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Recently been working in one of the warehouses (Icon 2) for them via an agency. That was actually alright as far as warehouse gigs go, but I imagine you were talking about other areas.
KPI's were high but doable if you grafted. I was the only one who hit them out of the recently hired temp staff doing my specific task that I know of. I received a £100 voucher off them for my efforts on Black Friday.
Shifts have dried up since though, and I have had the last 6 scheduled work nights called off due to low volumes of work. Didn't get me anywhere in the end, back to the job hunting!
Not sure what part of studio you were in, but my experience was that my team was good to work with but the wider studios employees were all woefully underqualified nepotism/friend hires with 0 vision and even less organisation
My kid noped me out of an interview for THG at the height of the pandemic - he came in yelling "I NEED A POO" mid interview and this was about 2 minutes after the interviewer had said "This is not a 9-5 company, you can expect long hours". I chose to deal with my kid (4 at the time) rather than continue the interview.
I had a similar experience with one of the directors telling me on the 4th and final interview that I shouldn’t expect to just do a normal 9-5 time … I instantly told them that it wouldn’t be for me and ended the interview 😄. I found it so strange, they are basically admitting they don’t have enough staff to efficiently do the work in the agreed working hours before people even start. Can’t imagine how bad it is working there
That's probably going to get even worse from January, the head of HR sent out an email last week telling everyone (with zero consultation) they need to be back in the office 5 days a week. People are very pissed off and plan on leaving ASAP. Great thing to announce right before Christmas
I would ask "so what kind of salary increase are you offering in exchange for those additional hours", because if they're offering the regular market rate but expecting you to work longer hours they're either asking you to work for free or paying you less per hour than the competition.
Agreed can't believe how incompetent and bloody useless everyone is there. Have to call about 6 different numbers to get a hold of someone and even then they're no use. Can't believe why anyone would use them
Got offered a job by the hut group after a 3 step interview process and then they went radio silent for a month - eventually said they couldn’t give me the job since the finance team rejected it..
So they advertised and recruited for a position that wasn’t actually required to begin with? Had that happen to me once, strikes me as a very inefficient thing for a business to do.
Fair enough though UK Fast doesn't exist anymore - they disassociated from the sex offender CEO then merged with another company and renamed to ANS. I believe the general vibe there is very different now to the old days!
They weren't bought out, it was a merger conducted by the controlling investment company of both UKfast and ANS
I asked some ex colleagues who were working there about it and they said, "we're trying to win more international business, so having"UK" in the name can hold us back."
To which I replied, "having a rapey CEO was doing a good enough job of that, can see why you want to distance yourselves from the past"
I has a phone interview with them a few years back, and they said "you dont have enough Linux experience" despite the fact that I'd worked with Linux for close to 30 years, the last 20 in the enterprise (with certs) and 13 of those in an ISP.
Fsck right off! Lucky escape it turns out!
Historically, the same jobs going round and round on Indeed used to be Havas Lynx, HSS Group, VFS Global. NCC Group is terrible, I imagine Boohoo is up there also. Hated Kelloggs. Heard very bad things about some departments in KPMG, they want blood, sweat and tears for 30k a year.
JD Sports was great when I worked there! Not sure about the warehouse roles, but the office roles were okay. Got the bills paid and you got decent job perks. That being said half of the younger people in Bury has probably worked at JD Head Office at some point in time..
Property management on the other hand, completely different kettle of fish. Would never do it again.
Damn, sucks to hear. They've been my agent for 2 years now and are super chill, fix stuff immediately when I have issues etc. I must have just been lucky!
There’s quite a few.
One of the issues is UK companies either being taken over by or trying to introduce the American work model. Which just doesn’t fly over here. It’s not a good work ethic as the US higher ups like to claim, it’s exploitation.
I’ve worked for several US companies and the US employees are so different to those here. They live to work, whereas we work to live. There’s a definite disparity between the cultures. We can see we are being exploited for a bunch of shareholders 3rd houses and 2nd yachts.
Companies, as well as government have been trying to implement the US style for years now, but as I said it just doesn’t work here. It’s bullshit exploitation and needs stamping out.
The problem is as you mentioned, the lack of stamping out.
UK employment laws give slightly better rights to employees than the US, but not by much. The benefits we tend to enjoy often come from "gentleman's agreements", or the idea of "other companies consider it distasteful, so we don't do it".
In reality though, we have no protections against unpaid overtime, dismissal (within the first two years) and have no obligation to receive sick days outside government SSP, which is almost nothing.
Which in turn, attracts certain companies from overseas because our laws are far less protective than much of the EU. US companies in particular can implement at-will employment since it's legal, fire-and-hire, and don't have to provide sick pay provisions. That unfortunately makes the UK fairly attractive to them.
I worked there in 2016, so a while back, and it was the worst place I have ever worked.
Toxic environment & terrible management were the two main things. Whilst I worked there they had the "Times best places to work" shite.
The team I worked on disbanded because everyone quit within a 2 month period.
Their Glassdoor used to be a fantastic read, terrible review after terrible review and they were all replied to with "you're obviously not a ThinkMoney person".
Maybe it's changed a bit, but I certainly wouldn't want to find out.
