All the cons listed in other reviews were applicable to my experience as well.
I specifically want to raise points regarding:
- Low salary. I was paid minimum wage when I started and my salary was only increased once (bringing me slightly above minimum wage)and then never looked at again (again despite a promise that salary is addressed yearly). This eventually reached a point where I was contacted by HMRC regarding an investigation into what they were paying employees because it was found that I had been paid less than minimum wage for two years (even before we looked at the overtime, long event hours and working over weekends)
- Long hours are understandable in the world of IT, especially as project deadlines come close, and that type of overtime can be understandable. But when working an event there is no form of recompense to the staff working that event for time worked on a weekday.
- If the work was on a weekend 1/2 day time off in lieu was given for a full day worked. This arrangement was ridiculous and borderline insulting as it often translated to a >12 hour day working on a weekend being recompensed with 4 hours holiday time
- WhatsApp was used for all "out of office" communication (communicating train delays, sickness, etc). This means you are required to inform the company (and by extension anyone else in the company because all employees are added to the "Everyone" chat group) of your personal phone number. If you're in Tech, Support or Account management this will 100% be abused by management to contact you at any time you are "required" (including out of hours and potentially while you are on holiday or with no access to a computer)
- Despite knowing which events would take place months in advance, the staff that would be needed for those events would only be informed around 2 weeks beforehand. This was for both local events (i.e. taking place in or around London) and for events taking place further afield such as Liverpool, Glasgow and even Europe (assuming the company still deals with European events after Brexit)
- Specific to working as a developer in the London office: I was often expected to work Support and Account Management tasks in addition to my workload as a developer. Naturally this meant that my development tasks fell behind and I would need to work additional hours to get them back on track. This need to "Wear many hats" extended to event work as well. If you were near a computer and there was nothing else going on you were expected to be logged on and working on BAU items. This includes downtime after the event (if such a time occurs during business hours) and whilst travelling to/from the event (if you had access to an internet connection or had work that could be done without a connection.
- Finally I wanted to touch on company culture as it is frankly bizarre. They claim to care about employee mental health, but their commitment to this involves weekly, mandatory, company wide meditation sessions (and in the time I was leaving there was talk of this being adjusted to daily breathing exercises as part of the morning scrum). A quick read of their self published "Wellness in the Workplace" ebook found on their website betrays their true feelings and simplistic views on the matter. Quote from the first paragraph: "Let’s be honest, the idea of work/life separation is a myth". Additionally every week a set of people would be selected from the company to pontificate on one of the companies values or to deliver a short company congratulating speech on why Shocklogic is an amazing place to work in the guise of an elevator pitch answering the question "what do you do for a living?"
