S2E20: Reading Glassdoor Reviews with Shannon: Shining a Light on Job Satisfaction

Ever wondered about the grit and grind behind the glossy doors of the corporate world? We crack that shell wide open in this enlightening episode featuring our fantastic guest, Shannon. We shed light on her positive experiences as an optometrist and contrast it with some jaw-dropping Glassdoor reviews. Uncover the hidden realities of working at fast-food giants McDonald's and Starbucks, diving into long hours, demanding customers, and high staff turnover rates.

Do you remember the last time you felt heard and valued at work? We navigate through the tumultuous waves of corporate culture, emphasizing the importance of good management and its undeniable impact on employee satisfaction. We offer a humorous break with a McDonald's employee's love for 'burgers' and a Starbucks worker's critique of their less-than-stellar boss. Then, we dive headfirst into the world of PWC New Zealand and Cisco. 

As we wrap up, we transport you into the intriguing realm of optometry with fascinating discussions surrounding job responsibilities, training, and potential stressors. Curious about the w

Welcome to Season 2, where we embark on authentic and unfiltered conversations about life, relationships, society, and more. Our opinions are solely our own and don't represent professional advice. It's just our perspective, so form your conclusions. Heads up, this podcast may contain adult content and explicit language. Let's dive in!
 
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:43

Well, we have a new guest today. I'm very excited. We tapped in because Gina has gone on vacation and we have slacked off this season and we totally forgot that we had another episode to record, so I have tapped in my amazing neighbour, shannon. Do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself? Hi, yeah, a little bit about myself.

Speaker 1: 1:08

I don't know that I have a role in the toxic work place environment podcast communications, but I do find people humorous and funny. I enjoy people interacting with people. Yeah, so I'm an optometrist, and we don't really tend to work in big companies. We tend to work in small companies, so we still have toxic environments, but not maybe not as exciting as some other things you come across. I feel like your work environment, though, has been really positive, like you've had really positive leaders, really positive mentors. You've had a really positive experience getting into your career. Yeah, I've had lots of really positive mentors, actually, the whole way through. Even when the environment might not be the most inspiring, there's always been somebody or a few people who you can take some gems away from, who you learn from. For my work environment, the moment is really positive. The whole team is really great. So, yeah, which is a total juxtaposition of the conversation we're going to have today. Yeah, let's read some of the comments. So today, what we're going to do is we are going to go through some of the glass door reviews of businesses, and I've been trolling trolling the internet looking for some of the best reviews I could find.

Speaker 1: 2:23

But before we get started, as well, I also had a question have you ever been to a Christmas party where someone has gotten so horrifically drunk? Okay, have you ever been to any work Christmas parties where someone's gotten horrifically drunk? No, actually, none of my work Christmas parties have ever had anyone drinking to a level that was inappropriate. Or maybe it was me and that's why I don't know. Oh my God, that's hilarious. I know I fell in a Christmas tree once. That's spectacular. Someone had to pull me up by the feet. I had to like drag me out of the Christmas tree. I think that helped my Christmas stealing, my Christmas decorations, stealing issues but yeah, you could sneak something while you were in the tree.

Speaker 1: 3:09

Well, that was the reason I was in the tree. About weddings and inappropriate wedding drunken mistakes.

Speaker 2: 3:16

Hey those people work.

Speaker 1: 3:17

Yeah, that's true, but it's not a work environment. No, Because I always get worried at Christmas time that someone's going to just cause mayhem and then just cause like some sort of inappropriate HR to bark, or it probably does happen quite a bit, I'm sure they often one of the local bars here. Advertisers, you've made a mistake. You make some mistakes in your Christmas party. Don't let the venue be one of them.

Speaker 1: 3:43

Oh, yeah, so I guess it is quite common for people to be inappropriate at their Christmas party. Because it's such a stressful time of year, it's not surprising that people Let loose. Let loose, let their hair down, maybe drink more than they planned on. Yeah, yeah, because we had our work Christmas party last week and there were definitely a couple of sourced individuals. I wouldn't say to a point that I was concerned, but there was a couple that had been sourcing it back. No, ours was very sedate and mature, reserved. Yeah, maybe we should all become Optometrists. I peoples I don't think it's all optometrists, I think it's just the unique blend of people I work with.

