Outdated and Totalitarian - Anonymous employee Top-Line Furniture Employee Review

This is a company that has a culture where worker exploitation is the expectation. There is a rampant culture of distrust. Everyone spends their days constantly looking over their shoulder. If you’re not a member of the family, you’re not considered worthwhile. This company runs on seriously outdated rules, culture, and systems. It prides itself on being around for over 25 years, yet acts as though it's still in 1995. Here's just a few examples of how problematic this company is: -You only get 5 PTO for your first year and only after you’re there for 90 days. -Their entire COVID response was absolutely abysmal. They basically pretended it didn’t exist, only acknowledging the pandemic to let you know that it was 100% up to YOU to not get COVID. -You aren’t allowed to WFH. Their reasoning? A) it’s not fair to the warehouse (who are not salaried) and B) you’re considered “essential” because you supply WFH products. So their reasoning for not letting you work from home is so that you can help other people work from home, even though many roles can be performed remotely. Does not matter if you are high risk or not (in fact, the company as a whole is not very accessible/ADA compliant). -When there are COVID cases in the office, they’re kept a secret, despite it being a shared space. Sometimes you'll be outright lied to about it if you ask questions. -Mask mandates weren’t in place until Fall 2020, a full 7 months after the pandemic began. And even then, they weren’t enforced. None of the upper management, HR, or family members wore one. -The office is extremely dirty. There’s frequently no hand soap, toilet paper, or paper towels. Garbage is not taken out on a regular basis. And there is a very clear fruit fly problem that upper management pretends doesn’t exist. -Many employees still traveled during the pandemic, some of which was outside of the country, yet not one of them practiced any COVID safety protocols upon their return. -They tell you that there weren't any layoffs during the pandemic, but that's a lie. There were. It's bad enough that this company offers little to no opportunities for growth, but there is simply no job security here at all. -On more than one occasion, I’ve seen employees say hello or good morning to the family members...only for them to pretend you don’t exist. It’s not a big company, nor is it a big office, so there’s really no defense for such rudeness and goes to show exactly the kind of culture this company has (and lack thereof). -There are no safety protocols whatsoever. There could be severe weather, tornado sirens going off, fire alarms going off, and you're encouraged to pretend nothing is happening but to frequently save your work. There have been also several severe workplace accidents but they’ve all been covered up. -The training you get is straight up WRONG. Due to the aforementioned rampant culture of distrust, vital information you need to perform your job is kept from you, and instead, you get misinformation. -Upper management actually has no idea what they’re doing. At all. They routinely take credit for your work while not hesitating to throw you under the bus, especially about the poor decisions THEY made or authorized. They just ride on the successes of everyone else, taking credit wherever they can, and pointing fingers when they fail. And at the same time, upper management will waste no time reminding you how lucky you are to be working for them. -In addition to below-average pay and benefits, the entire payroll system is through a third party and is incredibly unreliable. You will not get paid on time and it will not be the amount you are owed. -One time, payroll screwed up and accidentally gave everyone a bonus of $86. And apparently, the only way to “fix it” was to take it away from everyone on the next paycheck, but they didn't tell you this until you received the bonus. The whole ordeal was incredibly demoralizing because it just goes to show how thoughtless it is when it comes to taking care of employees. Not only that, but also exposes how financially unstable the company is if it has to take away $86 from you. But the company thought it was okay if they bought everyone pizza on Friday to make up for it though, ignoring the fact that they completely obliterated morale. -Your time is monitored to the minute. You must clock in and out for exactly 8 hours a day, and you must clock in and out for a measly 30-minute lunch. -There is absolutely NO talking in the office. It's quite literally an unspoken rule. People who sit next to you will IM or even pass post-it notes because you’re so heavily monitored. Even if you go into the lunchroom, it’s dead silent. Everyone sits by themselves, eats quietly, and as soon as they’re done, they go back to work. -All breaks are discouraged, including your lunch. There are quite a bit of employees who don’t take their lunch at all. You’re pretty much expected to just sit at your desk for 8 hours nonstop. -The company tries to disassociate itself from community outreach programs they were once members of because they, and I quote, don't want to associate with "those kinds of people" as they believe "those kinds of people" will “diminish the value of the furniture.” -Upper management frequently makes inappropriate comments about people's appearances. People have been told to lose weight, a potential new hire was called a terrorist based on the way they were dressed, etc. It's extremely discriminatory behavior that comes from upper management themselves. -This office is already an unsafe environment for all the reasons listed above, but it is especially unfriendly towards women. There are plenty of women in the office (probably more women than men), but hardly any of them are in leadership positions. The ones who are in leadership positions are constantly disrespected behind their backs. And the men openly speak badly about women in general. Hateful language is very much tolerated here, as it is treated as jokes. -More times than not, management would go behind your back and interfere with your work. Discussions with teammates were considered not an option. Very anti-collaboration and anti-team building. -You are forbidden from telling people know that they were legally allowed to take time out of their work day to go vote in an election. In fact, upper management tries to exploit loopholes in the law to deny people the right at all. Their loophole was because the polls were open before and after work hours, you didn’t “need” to use the 2 hours given to you to go vote. -Another reason for forbidding you from telling people about their legal right to take 2 hours to go vote was because it would be “too political." Yet upper management casually throws around topics like “all lives matter” (several members of upper management have made it clear they are anti-Black Lives Matter) and questions people who they’re voting for like it’s nothing. -If you insisted on taking that 2 hours to go vote, they wanted your address, the address of the place you voted at, and the time, so they can take the time out of their day to independently verify you actually voted. -Another terrible rule is that the company forces you to come in EARLY on the Saturday after Black Friday to make up for the office being closed on Black Friday. There is absolutely no work-life balance. -You’re very much pressured to avoid taking time off (remember, only 5 PTO!). When you do, you’re guilt-tripped and asked what exactly it is you’re doing on your time off. No respect for privacy. It’s the ONLY time upper management actually acts like management, and they do it to abuse their authority to pry into your personal life. -One "perk" is being able to buy the furniture at wholesale value, but while they advertise that to new hires, it's actually really discouraged to do so, especially if it's a discontinued item. Buying discontinued items means you're "celebrating" the business's "failure" and would rather let it sit in a warehouse or throw it away all for the sake of protecting the family's very fragile pride. Overall, you'll quickly notice that upper management does a lot of talking and not a lot of action. They're very confused and delusional, believing they're in the same tier as top furniture companies when that's just plain unrealistic. They don't know what their employees or consumers want because they don’t listen nor do they care to.