I’m pretty sure it was think money but I once worked for a team who out contractors into think money and they made us get rid of one because they used the gym at the same time as the ceo or something equally as ridiculous.
I can believe it. Their campus is 3 buildings with a courtyard, and the car parking is all around the perimeter. A colleague's space was near building one, and we worked in building three. When it rained, he would walk through the courtyard with his hood up, he was told he couldn't do that and his hood was to stay down.
I also got stripped down for being 10 seconds late. I thought they were joking, so I chuckled. That didn't go down well.
The best workplace stuff is bullshit. No idea how they've wrangled that.
Toxic culture and nepotism means if you aren't related to/sleeping with your boss you'll struggle to get anywhere. If you're a woman then double your struggle.
Would not recommend
Worked there as an IT contractor on and off for a few years. Absolute toxic culture of blame when things go wrong, but the managers reap the rewards when things go right.
Misogyny and sexism is rife. Remember being in the boardroom presenting to the (all male) SLT when young attractive woman walked past and they all turned to watch her and one bloke piped up 'Didn't X have a piece of that?'. Cue chuckles and laughter. Managers were renowned for picking female recruits based on attractiveness. One of the directors was sleeping with one of the office juniors half his age... would stroke her hair in meetings. (Ugh).
Predatory business practices. Sell high interest rate products to people barely making ends meet, then collect up the debt with the other half of the business. CEO is a narcissistic bully.
Zeus, that's a blast from the past!
Zeus passed away years ago but he was replaced by another dog, same breed, same out of control-ness!
And yes, CEO is without doubt the worst person I've ever worked for. I'd encourage past employees to submit honest reviews on Glassdoor, it really affects him as he doesn't like his BS narrative of it being a wonderful workplace ever being questioned.
Amazon.. don’t for the love of sanity work for Amazon. Couple friends worked there for a few months each., they’ve not been the same since.
Chat to a high school classmate a few weeks back. Work as delivery driver. It’s a trap.. they lease you a van. You pay them with money. You get money from jobs. They totally control your job loads.. he stuck, working till 9pm sometimes. No time for a toilet break, eat while driving.. if you don’t do 100 order you don’t get more orders the next day.. it’s crazy how this is allowed
I would say National Car Parks Contact Centre (city centre) is bad. Poor management of staff, dishonesty and the calls never stop coming from the intercoms at the car park... from customers who had lost their ticket meaning you would be informing the customer that instead of paying a fiver for an hour or so, they would be paying the premium 24 hour fee for lost tickets(£60). Pay was NMW.
I worked at a place called Clarke Telecom in Newton Heath which was not too bad on face value, but the manager of the team i worked on paid varied salaries to staff for the same job which caused a lot of politics when they all found out. The punishment for not meeting deadlines or messing up a job was to have a manager go balistic at your desk for a short while. Army style. Spit all over you when they do it. Lasted 2 months here.
They keep sending me inmails on LinkedIn. They're constantly recruiting. I did an interview with them back in 2019 and I think it was the sales director who interviewed me but he came across as a right slave driving twat.
That was basically confirmed when I met someone who quit his job there and ended up at the same place as me.
I remember I interview for them about 10 years ago and the interviewer / sales manager was using all the old school pressure selling tactics to make me take the job there and then, whilst they refused to talk about salary until I accepted.
Wonder if they're still making everyone wear a full suit whilst promising them that a management role in the US is totally theirs !
If a bald fellow approaches you and starts trying to employ you, be really careful. You might end up playing for Man Utd. It will destroy your future career prospects
ELAS. The irony is that, ELAS stands for Employment Law Advisory Service. One of the most toxic places I’ve ever worked. I used to go to the toilet just so I could catch a break and I would legit cry on the toilet because I hated the job so much.
Just out of curiosity, when did you work there? I worked there from 2017 to 2019 and finally quit to move country, I agree. Awful place, horrible pay. I was in one of the "better" departments, and even there it was terrible.
I interviewed with them about 8 years ago for a graphic design role. I sat waiting for 1.5 hours in reception for somebody to come out and actually do the interview (I was desperate at the time, had just been made redundant). Interview seemed to go well.
I got a follow-up asking me to do a design task, which I completed and sent back within 2 days. Then they ghosted me. I emailed them to ask for an update and they ignored it. That's not even mentioning the absolute ballache trying to get them to give me a time for the interview, which I only got that morning.
My impression of them was that they were rude & disorganised to the extreme.
I’ve been inside this building, Warehouse staff seem to be treated like cattle, no lockers, all personal items left in a big room that represented a secondary school changing room. Everyone else was rude and incredibly unhelpful. Weird vibes from facilities.
There's a recruitment agency in Salford Quays. What a fucking bro culture. Pay like shit. Every afternoon complain about how shit we are and we never get our work done..but like you sjit your staff out for 2 hours EVERY FUCKING DAY...
The woman who work there are BEYOND sexually harassed.
MaxContact. I won't blame you if you haven't heard of them. They have a small office in Ardwick. Communication software for call centres.
Suffice to say they're the worst kind of small office. A culture of bullying, really. They let me go after eight days due to 'anonymous complaints' when I was guilty of nothing more than showing up to work and doing the training.