Speaker 2: 4:27

So lucky.

Speaker 1: 4:28

Jeez. We might go out for drinks at other times, when there's maybe not the boss around and a little bit more relaxed. Then You've got to pick your time. Fair enough, all right, so getting into our reviews, all right, would you like to read the first one? This is for McDonald's. Please tell us what's star McDonald's got. So this is a crew member who's worked for McDonald's. They have rated McDonald's as an employer with one star out of five, one out of five, and has titled their comment depression job. This is in New Zealand too. Oh no, the pros. The pros of this job is it's a clinical depression factory, not worth. That doesn't quite read grammatically clear, but I'm guessing it's saying if you wanted to have depression.

Speaker 1: 5:21

It's a great per-face job. It's nice to go to get depression. The cons death, pain, suffering, exhaustion, yikes, oh that's. And what their advice, their advice for management? So this staff member thinks the management, their advice, is to close that particular McDonald's. I'm curious now what is happening in the Dunedin Otago McDonald's. Well, if it's the one on the main street George Street, I think it's the main street it used to be a very popular hangout as a student and the last time I went would have been about eight years ago and it was. They were trying very hard to keep it clean but it was horrible it was. We were all the people who were kind of underage, but how drunk go.

Speaker 2: 6:03

Oh our.

Speaker 1: 6:04

Christmas party goers, but for not work reasons, but for party reasons. All right, what have we got next? This is all McDonald's. This is all McDonald's at the minute, all this year. Oh, wow, that's a bit sad. Oh boy, okay, here we go, hit us up with this one. So this crew member has also rated their employer, mcdonald's, with one out of five stars. The pros to working at this particular branch is an Auckland branch None, none, none, none, none, oh, and another none. And the cons are everything, everything, everything, everything, everything, and another everything. Oh, dear oh Lord, and his advice, or his I just see how assume it's male. This crew member's advice to management is to quit. Oh yikes, that is. It's a bit presing, though it's a bit concerning, that this is what's happening at McDonald's just in New Zealand. I've never worked in McDonald's. I can see, I could see it would be quite stressful. There's a lot of pressure, time pressure to get things.

Speaker 1: 7:06

Oh for sure Don't they have like a 30 second window that you can deliver stuff on? I'm not sure. I'm not sure If it's an environment like the Dunedin one, when there were so many drunken people, it would not be satisfying at all. I'm sure you give your order to people and they go. That's not what I ordered. Well, that and the fact that everybody loves a Nuggy. And if you're not getting your Nuggy, then who are?

Speaker 2: 7:26

you.

Speaker 1: 7:27

Who are you? All right, let's have a look what we have in here. Can we go and give a positive one? Can we find a positive one for McDonald's to you know? Even it out, oh sure.

Speaker 1: 7:35

This is why my work environment is so good. We balance them. Oh Lord, okay, we're going to go with the highest rating. All right, let's not say it's also one out of five. The highest rating is one out of five. No, it's a five. Okay, let's have a look, let's find one. Here we go. Okay, so this is a shift supervisor. So was the other five stars. So obviously, once you get higher at the ranks, it's a better environment to work in. The pros are many hours available for me to work, so if you're a workaholic, you can get lots of hours Cons. I couldn't change my shift schedule.

Speaker 2: 8:12

Hmm.

Speaker 1: 8:14

Okay, maybe there's. Oh, here we go. Ah, this is one of the chefs at McDonald's Five stars. Can you call them chefs, short order cooks? You know what? How about a Lego builder? Oh, yeah, yeah, a Lego a.

Speaker 2: 8:30

Lego builder.

Speaker 1: 8:32

That's got a nice ring to it. Pros food is good and staff are nice. Cons I ate too much at times. I love how he's. Why are we calling them he's?

Speaker 2: 8:44

I don't know.

Speaker 1: 8:45

I love how they have referred to it as a busy place. Or is it a misspelling and they mean busy place To share Food is good and staff are nice.

