Ranting in a company I barely tolerate
This agency is bad at content creation. Their long-term content writer often falls prey to misinformation and misunderstand pertinent points in clients' communication. They don't do creative brainstorming, expecting content writers to just churn out content similar to the top 10 results on Google without enough care for the readers. They rarely, if ever, try to be creative in their content. They rarely communicate the nuances between keywords that sound similar, and they keep using technical reasons such as different search results for similar keywords, rather than considering the implications for user intent. Over-reliance on tools like SurferSEO for content creation. The SEO guy is always hardpressed to reach a compromise with content writers. It always takes a lot of pushback when inquiring about overlapping keywords, and I sure will hear some offensive words from him.
They may be qualified to do SEO and other optimizations but they value the search engines more than the users. Except the boss, they never ever want to go the extra miles. They do not know how lucky they are working mainly in the Vietnamese environment where internet users have low standards for web content.
Person A: Terrible communication and disrespect for both colleagues and clients – say offensive words when I question the necessity of a task – favour the data more than the user – doesn't value my opinions – Does not communicate the tasks clearly (revising existing content is different from writing fresh content, and yet, only says it when I try to clarify the tasks). – lack of professional conduct: answers personal calls loudly, swears a lot, and makes rude noises in the office – columns in Excel files aren't labelled clearly – creates many grounds for misunderstandings and mistakes.
Person B: rude, loud, and often tactless – talk over a conversation she is not involved in just to get some information that is not urgent – talk over the boss when he is trying to explain certain things to the whole company – laughs too loudly – makes tactless jokes to another employee who doesn't seem to mind but it spoils the environment – answers personal calls loudly in the office, rarely keeps her voice down or walks outside the office for personal calls. – lack professional experience: doesn't recognize common corporate terms, struggles to make sense of shared Excel files in English. – masks her lack of understanding with complaints: when she doesn't know something, she complains loudly that it is hard to understand, it's not made clear to her, or it cannot be done. – learn from mistakes very slowly – often has to revise her content because of her lack of care in writing them. – writes formulaic content with a forceful tone and often misses the main points in client communication.
Both of them have known a long-term colleague for years so they feel they have the upper hand in what happens in the office. They all play betting card games loudly for 1.5 hour during lunch break and after work. When playing they take up space in a small office.
The boss seems to be okay with this. He is unable to ensure respect in the workplace even if he wants to. Lack of a HR department or any oversight on employees' conduct so they can be as rude as they want.
They don't actively involve me by sharing pertinent information about projects. They are not open or creative despite being a startup. Overall, they really don't CARE much for the clients. It's disconcerting for me because we are in a service industry, and the boss actually believes, or claims to care for the clients. The hypocrisy is through the roof.
They lost 3 major clients due to failure to reach KPIs and failure to provide professional quality services. Those clients all requested content creation. They managed to keep clients in other services. They are good at technical stuff but not the creative stuff, and they don't allow, or don't know how to enable creativity to become their strength.
This is not a good place for me. I NEED to leave at the end of the contract even if I won't have found any job by then.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>< Written by someone whose life is transformed by Pluto transits to her 6-planet stellium in the 12th house. Now in 2023, she's bracing for transiting Pluto to conjunct her Venus and AC.