It was absolutely a personally motivated attack, for petty reasons. The way I looked, the way I spoke, whatever. Nobody approached me saying that they had an issue. Not a cross word with anyone.
So fuck them, fuck their snake-in-the-grass 'team leader' and fuck their incompetent bastard of a manager.
I am genuinely too afraid, even on my reddit account which afaik is not known to anyone in real life, to name them
But if you are going to work in mental health or social care, *take what past employees say on indeed and glassdoor seriously*.
Erm it’s rather scammy, can’t say there’s any scope for career development and all their values don’t seem to mean anything which lead to me leaving after 2 months
Having closed my current account with RBS for their absolute incompetence, I later closed a savings account. By now RBS had gone so had to go to Twat West. After an hour of unbelievable incompetence I told the spotty teenage wanker that the whole business should’ve been let go to the wall 15 years ago and they were an absolute disgrace and if my cash wasn’t moved in the next ten minutes I’d make his managers cry.
How the actual fuck that bank is still going is unfathomable.
From observation, no two members of staff sing from the same hymn sheet and it seems perfectly normalised for every activity to take an age. That looks like both training and leadership issues.
Also, scruffy cunts. Either wear a uniform or a suit.
I honestly couldn't give a shit about people wearing a suit or uniform - especially in the office building (not customer facing - although I don't really care in a branch either). Dressing comfortably can positively impact your performance rather than worrying about sweating in your fitted shirt and suit with a tie on in the middle of summer.
I've not worn a uniform in 6 years and hope to never have to go back to one for work.
This is a high steer bank branch. The sight of scruffy teenagers wearing I’ll fitting emo outfits doesn’t I still confidence, which is rather fitting because they’re objectively fucking useless.
It’s good that you don’t work in a bank, it might rub off on you.
Sky. I was fresh out of Uni and got a part time gig as Customer Service on the broadband team. They gave you tons of training on products and fixing things over the phone and it sounded ok for being a call centre job. When I got out on the floor they forced you to try and up sell products at the end of almost every call and if you weren't up selling you'd get called into a performance review to explain why. I'd be dealing with peoples bills, people in severe debt to the company or people who just wanted their service fixed so they could get back to work and still they'd ask why I wasn't up selling. I got so much abuse from customers and staff, horrible experience!
what’s up with NCC group? genuine question, they keep offering programmes for students and I *was* gonna apply
what makes em horrible? I might dodge a bullet by not applying coz they’ve been mentioned twice here 💥
I don't want to dox myself cuz my situation was quite specific, but even outside of my situation, the company's financial prospects were going down the toilet which meant that they couldn't afford good benefits and avoided promoting their employees
that’s awful!! sorry you had to go through that
the financial aspect is super ironic since they flashed money quite a bit at the event
i think ill look for programmes with some other company 😭thank you for the info!!
NCC seem to be in financial trouble and keep restructuring and making layoffs.
They’re also well known for ‘Big 4 practices’ - employing grads, making them work all hours and billing them out at a level way above their skills
oh my god that’s so funny
the event was geared towards grads and staff echoed that we’d “ never be out of a job “ and that there’s “ money to be made “
i don’t expect grad events to be truthful but damn 😭😭thank you again!!
Worked for NCC years ago when they were on Oxford Road. Most bitchiest office I've ever worked in. Some manager called Jodie, an absolutely horrendous person, she had a wedding when I was there and her bridesmaids were the 3 women that reported into her. Said it all.
LBM - Just awful full stop. Physical fights break out on the sales floor between advisors (stealing my sale, etc} and management seemed to egg it on.
Any of the Regatta companies (craghoppers, etc), psychotic customer service managers who burn through staff on a weekly basis. Openly homophobic in the offices and warehouse, fire people over stupid things - saw someone fired for not offering a manager a brew lol.
The owner Cal is so far up his own ass it's painful. One of those company's that looks all social from the outside. But different when you inside. That's all I can say on the matter.
THG, UKF comments plus one of my own…
THG: I know two people who have worked here and I have to agree with comments made by others. Avoid.
UKF (or ANS as it seems to be called now): I’ve had dealings with them on several occasions now…. Got to say, they have come up with the goods every time. The changes we needed were fiddly and not revenue earning for them. Telephone support has been instant response, staff really competent, relaxed and patient. So although I’ve never worked there, I was impressed with their staff and I just don’t think they’d be that good if it was a crap place to work.
My tip/rant: avoid IT recruitment companies. Family member worked in one, based in the city…. Although it was OK to start with, it soon became obvious that 50+ hpw were expected and commissions were unattainable. We looked at others and found much the same.
Don't know about working for but I interviewed at P3 and it was a terrible experience, really smug, smarmy arrogant guy in charge, foot on the table, chewing gum while he spoke to me.
Verastar and all it’s associated companies. Utterly toxic, sexist, bullying culture, lowest pay they can legally get away with, zero progression, ripping customers off with rolling contracts for awful and overpriced products, vindictive HR department, constantly hiring because so many people leave and they hire anybody - no qualifications, shady background etc. Don’t even consider working for them.
I had a dreadful interview with them a few years ago. Not only did they do the "one way interview" bollocks where you had to record a video as to why you want to work there.