Speaker 1: 8:54

Oh boy, this might be one of my tops. Here's a five star for you. Yeah, so this cashier says this was the title. Is the comment best week of my life? Does that make me only stay there for a week, and I gave him a five star rating. The pros are discounts on burgers, and the other pro is the smell of burgers. The cons, though, are people get mad at burger. Nothing, just doesn't say anything. People get mad at burger. Advice to management Nothing. I love burger. I feel like it's talking to Cookie Monster. I love burger.

Speaker 2: 9:31

People love burger.

Speaker 1: 9:32

People get mad at burger. Okay, what have we got here? Let's finance manager. I feel like we need to find out. Here we go. Crew member oh yeah, nice working environment with good benefits. Cons can be busy at times and sometimes needs a lot of cleaning. That seems reasonable. Seems like a reasonable review. Anonymous employee unique Cons not McDonald's specifically, but the area. There's a lot of rude customers in the area I worked in In Rolleston. Yeah, oh, rolleston, what are you doing with your lives? Oh, there's a crew trainer. That's quite it. Yeah, pros are. It's cool to work there and got heaps of friends. Cons is it's lame when managers are lame. Yeah, it's universal. I guess I feel like that's really unconstructive feedback. Yeah, lame when managers are lame. Maybe no-transcript, maybe not assessing life based on lameness, I feel like, is a good start. Does sound, though, that a lot of the cons are that it gets really busy and the customers are rude. So I think it's our fault. I haven't been to McDonald's in a long time, but oh it's definitely mine.

Speaker 1: 10:45

I was there this morning. I got coffee. I was very polite always.

Speaker 1: 10:49

Maybe it's customers create bad environments for staff. I wonder if that's a thing. What seems to be quite a common thing with them. What is another service delivery place? Not food though. Oh food, because there's Starbucks. Okay, let's see what is Starbucks. Should we go high ratings or low ratings? Starbucks got 3.6 star average. That's pretty high. What was McDonald's? I think it was 3.5. So a little bit lower. Okay, let's go with most. This is just most popular. Really, it's a place to work Okay. Competitive pay, sense of community with peers, good perks it's a very articulate comment. Cons lots of churn. That time is coming and going. So high staff turnover, yeah, ooh, okay, that's now kind of heading into a not great space. That's a two star review we've got.

Speaker 1: 11:42

Yeah, and this one says the boss was not in leader was the title of their comment. The pros, the flexible hours are good for students, but not their wellbeing. Interesting Cons. The boss only cared about themselves and the company and not the staff. When people were off sick with a vomiting bug, they still forced them to come to work because they were desperate and bribed the staff with KFC. I could be bribed with KFC, yeah, but KFC could just make the stomach problems worse. Mind you, it's bribed people with food. I guess a free meal is important. That was only a few months ago, it was September. I hope Starbucks took that on board. So hours are constantly getting reduced, lack of staff and can be busy with disgruntled customers. What's getting disgruntled about? It's coffee Wait times. Oh, two shake People getting your order wrong, getting snarky because they get your name wrong, please. Isn't that the point? I think it's actually why a lot of people go to see what night, yeah?

Speaker 2: 13:12

re-created name.

Speaker 1: 13:13

It's like those online things where you press a button and you go. Your porn star name is your Starbucks name is Lulu. Lulu, do you get anything weird when you, if you go to Starbucks? I know, no, I've never heard anything weird. I've had my name spelled with a K a couple of times N-I-K-O-L-A Really Nicola with a K, yeah, and C-H quite often with a C-H, because that's how you spell Nicholas, oh, okay. So then I'm like Nichola, I'm not a spider. Do they then read it as Nichola? No, they read it as Nicola, oh, okay, which is bizarre, but anyway, funny. Yeah, I kind of now want to go and mumble my name and see what I come up with. Nothing still beats Knob Hall. Nothing beats.

Speaker 2: 14:01

Knob Hall.

Speaker 1: 14:02

You got a great name. Good times, All right. What else? Okay, so let's think about any. Are there any other businesses you'd be interested to know about? Oh, not off the top of my head. Oh, Subway.

