PublicRelay reviews

My Review of Public Relay   Timeline Breakdown   April-June 2021: The first month of joining PR involves extensive training and support which is appreciated, well thought out, and overwhelming. After the first month, everything progressively gets worse. This notion is supported by many conversations I had with past/present coworkers during my 1.5-year tenure at the company. Accept the offer at your own risk or desperateness. The pace of the company is not just fast paced but it’s on crack. Your workday will be scheduled down to the 30-minute mark, where you will need to complete admin tasks/reports/meetings/special client requests in that timeframe. If you do not get your daily/surprise special requests done in the same day, you will be berated for rolling work over to the next day and not completing your tasks. This was true for American analysts especially those whose manager was female. The sheer volume of work to complete in a day as a new employee was egregious. Fellow employees stated a climate of overwork and low compensation. The week I onboarded, 2 people left and that pattern continued the entire 1.5 years. Even as a new employee, I expressed interest in moving up in the company and was told there was a clear path to advancement, however this also became a clear lie.   Once I was thrown to the wolves, I developed a chronic illness that stemmed from my constant anxiety and stress. I was throwing up every morning before work and if a client emailed out of the blue (which occurred frequently) for additional reports which had to be completed on top of daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly reporting. During this harrowing time, I lost 25lbs which was noticeable by friends/family.   July-Sept 2021: This is when I was given more clients (poorly trained and little account transition time) and a very demanding one which I was tasked with leading while an “official lead” was yet to be hired or trained. Reminder this is only 6 months in. During a huge crisis for the client (also my first crisis ever as an employee), I was told as an employee that I could not log-off for the day at 5pm ET until notifying my boss of my completed tasks from that day. From September until the day I left, I sent my boss an EOD message everyday summarizing my tasks so she could not berate me any further for logging off without notifying anyone. She claimed that if I did not notify her, she would assume I was still working even after 5pm ET. This is not typical office behavior, which I know now that I work somewhere differently. I also believe this was targeted workplace harassment.   Oct-Dec 2021: By this point, many colleagues had left the company and I was noticing a large turnover rate. The turnover was so noticeable, the CEO talked about it every month in our company wide Zoom calls. It was an open “secret”. The cadence was about 1-2 employees leaving every 2-3 weeks around the clock. My coworkers were constantly talking about being overworked, undervalued, and told to prioritize the companies’ needs above their own wellbeing. Additionally, in December, the company bought all employees sweatshirts. This included Irish and American employees. At this time the company was not requiring people to work in office and most people chose to work from home as this was also at the height of Omicron and still in the COVID crisis. My boss reached out to me to talk about receiving the sweatshirt, she encouraged me to come work in the office to receive the sweatshirt. I kindly declined her offer and requested she ship the sweatshirt, like they ship all remote/global employee’s merch. She refused and said she would “hold on to it until I come into the office.” I have never received that sweatshirt. Another instance of workplace abuse and harassment. As months went on, I continued to express interest in advancement, working towards this goal with my boss. However, I witnessed coworkers with the same boss be given the opportunity to be promoted or promoted altogether while my “goalposts” always changed or shifted. At this point, my boss referred to me as a “seasoned” employee after making 6 months because the turnover was so high and even when coworkers reached out to me and needed my help, I was still not promoted. As 1 in 3 Black people at the company, I can only guess why.     Jan-March 2022: There was a sudden mass exodus of 6+ people leaving after the New Year given the soul-crushing amount of work expected from workers and the tiring work environment. I was given 3 additional loads of work from 3 people who had left the company abruptly, and with little training. Overall errors in data or quality of work was commonplace in the company as coworkers were constantly leaving and training their replacements in under a week or less. I also was on medical leave at this time for 4 days due to a pulled nerve in my neck from overwork. My boss then gave me an ultimatum in March of 2022 which stated that I had “6 weeks to get it together” or my 1 year pay bump would be withheld from me. Even after showcasing that I can take on even more work than the crushing daily amount of work and surprise reports clients might ask for. This was obviously devastating to my emotional and mental well-being.   April-June 2022: By April, the time tracking had begun. My performance was called into question even though none of my clients complained about the quality of my external work. However, my boss was never satisfied that I couldn’t complete other team members work/tasks on top of the work I was already tasked to handle (which I was tackling just fine). She questioned my integrity and demonstrated a sheer lack of trust towards me. Again, another example of racial discrimination and office place harassment. This is when I officially began job hunting because of the building pressure at work. My weekly meetings with my boss were centered around productivity and not the exceptional work I was doing (I would hear my praises from everyone else around me but her). Around this time I also won a Starbucks gift-card in a team meeting game over Zoom. I was then bullied to come into the office to pick up the gift-card and refused again, asking for it to be shipped as it was still unsafe to work in the office. I have never received a single gift I won or was suppose to be given from the company as a rightful employee because my boss refused to include me in the company culture by refusing to ship those items. Another example of office place harassment. Additionally, in April 2022 I was contacted by the new office assistant who had found the last remaining sweatshirt from December in their Tysons Corner office. She reached out to ask why I had not received it and if I can come into the office to pick it up. I communicated with her that I was not comfortable picking the sweatshirt up and if it could be shipped directly to me, which she responded that she would look into that request and get back to me on that. To this day, I have never heard back from that office assistant, and never received the sweatshirt that I was rightfully owed as an employee at this company. A company that feigned encouragement for diversity and inclusion and a positive work culture.   July-Sept 2022: My childhood dog of 16 years was put down on June 26th and I was time tracked again the immediate week after coming back from 3 days of bereavement. The reason was again my productivity, however, I had been out for days so this conversation was out of place and just evil. I was told that if I get two negative ratings in a row for quarterly ratings (which was not communicated with me when I joined the company over a year ago) then I would be let go. These reviews are solely based on your direct managers impressions of you and your work. I was involved in two meetings with my manager and her boss which went nowhere, again about productivity and my future at the company. By this point I was months into interviewing and was already in talks with multiple companies. I was let go on a Friday and had already accepted another offer so I was completely fine and saw it coming. This is the worst company filled with even worse people. If you are Black, don’t work here. If you’re smart, look at the turnover on LinkedIn and save yourself the trouble.     Overview of Company (5 star system)   Onboarding Support/Training: **** Client Work: ** Internal Work: *
Culture: * Management: **         Final Thoughts: I was going to include all this information in my exit interview and my receipts from my former manager and coworkers, however the company never cared about those concerns when I worked there and definitely would not care as I was leaving. Do not work here unless you need money. There are other jobs, companies, or streams of income out there. Save your mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health by NOT working at Public Relay.