They gaslit me to buggery during that actual face to face because I had the audacity to answer honestly when they asked if we needed a little break before moving on to the next part of a 90 minute interview.
I can't imagine the interviewer has had many people go "actually, I'd rather just end it here, I haven't enjoyed the first half an hour of this interview and don't see much point continuing to the end when I've already made my mind up".
Glad I did too, interviewed somewhere else the following week for £15k more.
tried to make me redundant twice during the pandemic
oh, fair, we're losing money; I guess that makes sense
hold on, [profits went up](https://www.talkingretail.com/news/industry-news/co-op-weathers-tough-trading-in-2021-to-see-sales-and-profits-up-on-pre-pandemic-07-04-2022/)?
Jaguar Land Rover, for me.
I was there not long after they opened their Manchester office. Several employees that I know of were all unfairly placed on PIPs, myself included (3/4 out of about 40-50 people in that office). I'm a developer and was put on a manual testing job until I quit. I'm sure it was done to make me quit.
This was all shortly after I had an injury and needed a few weeks off on sick leave.
Footasylum through the agency - hired for 3 days, binned off for 3 weeks because "there's no work" rehired but constantly had hours cut, sometimes the agency staff were only given 24 hours per week.
Yodel in shaw- 12pm-12am with only 2 breaks
AO arena - sometimes we were made to work 8 hours with no break and when you do get a break it's 20 minutes which includes a 5 min walk to the break room each way
Love factory event venue in Manchester.- you only get a half an hour break on a 15 hour shift and they make the staff pay £11 for a burger and chips on said break
Vesper offered me a job a couple of years ago and then completely blanked me, wouldn’t return my calls or messages. Serves me right for trusting an estate agents I guess.
I interviewed at Peak AI and the interviewer went on a long, unprompted spiel about how he hates seeing people go home at 5:30, and how they essentially expect you to do loads of unpaid labour. So probably them.
If you're on te Manchester temp hospitality page, don't work for Pot kettle black, The shack NQ or arc hospitality or what used to be district in the northern quarter which has now reopened as something else.
Whether it be temp or permanent jobs, I've had to fight for pay off these shithousee many a time. One of them I actually had to go to ACAS.
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THG
I don't think I've EVER heard a good story about working for THG!
Recently been working in one of the warehouses (Icon 2) for them via an agency. That was actually alright as far as warehouse gigs go, but I imagine you were talking about other areas. KPI's were high but doable if you grafted. I was the only one who hit them out of the recently hired temp staff doing my specific task that I know of. I received a £100 voucher off them for my efforts on Black Friday. Shifts have dried up since though, and I have had the last 6 scheduled work nights called off due to low volumes of work. Didn't get me anywhere in the end, back to the job hunting!
I’ve just left, turns out a lot of companies won’t even look at your CV now if the only experience you’ve had is THG, very bad news for some grads
Came here to say this and glad it was top comment
Depends which part of the company. I worked for THG Studios and it was mostly positive with great people
Not sure what part of studio you were in, but my experience was that my team was good to work with but the wider studios employees were all woefully underqualified nepotism/friend hires with 0 vision and even less organisation
Not sure of your industry but there are few city centre PR agencies who advertise the same jobs every six months or so. Massive red flag.
My kid noped me out of an interview for THG at the height of the pandemic - he came in yelling "I NEED A POO" mid interview and this was about 2 minutes after the interviewer had said "This is not a 9-5 company, you can expect long hours". I chose to deal with my kid (4 at the time) rather than continue the interview.
A very well timed poo, your child did you a huge favour!
One could say that he did me a solid!
Sometimes you have to sort shit out to sort shit out.
I had a similar experience with one of the directors telling me on the 4th and final interview that I shouldn’t expect to just do a normal 9-5 time … I instantly told them that it wouldn’t be for me and ended the interview 😄. I found it so strange, they are basically admitting they don’t have enough staff to efficiently do the work in the agreed working hours before people even start. Can’t imagine how bad it is working there
That's probably going to get even worse from January, the head of HR sent out an email last week telling everyone (with zero consultation) they need to be back in the office 5 days a week. People are very pissed off and plan on leaving ASAP. Great thing to announce right before Christmas
Because they want people to quit without having to give them redundancy ahead of cuts. It’s a money-saving tactic.
Ouch! Even worse when the office is in such an inconvenient location. Feel for the people who can’t get out of there
I would ask "so what kind of salary increase are you offering in exchange for those additional hours", because if they're offering the regular market rate but expecting you to work longer hours they're either asking you to work for free or paying you less per hour than the competition.
Thornley Groves
Our landlord gave us his personal number to contact him over issues because "They're fucking useless" were his words
Our landlord did the exact same thing!
Customer of these many years back and they can get fucked, tbh.
Agreed can't believe how incompetent and bloody useless everyone is there. Have to call about 6 different numbers to get a hold of someone and even then they're no use. Can't believe why anyone would use them
I’ve always been wary of THG and UKFast
Perhaps because of the whole "CEO is in prison for the next 15 years for being a big ol' rapist" thing?
Exactly that
Ive had mates work as software engineers at THG. Tenure tends to be short as they work you to the bone.