Speaker 1: 14:22

We go to Subway a lot, you do. We once ordered on an app A ham, a foot long ham, and so when you click on it, you click based on the protein that you're choosing. So you click on ham 12 inch and then you choose the bread, et cetera. It turned out with no ham, Just cheese and bread. I mean, my child doesn't have the most developed taste buds, but just imagine ordering a Subway with just bread and cheese. There must be people who do it. But I thought, oh, come on, Where's the ham? That's pretty bad. They've got 20,000 reviews. Does good old Subway 3.4. They're lower than McDonald's. Oh boy, what have we got? August Okay. Auckland Five stars Pros good benefits and training programs.

Speaker 1: 15:08

Cons not much career growth for future. Fair, that's fair. Yeah, oh, I like this. Good first job A sandwich artist I love how they're called a sandwich artist. Four out of five stars Pros super helpful. Good first job. Cons very stressful when it got busy. Oh, fair enough. Okay, Anonymous employee Good if you're a student, Cons not great to work full time. Oh, okay. Store manager says the pros are. It's not a hard job, Cons, find people to work full time shifts. Oh, and then you've got the person just above this thing. It's not great to work full time.

Speaker 1: 15:45

Interesting, are they in the same place? No, what does that mean? Full time shifts, like a whole shift of, say, eight hours, that they find it difficult to find someone to do eight hours, or maybe full time, as in 40 hours. Interesting, oh jeez, this one's not ideal. Two stars, october, also Dunedin, lord, all my what's happening? I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, oh Lord all my what is happening.

Speaker 1: 16:07

It's just student for, though Free food, good team culture Well, that's a really good start. Cons, bad management, poor pay rate and rude customers. But that's pretty awesome that you can have a good team culture even though you've got bad management. That means you're making the most of your time at work hanging out with your mates. Or just, yeah, my time at Subway. I feel like that is an essay, but it is not Three stars.

Speaker 1: 16:33

My time at Subway pros friendly staff management and work colleagues. Cons does get very busy when working night shifts. Advice to management More people need to be available during shifts. How is this a three star review? That feels like a good. Yeah, I feel like that's a five star. And also, my time at Subway is like the start of like war and peace. My time at Subway your time sounded lovely, dearie, my cattle, interesting. Okay, what else forgot? Well, mount Eden what do you know? What does Mount Eden say, shannon? Well, this sandwich artist says the pros of working at the Mount Eden Subway is great. Boss, lots of things to learn. Independent, amazing Cons, sometimes stressful Closing store can often lead to overtime. If there is a lot of customers Makes sense, yeah, and that doesn't kind of expect that in any retail based job you can't my best job it was like a retail based job.

Speaker 1: 17:32

I used to work at a, like a um, it was like a mall, like a shop in a mall, and the guy was absolutely wackadoodle If he's listening to this, you are absolutely wackadoodle. Such a nice guy though, like really lovely guy, but he was a little loopy and I remember like the minute like customers were your first thing yeah Right, they're the most important. So having you know you're closing up the shop and customer walks in and you're just like you have to see them, it's like, oh, my goodness, let me find you the perfect time for your shirt for a wedding that you're going to tomorrow. Of course I can. Yes, let me tie it for you and then you don't even have to tie it tomorrow.

Speaker 2: 18:10

You almost feel like in a mall, though that people know that everybody's going to close at the same time so you try, then like for sure yeah, oh for sure?

Speaker 1: 18:19

Um, oh okay, this was in May 2023. But they're actually somebody who worked there in 2016. I've given them five stars, though they said in 2016, it was a good place to work. Pro's manager at the time was really nice, had really good cheese aioli toast. You could probably buy me with cheese aioli toast. To be fair, cons there are no cons. It was fine.

Speaker 2: 18:45

How interesting. Why have we been?

Speaker 1: 18:47

doing this. How interesting. Why have we waited from 2016 to 2023 to leave a review? Possibly didn't know Glassdoor existed then Did you know Glassdoor?

Speaker 2: 18:57

existed. No, I learned that today.

Speaker 1: 18:58

Did you know we're going to be talking about Glassdoors? No, no. When you sent me the message, I presumed it was some sort of terminology that business people knew about, and then, when you said it to me just now, by place, I thought you were talking about your shower Glassdoor issues.

