this week. Now all the employees were different hats and the workload was massive, it was hard to get all your work done and the commitment every week. He would get angry if you did not have a commitment or if you did not complete your commitment. Now for When John was out of the office (which was quite a bit) there was a little bit of relief. If you had a meeting scheduled with John and he wasn't in the office, you would have to have a meeting over the phone. When John wasn’t in the office either he would call you or you had to call him. Some employees he would call numerous times. His first words out of his mouth to me was always what are you doing and once I answered her would always question me. He had this way of still having complete control even when he wasn’t in the office. John and Peter fought constantly, you could hear them screaming at each other, I always got a little nervous. The other employees reassured me when they yell at each other, by the end of it they were too tired to yell at the employees. One of the hardest parts of the job was to avoid the calls from the companies that they would owe money to. While I worked there, if anyone asked for Peter or John, I had to find out as much information and say let me see if he's in. I would then look for Peter (most of the time he was sleeping in his office) and tell him everything about the person that was looking for them. Peter would then tell me, ok I'll talk to them or tell them he was not there. I remember lawyers calling the office trying to find Peter to try and collect money that was owed to someone. Benefits are only healthcare (don’t let John fool you into thinking there is more) and your 90 day review is at 5-6 months.

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5.0
Jun 12, 2022
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CEO approval
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Pros

Owner treated me like family

Cons

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3.0
Aug 9, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pros Open door policy with the GM, John Tan Management staff is open to ideas Estimating and IT staff are knowledgeable Lots of opportunities to establish a decent working relationship with external companies A great company to learn how to spin/sell, with heavy problem solving opportunities Uncapped Commission for sales staff, of about 2% of all printed marketing material sales Flexible commission rates for all additional marketing channels

Cons

Cons High turnover rate: In my time with the company, there have been over 20+ Reps Terrible working environment – Stressful interpersonal interaction Volume is more important than anything Management creates an unstable work environment with poor motivation and leadership; negative examples, constantly flustered No incentives for any level of positive performance Sales reps act like sharks with one another’s accounts, rather than working as a cohesive team Behind the curve with limited experience in the future marketing; e.g. Social Media, Email campaigns, etc No advertising or marketing – Leaving sales rep’s to fend for themselves and rely on pricing or embellished quality to get an edge and land a job Lack of structured and progressive company marketing While you are encouraged to provide ideas, none are actually followed through on to any extent Complaint rate and error rates are significantly high, adding to the already stressful work environment No growth potential – Positions are limited with no advancements possible Not a long term career choice

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