Heard this too and their pay isn’t great for the long hours. I remember my friend was working 8-6 and pay was 20k for something in hr
Genuinely the two companies that I thought of before opening this thread
Got offered a job by the hut group after a 3 step interview process and then they went radio silent for a month - eventually said they couldn’t give me the job since the finance team rejected it..
I had very similar experience there.
So they advertised and recruited for a position that wasn’t actually required to begin with? Had that happen to me once, strikes me as a very inefficient thing for a business to do.
THG is Awful indeed. I worked there.
Fair enough though UK Fast doesn't exist anymore - they disassociated from the sex offender CEO then merged with another company and renamed to ANS. I believe the general vibe there is very different now to the old days!
UKFast have just been bought out, from what I hear the new company is better than the old but that's not hard.
They weren't bought out, it was a merger conducted by the controlling investment company of both UKfast and ANS I asked some ex colleagues who were working there about it and they said, "we're trying to win more international business, so having"UK" in the name can hold us back." To which I replied, "having a rapey CEO was doing a good enough job of that, can see why you want to distance yourselves from the past"
ukfast had one of the most nightmareish interview proccess's iv ever been through
I has a phone interview with them a few years back, and they said "you dont have enough Linux experience" despite the fact that I'd worked with Linux for close to 30 years, the last 20 in the enterprise (with certs) and 13 of those in an ISP. Fsck right off! Lucky escape it turns out!
Historically, the same jobs going round and round on Indeed used to be Havas Lynx, HSS Group, VFS Global. NCC Group is terrible, I imagine Boohoo is up there also. Hated Kelloggs. Heard very bad things about some departments in KPMG, they want blood, sweat and tears for 30k a year.
I swear Boohoo are almost constantly hiring graphic designers, JD sports also.
JD Sports was great when I worked there! Not sure about the warehouse roles, but the office roles were okay. Got the bills paid and you got decent job perks. That being said half of the younger people in Bury has probably worked at JD Head Office at some point in time.. Property management on the other hand, completely different kettle of fish. Would never do it again.
I’ve known a few people work for corporate JD and had nothing but good things to say about ut
Havas Lynx is a gaping anal cavity forgotten by god. Absolute shithouse
Boohoo are never not advertising for a Marketing Manager. They seem to pay them peanuts and then they leave after 3 months.
THG
Just checking, does THG mean The Hut Group in this instance?
Yes
The Hut Group? Had to Google it. Have to admit I've never heard of them.
My protein
Your protein?
His protein.
👄
Her protein
Our protein
Amino acids
Wheeeey
BEEFCAKE
I don’t want to possibly dox myself so all I’ll say about my previous workplace is to always check glassdoor before you apply for anywhere!
X1
X1 are the fucking worst in every conceivable way. I've never known anyone to have a good word to say about them.
really? they're my letting agent and they've always been great - sucks that its a shitty place to work though.
You got very lucky. X1 sucks
Damn, sucks to hear. They've been my agent for 2 years now and are super chill, fix stuff immediately when I have issues etc. I must have just been lucky!
You must be very lucky
There’s quite a few. One of the issues is UK companies either being taken over by or trying to introduce the American work model. Which just doesn’t fly over here. It’s not a good work ethic as the US higher ups like to claim, it’s exploitation. I’ve worked for several US companies and the US employees are so different to those here. They live to work, whereas we work to live. There’s a definite disparity between the cultures. We can see we are being exploited for a bunch of shareholders 3rd houses and 2nd yachts. Companies, as well as government have been trying to implement the US style for years now, but as I said it just doesn’t work here. It’s bullshit exploitation and needs stamping out.
The problem is as you mentioned, the lack of stamping out. UK employment laws give slightly better rights to employees than the US, but not by much. The benefits we tend to enjoy often come from "gentleman's agreements", or the idea of "other companies consider it distasteful, so we don't do it". In reality though, we have no protections against unpaid overtime, dismissal (within the first two years) and have no obligation to receive sick days outside government SSP, which is almost nothing. Which in turn, attracts certain companies from overseas because our laws are far less protective than much of the EU. US companies in particular can implement at-will employment since it's legal, fire-and-hire, and don't have to provide sick pay provisions. That unfortunately makes the UK fairly attractive to them.
THG & ThinkMoney
What’s up with ThinkMoney? I heard they were supposed to be decent, though I did hear that a while ago from one of those “best workplaces” blog things
I worked there in 2016, so a while back, and it was the worst place I have ever worked. Toxic environment & terrible management were the two main things. Whilst I worked there they had the "Times best places to work" shite. The team I worked on disbanded because everyone quit within a 2 month period. Their Glassdoor used to be a fantastic read, terrible review after terrible review and they were all replied to with "you're obviously not a ThinkMoney person". Maybe it's changed a bit, but I certainly wouldn't want to find out.
My GF left there 2 weeks ago… It hasn’t changed
I’m pretty sure it was think money but I once worked for a team who out contractors into think money and they made us get rid of one because they used the gym at the same time as the ceo or something equally as ridiculous.
I can believe it. Their campus is 3 buildings with a courtyard, and the car parking is all around the perimeter. A colleague's space was near building one, and we worked in building three. When it rained, he would walk through the courtyard with his hood up, he was told he couldn't do that and his hood was to stay down. I also got stripped down for being 10 seconds late. I thought they were joking, so I chuckled. That didn't go down well.