Speaker 1: 19:13

Which I am legitimately having an issue with. That is true. I thought that was great. I don't know that I really need to be part of that conversation. Thank you. They're sort of like a 0.5 millimeter line in that stupid glass door, but not the same glass door as these reviews.

Speaker 1: 19:36

All right, what else have we got? What else comes up when we click here? We've got a Walmart. What's up? Chipotle, it's food, fast food in the States. Shame.

Speaker 1: 19:44

I feel like that would not be a fun time either. But we should go away from people who Should we try? Okay, should we try someone mean Like a Deloitte, a PWC, an EY? It's not that they're mean, it's just that we know that can be a little tough on their staff. High challenge yeah, what is it Challenging? High expectations, high expectations, but also in a much different environment too. Fast food, fast food yeah, oh for sure. Okay, so we're going in for PWC. I actually know someone that works at PWC. Yeah, really, you know what? I've become lovely friends on LinkedIn and is very supportive of the stuff that I do on LinkedIn. Oh, cool, yeah, very kind. Pwc Child Okay, this is just recent.

Speaker 1: 20:33

5th of December 2023. So they're a consultant. They're still a current employee. They say, the pros of working at PWC is that good progression, both in terms of skills and salary, cons stress. While there is steady progression from intern to partner, actual job training is limited. I managed to get hired in a job I don't have experience in and got no training or help. I was just expected to know how to do things. Advice to management you could get more done by actually upskilling your juniors. That's fair. Yeah, that is fair. Three stars out of five, it's pretty. It's not too bad. But what does PWC Child mean, I wonder, if it just means they're a junior? Oh, maybe. Well, this is good. Good people and flexibility. Weak pay. I wouldn't have expected that. I would have been good to Deloitte and EY.

Speaker 1: 21:24

I would Okay, pros people will invest in you. Flexible working. Cons pay isn't great. Busy season can be brutal. Interesting that this person says people will invest in you, but it sounds like the previous person. There wasn't a lot of training.

Speaker 2: 21:41

I would invest in his training.

Speaker 1: 21:43

Same, and this is really recent. This is 11th of December. But somebody higher upscale who looks like they're a manager of some sort yeah, All right. What does that cat say?

Speaker 2: 21:55

Meow.

Speaker 1: 21:56

Oh, we got a cat. I love it. All right. So we've got a two star here from an anonymous employee, former in Auckland, second of November, so not that long ago. Pros are nice office building and lots of snacks. Yeah, buy people with food. This is right up our alley. Cons toxic culture due to many senior leaders who are not authentic or genuine. Unfortunately, you soon realize that after starting employment with PWC New Zealand, that the reality doesn't live up to the brutal facade, beautiful facade.

Speaker 1: 22:30

Oh sorry, beautiful facade. I've got brutal in my brain. Beautiful facade. This results in high turnover across the firm. Nice to management, actually live up to the firm's values, treat people well and be genuine. Oh so high turnover of staff. I wonder what the turnover is. I don't know. All right, oh, two star review. 21st of November, wellington. Oh, it's close to home.

Speaker 1: 22:55

Yikes, pros, fun team, free breakfast, slash coffee. Good stepping stone. Do you think that means there's good stepping stones within the business or it's a good place to start? I'd say it's a good stepping stone to start and then get a better job.

Speaker 1: 23:10

Cons, pay, workload, competitive, fast pace. Now, there's no full stop there, so I'm not sure if that means the workload is competitive. Oh right, okay, we should have clicked the button first. It was bullet pointed essentially. So all these things are cons. Yikes, pay workload, competitive and fast pace. That sounds all we've got for this was given them four stars. They're an auditor in Auckland. They say the pros are good, team spirit, all around Cons, some time with no work. They didn't arrange training. I don't know what that means.

