Pros
Free lunch once a week, nice office and access to the coffee machine
Cons
If you’re looking for a workplace that preaches flexibility but operates like a digital surveillance tower, look no further than Manual! Team leaders are genuinely kind and encouraging, but they’re under such heavy pressure from senior leadership that their support quickly becomes lip service. The end result is a tense atmosphere dressed up as “structure.” Micromanagement is the company’s love language. Step away for a two-minute toilet break or make a cup of tea, and you’ll return to a Slack message from senior leadership asking if “you’re ok.” Your online and offline time is monitored down to the minute. Even when you’re instructed to go offline to shadow new employees or work on specialist projects, this time is often forgotten or not logged. Later, you’re questioned suspiciously in your 1-2-1's as if you’ve been idle, despite following instructions. Then there’s the salary fiasco. Imagine training new hires, taking on extra responsibilities, and then finding out those very people are being paid more than you, despite your 5+ years of senior experience. When raised, I was told it was “based on experience.” The irony writes itself. Only after multiple complaints did they eventually increase this, but not retroactively. If fairness mattered, salaries should be backdated for everyone affected. System processes change almost daily. You barely learn the new rules before they shift again. The SOP is bloated and inefficient, and quality checks leave zero room for professional judgment. Even when a slight deviation would help the customer, you’re penalised for not following the script word for word. It’s bureaucracy at its finest.