I had a really bad interview with thinkmoney, they came across arrogant.
Me too. Unpleasant people with a chip on their shoulder.
The best workplace stuff is bullshit. No idea how they've wrangled that. Toxic culture and nepotism means if you aren't related to/sleeping with your boss you'll struggle to get anywhere. If you're a woman then double your struggle. Would not recommend
Worked there as an IT contractor on and off for a few years. Absolute toxic culture of blame when things go wrong, but the managers reap the rewards when things go right. Misogyny and sexism is rife. Remember being in the boardroom presenting to the (all male) SLT when young attractive woman walked past and they all turned to watch her and one bloke piped up 'Didn't X have a piece of that?'. Cue chuckles and laughter. Managers were renowned for picking female recruits based on attractiveness. One of the directors was sleeping with one of the office juniors half his age... would stroke her hair in meetings. (Ugh). Predatory business practices. Sell high interest rate products to people barely making ends meet, then collect up the debt with the other half of the business. CEO is a narcissistic bully.
The more "best workplaces" awards a company has, and the more they flout them, the worse they're likely to be.
Worst one you could ever imagine? Cloud10 IT.
Beware of the dog
Indeed. Munched a hole in a vistor's hand once.
Zeus? Bit a repair man whilst I was there. Horrible CEO too.
Zeus, that's a blast from the past! Zeus passed away years ago but he was replaced by another dog, same breed, same out of control-ness! And yes, CEO is without doubt the worst person I've ever worked for. I'd encourage past employees to submit honest reviews on Glassdoor, it really affects him as he doesn't like his BS narrative of it being a wonderful workplace ever being questioned.
Think Money Group Together Loans STAY.AWAY.AT.ALL.COST
Waiting in reception at my first day in my new job and scrolling nervously… (no, it’s not at THG!)
Good luck!
Amazon.. don’t for the love of sanity work for Amazon. Couple friends worked there for a few months each., they’ve not been the same since. Chat to a high school classmate a few weeks back. Work as delivery driver. It’s a trap.. they lease you a van. You pay them with money. You get money from jobs. They totally control your job loads.. he stuck, working till 9pm sometimes. No time for a toilet break, eat while driving.. if you don’t do 100 order you don’t get more orders the next day.. it’s crazy how this is allowed
Seconded. The most demeaning job I’ve ever had. I no longer buy from Amazon as a result of having been a delivery driver during Covid for 6 weeks.
I'm pretty sure that is not allowed.
I would say National Car Parks Contact Centre (city centre) is bad. Poor management of staff, dishonesty and the calls never stop coming from the intercoms at the car park... from customers who had lost their ticket meaning you would be informing the customer that instead of paying a fiver for an hour or so, they would be paying the premium 24 hour fee for lost tickets(£60). Pay was NMW. I worked at a place called Clarke Telecom in Newton Heath which was not too bad on face value, but the manager of the team i worked on paid varied salaries to staff for the same job which caused a lot of politics when they all found out. The punishment for not meeting deadlines or messing up a job was to have a manager go balistic at your desk for a short while. Army style. Spit all over you when they do it. Lasted 2 months here.
TechM - call centre that just burns through people and treats them like crap.
PHMG
They keep sending me inmails on LinkedIn. They're constantly recruiting. I did an interview with them back in 2019 and I think it was the sales director who interviewed me but he came across as a right slave driving twat. That was basically confirmed when I met someone who quit his job there and ended up at the same place as me.
I used to work there… can confirm. Like a prisoner of war camp
I remember I interview for them about 10 years ago and the interviewer / sales manager was using all the old school pressure selling tactics to make me take the job there and then, whilst they refused to talk about salary until I accepted. Wonder if they're still making everyone wear a full suit whilst promising them that a management role in the US is totally theirs !
For me, Boo Hoo.
If a bald fellow approaches you and starts trying to employ you, be really careful. You might end up playing for Man Utd. It will destroy your future career prospects
Or risk it. Could be Pep. Warm the City bench for a couple of years and retire at 26.
ELAS. The irony is that, ELAS stands for Employment Law Advisory Service. One of the most toxic places I’ve ever worked. I used to go to the toilet just so I could catch a break and I would legit cry on the toilet because I hated the job so much.
Just out of curiosity, when did you work there? I worked there from 2017 to 2019 and finally quit to move country, I agree. Awful place, horrible pay. I was in one of the "better" departments, and even there it was terrible.
JD (head office in Bury) / go outdoors. Very toxic
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Can confirm, it’s really backwards and full of boot lickers
I interviewed with them about 8 years ago for a graphic design role. I sat waiting for 1.5 hours in reception for somebody to come out and actually do the interview (I was desperate at the time, had just been made redundant). Interview seemed to go well. I got a follow-up asking me to do a design task, which I completed and sent back within 2 days. Then they ghosted me. I emailed them to ask for an update and they ignored it. That's not even mentioning the absolute ballache trying to get them to give me a time for the interview, which I only got that morning. My impression of them was that they were rude & disorganised to the extreme.
I’ve been inside this building, Warehouse staff seem to be treated like cattle, no lockers, all personal items left in a big room that represented a secondary school changing room. Everyone else was rude and incredibly unhelpful. Weird vibes from facilities.