Speaker 1: 23:48

People, when you're one leaving a review, for the love of sweet heavens, please use some full stop, maybe even like Grammarly could help, you know, spitballing suggestions on how to make your review seem legitimate. I feel like this is like a bit of pull over here hard to make partner and they were a director, which means the next step would have been what? Associate director and then partner. I'm not really sure how that works. It's like a military the pros are high performing teams and nice people. The cons are difficult to make partner not many women. Now does that mean this is a guy who wishes there were more women in the workplace to hit on? This is a woman who says it's difficult to make partner because they are a woman? Now, that's really interesting because PWC well, I'm thinking about the directors that I know, and most of them are guys, but I feel like they've got a very strong diversity and inclusiveness thing.

Speaker 1: 24:53

You're not sure I'm not aware of Wait let's have a look. I feel like they do. I feel like they've got a really strong one PWC, diversity and inclusion let's just do that. I'm always a bit sus when people make it really clear vocally that they diverse and inclusive but the reality of actually being in that workplace? Do they include all levels that need to?

Speaker 1: 25:24

be yourself because no one else can All right. A commitment to diversity and inclusion. Global woman what does he for? She mean, every guy is a female. Interesting. We're also profound commitment to creating a safe, welcoming, inclusive workplace for employees with diverse gender identity, sexual orientation. Every day, our LGBTQ group shine members shine the light on important issues in society and we work hard to make our culture stronger. I feel like so all of the workers then put on on their LGBTQ team oh, you've got to identify the bad stuff. Important issues in society. So it's literally reliant on the. It seems strange that, but there are. You know, anyone can bring shine light on important issues in society. I think so, but I wonder if that's just poorly written. That feels like it's poorly written. Yeah, interesting.

Speaker 1: 26:24

Our staff members benefit from flexible working arrangements great, giving them the opportunity and responsibility to excel in a way that best suits them. I almost want I almost want to ring someone I know from PWC and be like okay, so do you like? Is this a thing? No, I have this really bad habit of all my friends who work in large corporates, businesses like this, or in government departments I've got no memory of where they work Like you just tell me, pwc and I go okay, some of the big businesses, and then I forget about it. I'm not very good at remembering those. It's quite entertaining. All right, hold on, let's go. Careers what do we get? What do we get? What do we get when we join up for PWC? Because I feel like they got the money first. Free breakfast is pretty.

Speaker 2: 27:07

Apparently.

Speaker 1: 27:10

Where does it tell us what our benefits are? Why is there no button for benefits? Give us the benefits. We want snacks. I want the snacks. Maybe it's departmental. All right, lord. Okay, we could be here all day looking for jobs. Oh no, you know what? I'll just press the search button without anything in it. Let's see what it comes up. You didn't put snacks in. I should have.

Speaker 2: 27:36

What if we all?

Speaker 1: 27:37

search for all jobs at snack. What was that button that left director? I can't remember. All right, oh, yes, the director, because you said the next step could be something, something. And then partner yeah, all right, I love that they're using like Taomari in their concepts here. I love this for them. All right. Skills and experience? Sure, nothing about highlights, here we go. Highlights of working at PWC, unrivaled level of access to industry expertise Okay, both locally and through our wider global network. I can feel like that. Dress for your day, what does that mean? And flex your schedule in alignment with team and client needs. Well, that will mean if you're not customer facing, you can dress casually. I'd say that's what that means. So dress for your day. So if you've got a day of meetings that are meeting people outside the business, you could be casual.

Speaker 2: 28:32

Inclusive 18 weeks.

Speaker 1: 28:34

Paid parental leave policy for all parents. Okay, isn't the current 26? I'm out of date with that one. Sorry, yeah, same I'm like. But also, why is this? Not everybody is interested in having children? I feel like that's still a highlight for some people. It is a highlight Enhanced leave capabilities and opportunities to purchase additional leave and two staff recognition days available each year. Paid volunteer days available through a PWC foundation. Digital upskilling throughout digital economy. That means you have to work up skill, but only online. Or is it how to use your computer?

Speaker 1: 29:15

Hmm seems to be patronizing. I don't love that. You think there'll be a few more Like where's three snacks listed? Yeah, I get them.

Speaker 2: 29:26

Or is that?

Speaker 1: 29:26

like per site. I reckon that'll be per department. It's definitely not Wellington, apparently. Would you want to be considered a bit tacky to put that on their website?

