Snake oil wrapped in a pretty purple box
Pros
- You feel like you are actively contributing to a humane cause, the animal well being, even if just in theory. - You work remotely, from home, which can be quite comfortable. - The team, or at least the better part of it. - As a dog owner, you can take your dog to work.
Cons
I was very excited to work for Barkyn when I first started, as I truly felt I was contributing to a cause I really adore and working with dogs. That feeling was swept away very quickly, I must say. Whilst I was working there for more than a year, I accounted more than 30 people leaving their job, some of them after only a few months, as they could not believe what they have gotten themselves into. From day one you get the feeling that you are on a derailed train going nowhere, where there is little to no organization whatsoever and you basically live on daily chaos, where things change pretty much every day - and NOT in a reflected nor a consistent manner. Some of the decisions taken by the management show a very poor knowledge of the team's work and seem directionless. There is no structured training offered when you start, so you are basically left on your own luck and with your notes taken. While the team encourages you to ask for advice when in doubt, those are met with a "why don't you know this already?" attitude, and there is a major concern in pointing out mistakes instead of people seeing each other as a helping pair of hands or a teammate. The truth is, while the team affirms itself as "very united", some of its elements (the same who praise teamwork, ironically) prioritize their personal agendas and ladder climbing, not hesitating to throw you under the train for that purpose. If you don't trust your skills as a professional, you can easily leave this job thinking that you truly "suck" at it. But this is the company's mojo... "Push it today", they say, meaning: work on weekends if needed, work overtime constantly and still get pointed at for not being good enough for the job. The truth is that Barkyn presents itself as a lively and friendly startup with a great work environment and the chance to rapidly evolve in your career, but you quickly realize that something is very wrong with it. You should trust your gut feeling when you see those happy puppy company photos or read some of Glassdoor's reviews (not the 5-star ones, which I can attest were written by management itself). This is all part of the package here: a company that is more concerned with keeping up a good public image, completely disregarding its employees' wellbeing. Work here at your own risk.