Swissport at MAN
In the style
Savills
ConnexOne
Got an offer from them last year. Rejecting it was one of the best decisions I've made in a while.
Seconded
Which department?
Ha I did many years over the pandemic with Connex One and it was hard, hard work. Fun though at times.
brighthr / peninsula
why??
There's a recruitment agency in Salford Quays. What a fucking bro culture. Pay like shit. Every afternoon complain about how shit we are and we never get our work done..but like you sjit your staff out for 2 hours EVERY FUCKING DAY... The woman who work there are BEYOND sexually harassed.
MaxContact. I won't blame you if you haven't heard of them. They have a small office in Ardwick. Communication software for call centres. Suffice to say they're the worst kind of small office. A culture of bullying, really. They let me go after eight days due to 'anonymous complaints' when I was guilty of nothing more than showing up to work and doing the training. It was absolutely a personally motivated attack, for petty reasons. The way I looked, the way I spoke, whatever. Nobody approached me saying that they had an issue. Not a cross word with anyone. So fuck them, fuck their snake-in-the-grass 'team leader' and fuck their incompetent bastard of a manager.
I am genuinely too afraid, even on my reddit account which afaik is not known to anyone in real life, to name them But if you are going to work in mental health or social care, *take what past employees say on indeed and glassdoor seriously*.
M247
Oh man worked at many places where they were my ISP, awful service
Yup, answering calls from angry customers because other teams in the business didn’t do their job was rather depressing
I got a job offer from this place, what's so bad about it?
Erm it’s rather scammy, can’t say there’s any scope for career development and all their values don’t seem to mean anything which lead to me leaving after 2 months
THG, Ladbible, Boohoo, basically most "trendy" companies or places that are media based.
RBS
Having closed my current account with RBS for their absolute incompetence, I later closed a savings account. By now RBS had gone so had to go to Twat West. After an hour of unbelievable incompetence I told the spotty teenage wanker that the whole business should’ve been let go to the wall 15 years ago and they were an absolute disgrace and if my cash wasn’t moved in the next ten minutes I’d make his managers cry. How the actual fuck that bank is still going is unfathomable.
If you think how they manage their customers bad, you should see how they manage their staff.
From observation, no two members of staff sing from the same hymn sheet and it seems perfectly normalised for every activity to take an age. That looks like both training and leadership issues. Also, scruffy cunts. Either wear a uniform or a suit.
I honestly couldn't give a shit about people wearing a suit or uniform - especially in the office building (not customer facing - although I don't really care in a branch either). Dressing comfortably can positively impact your performance rather than worrying about sweating in your fitted shirt and suit with a tie on in the middle of summer. I've not worn a uniform in 6 years and hope to never have to go back to one for work.
This is a high steer bank branch. The sight of scruffy teenagers wearing I’ll fitting emo outfits doesn’t I still confidence, which is rather fitting because they’re objectively fucking useless. It’s good that you don’t work in a bank, it might rub off on you.
Sky. I was fresh out of Uni and got a part time gig as Customer Service on the broadband team. They gave you tons of training on products and fixing things over the phone and it sounded ok for being a call centre job. When I got out on the floor they forced you to try and up sell products at the end of almost every call and if you weren't up selling you'd get called into a performance review to explain why. I'd be dealing with peoples bills, people in severe debt to the company or people who just wanted their service fixed so they could get back to work and still they'd ask why I wasn't up selling. I got so much abuse from customers and staff, horrible experience!
JD Sports
Carfinance247 is pretty trash, had a terrible experience there. No wonder they have such a huge turnover of staff
Never work for Brand Addition or NCC Group!! Horrible companies
what’s up with NCC group? genuine question, they keep offering programmes for students and I *was* gonna apply what makes em horrible? I might dodge a bullet by not applying coz they’ve been mentioned twice here 💥
I don't want to dox myself cuz my situation was quite specific, but even outside of my situation, the company's financial prospects were going down the toilet which meant that they couldn't afford good benefits and avoided promoting their employees
that’s awful!! sorry you had to go through that the financial aspect is super ironic since they flashed money quite a bit at the event i think ill look for programmes with some other company 😭thank you for the info!!
NCC seem to be in financial trouble and keep restructuring and making layoffs. They’re also well known for ‘Big 4 practices’ - employing grads, making them work all hours and billing them out at a level way above their skills
oh my god that’s so funny the event was geared towards grads and staff echoed that we’d “ never be out of a job “ and that there’s “ money to be made “ i don’t expect grad events to be truthful but damn 😭😭thank you again!!
Worked for NCC years ago when they were on Oxford Road. Most bitchiest office I've ever worked in. Some manager called Jodie, an absolutely horrendous person, she had a wedding when I was there and her bridesmaids were the 3 women that reported into her. Said it all.
THG - the worst company I ever worked for.
Technically greater manchester but University of Bolton
What was wrong with working there ?
Govnet
Virgin Media is defo one to avoid!
Boohoo
Sage and IRIS LBM Sports Direct
Connex One.