Speaker 2: 29:37

Or I could be there. Give me a free meal.

Speaker 1: 29:41

I'm there like a bee. Yeah, probably it's quite a bonus. Maybe, if you advertise it, does that mean people might assume it's the snacks are enough to qualify for a whole meal? Well, they do that at Weta, where they give them staff meals. Yeah, but Weta sometimes they work 45 hours in one day. No sleep, no leave in the premises for food Also a valid point. We did that episode a couple of weeks ago on.

Speaker 1: 30:11

Weta, where it was pretty brutal. Yeah, I feel like if you're going to give away that much free food, it's partly because you're expecting them not to leave to go eat. But anyway, yeah, snacks are good. Yeah, I'm so sad about that one. Where were they? Maybe they were Auckland. It is interesting how often free food comes into the benefit. So it was a free breakfast and coffee. Wynton for the analyst. Free coffee is a big thing in Wynton. I hope it's good coffee.

Speaker 2: 30:40

Oh, would it be.

Speaker 1: 30:41

Better be barista coffee, would it be? Could be it's possible, or is it just you're going to find the barista at the work place?

Speaker 2: 30:49

We have free coffee at my work and there's a machine there.

Speaker 1: 30:52

It's a full-on barista coffee machine, but I have to be the barista, not for everyone else, I just want coffee. I have to make it my way. Is it good coffee though? Yeah. Anyway, we've got an espresso machine, which is amazing coffee.

Speaker 2: 31:04

Yeah well, I'm so amazed at coffee.

Speaker 1: 31:07

People who like coffee love it. It was me on the chair, oh no, the barista coffee is yum. I can't remember what coffee we get. I recognise the label Caramu, is it? No, the one with the guy with the fez on his head? Is that Kaross?

Speaker 2: 31:22

or oh Havama no.

Speaker 1: 31:25

No, it's alright, We'll figure it out. I know which one you're talking about, though I can see it in my mind. Alright, but you would think, working for a big company like that, a big corporate company like that, there'd be more pros than just free food, you think it would be a career advantage.

Speaker 1: 31:39

Now that I have Googles open, let's go with. What's it Company of the year to work for? Alright. Best companies to work for yeah, we'll go for the first one, Cisco. It's not going to help us much. We don't know who Cisco is.

Speaker 2: 32:02

I know you Cisco.

Speaker 1: 32:04

It's like an IT company Cisco, cisco Worldwide no, no, boo, boo, boo Boo. That was my. I'm not giving up my day job as a rapper, alright. So Cisco, okay, let's have a look here. Most popular? So we've got 23rd of October, feb Alright. We've got customer support, technical solutions specialist. We've got five star here.

Speaker 1: 32:37

Sometimes unrealistic targets set by people with little local market knowledge. Okay, sounds like a very fair point. Fair point. No one says free food. Yet, please, where is that free food? No snacks. Reward for overachievements so overwork, I don't know, maybe there's someone to do in their own horn. Senior partner, account manager Good compensation. Reward for overachievements that's a weird way to write it. Lots of admin overhead, constantly bombarded with corporate and business unit messaging Sometimes lacks cohesion, but he's still going in with five stars. Why are they all men in our minds? I think it might be the boring plain display. Are you saying men are boring with plain displays? I'm not sad, they're all just black and white. There's no, I don't know. There's no description. No, okay, great company Cons. Oh, what's MNC? I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 33:48

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. So little pedantic and rigid in process at times. Who knows what an MNC is, something engineering that the engineers think everybody knows. I had a virtual start and primarily still virtual. Oh, it's a current employee. Oh shit, I joined in 2020, but with that said, one great culture helpful people. Most people will rely on your messages, regardless of how high they are. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't read Benefits Ultra cave 4,000.

Speaker 2: 34:30

What is?

Speaker 1: 34:31

that. Is that like an actual insurance policy? Health insurance, I think? Is it not just Southern Cross for everybody? Oh, I might be, I don't know. I think it's like the top. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know either. Pay rate for a grant Great Would not recommend, but gives them a five star rating. Someone doesn't know how to use the app. Lord Almighty Opportunities to go from the ground up. New business at the beginning of its life, oh, 2020. Weird, okay.