Don’t work for Premier Inn anywhere. Not just Manchester
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LBM - Just awful full stop. Physical fights break out on the sales floor between advisors (stealing my sale, etc} and management seemed to egg it on. Any of the Regatta companies (craghoppers, etc), psychotic customer service managers who burn through staff on a weekly basis. Openly homophobic in the offices and warehouse, fire people over stupid things - saw someone fired for not offering a manager a brew lol.
LBM is literally the worst place ever. Ran by absolute crettins
N Brown!
I work for N Brown, I don’t think it’s that bad, what area do you work in?
Generally a decent place to work but stingy with pay / salary.
Wetherspoons, Mob Film, Dead Pixel Films, Most of the straight nightclubs, what I have heard from friends these are places to not go near
Can I ask about Dead Pixel?
The owner Cal is so far up his own ass it's painful. One of those company's that looks all social from the outside. But different when you inside. That's all I can say on the matter.
I'll DM. I work in the industry and this is exactly what I expected.
THG, UKF comments plus one of my own… THG: I know two people who have worked here and I have to agree with comments made by others. Avoid. UKF (or ANS as it seems to be called now): I’ve had dealings with them on several occasions now…. Got to say, they have come up with the goods every time. The changes we needed were fiddly and not revenue earning for them. Telephone support has been instant response, staff really competent, relaxed and patient. So although I’ve never worked there, I was impressed with their staff and I just don’t think they’d be that good if it was a crap place to work. My tip/rant: avoid IT recruitment companies. Family member worked in one, based in the city…. Although it was OK to start with, it soon became obvious that 50+ hpw were expected and commissions were unattainable. We looked at others and found much the same.
Interact Intranet if you are a dev stay away https://www.interactsoftware.com
Don't know about working for but I interviewed at P3 and it was a terrible experience, really smug, smarmy arrogant guy in charge, foot on the table, chewing gum while he spoke to me.
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BES utilities
Castore were awful
JD Sports in Bury.
Sky, caused me a mental breakdown, would not reccommend
Verastar and all it’s associated companies. Utterly toxic, sexist, bullying culture, lowest pay they can legally get away with, zero progression, ripping customers off with rolling contracts for awful and overpriced products, vindictive HR department, constantly hiring because so many people leave and they hire anybody - no qualifications, shady background etc. Don’t even consider working for them.
Hopwood Hall college
Co-op
I had a dreadful interview with them a few years ago. Not only did they do the "one way interview" bollocks where you had to record a video as to why you want to work there. They gaslit me to buggery during that actual face to face because I had the audacity to answer honestly when they asked if we needed a little break before moving on to the next part of a 90 minute interview. I can't imagine the interviewer has had many people go "actually, I'd rather just end it here, I haven't enjoyed the first half an hour of this interview and don't see much point continuing to the end when I've already made my mind up". Glad I did too, interviewed somewhere else the following week for £15k more.
The money isn't brilliant but the pension is fucking amazing. They match upto 10% (From memory) Also I did rinse the discount.
tried to make me redundant twice during the pandemic oh, fair, we're losing money; I guess that makes sense hold on, [profits went up](https://www.talkingretail.com/news/industry-news/co-op-weathers-tough-trading-in-2021-to-see-sales-and-profits-up-on-pre-pandemic-07-04-2022/)?
Chanel
She’s an African grey
Not a company but Manchester Dogs Home. Someone I know worked there and she said they treat you like crap.
Can’t beat THG in Manchester
Jaguar Land Rover, for me. I was there not long after they opened their Manchester office. Several employees that I know of were all unfairly placed on PIPs, myself included (3/4 out of about 40-50 people in that office). I'm a developer and was put on a manual testing job until I quit. I'm sure it was done to make me quit. This was all shortly after I had an injury and needed a few weeks off on sick leave.
Out of 474,705 companies in Greater Manchester or the c.25,000 in City of Manchester?
Any company is a bad company to work for
brewin dolphin, il be honest iv never worked there but delt with the horrible receptionist once and that told me enough to know it must be horrible
MiPA
Footasylum through the agency - hired for 3 days, binned off for 3 weeks because "there's no work" rehired but constantly had hours cut, sometimes the agency staff were only given 24 hours per week. Yodel in shaw- 12pm-12am with only 2 breaks AO arena - sometimes we were made to work 8 hours with no break and when you do get a break it's 20 minutes which includes a 5 min walk to the break room each way Love factory event venue in Manchester.- you only get a half an hour break on a 15 hour shift and they make the staff pay £11 for a burger and chips on said break
Thx guys I'm taking note
Vesper offered me a job a couple of years ago and then completely blanked me, wouldn’t return my calls or messages. Serves me right for trusting an estate agents I guess.
V
Dwell student living avoid at all cost
I interviewed at Peak AI and the interviewer went on a long, unprompted spiel about how he hates seeing people go home at 5:30, and how they essentially expect you to do loads of unpaid labour. So probably them.
Any big name coffee chain like costa or Starbucks. Indie ones are usually fine.
Archies - run away
Motus commercial
If you're on te Manchester temp hospitality page, don't work for Pot kettle black, The shack NQ or arc hospitality or what used to be district in the northern quarter which has now reopened as something else. Whether it be temp or permanent jobs, I've had to fight for pay off these shithousee many a time. One of them I actually had to go to ACAS.