Speaker 1: 35:48

This is the old now, it's not a 2021. Yikes, 2015. These are all New Zealand based. This one's San Jose. The grass isn't always greener. No, the grass is green where you water it. True, so it might be green at the neighbour's fence, but that's because he's watering his grass. Are you watering your grass? Get back on your grass and water it. Tend to your grass.

Speaker 1: 36:17

I did say they waited a year before leaving the company. Oh, there's a whole essay. I regret pressing the button now. I worked there for three years. When they left, they waited a year before they posted this review. Wow, networking. And now cloud Okay, cons Can be a machine. Hang on, go back to the grass is greener, because it sounds like they thought the grass is greener so they wanted to wait for a year before they decided to make comments about the company that left. Oh, benefit match, okay, benefits. I want to return. I would really like to return. Interesting.

Speaker 1: 37:02

If you don't like where you are in Cisco or what you're working on, give it six months because you will likely be reorganized. Oh, that's a con. Well, it's sometimes necessarily a little to realign the company to meet competitive threats or market demands. Reorganizing the company once a year is excessive, that's true. That is true. You would be exhausted, yeah, and stressed. Failing, you might lose your job all the time. Change, fatigue, advice to management Okay, I was part of three different and distinct business units.

Speaker 1: 37:40

I enjoyed working for each of them and found I was able to contribute value in every role I had. What was painfully obvious to me was that the company is, or was, going through a bit of an identity crisis Consumer versus no customer, social media versus no social media, aws like cloud offering or Cisco cloud offering. So that was consumer versus no consumer. Yeah, my advice to the leadership team is this we Cisco for life, are Cisco. We develop the standard for networking infrastructure and cloud. We are the industry leaders in our segment. We stand above and make no apologies for it Own being Cisco. We don't need to compete with Apple, facebook, google and Amazon. We don't chase our competitors, they chase us. And the company replied Holy shit, how come the company? Is this the first time we've seen them reply? Yeah, mcdonald's didn't reply. Mcdonald's doesn't give any shit. Thank you so much for a sincere review. We appreciate your feedback and hope you are pleased to see many of our we are Cisco initiatives.

Speaker 1: 38:57

Indeed, it can feel like Cisco frequently changes because it's part of our innovative culture. That sounds a little toxic to me. Innovative, so we're just going to change up our jobs every six months? Maybe it's something that they do. They solve once they hit this drive. Maybe we thank you for your time with us and wish you the best.

Speaker 1: 39:15

In summary, you're not coming back, bitch, just reading between the lines, I know you heard what it was. There's a reading between the lines here oh, bless their hearts, the paid time off is 20 days per year, but you're forced to use three to four days during mandatory holiday shutdown period. Three to four days, it's nothing. Metatourist shutdown periods, another essay. And they're often oh yeah, I was a six days More like. Some of the companies are closed for like all of January, damn girl. Okay, that's a bit ridiculous. They have a lot of unannounced layoffs or restructure. What score was this for scores? For score 98. Advice to management Don't call the days you're forced to take during the annual shutdown as paid time off, because pay time off implies that there is, it is the employee's benefit. I can see why people would get upset about that, but that's pretty standard. Yeah, it is pretty standard.

Speaker 1: 40:17

There's no point in business continuing to operate at full staff if it's not part of, if it's a super quiet time, much better to close it all down. Yeah, and the company replied that's so fascinating. This is very weird. Three weeks ago, when was this posted? Oh, november, november, and they posted almost immediately. Thank you for your candid review and for your six plus years at Cisco. We're happy to learn that you appreciate the culture, growth and opportunities and benefits, such as Cisco's time to give benefit. We value feedback in the pro, in the cons and advice to management sections. It helps us continuously evaluate and improve the employee experience.

Speaker 1: 41:02

So I think the definition of pay time off would be a government level. It would be a legal terminology, right? So it wouldn't be that one company would refer to everyone who says pay time off, they have enforced shutdown. Surely they are allowed to do that. What if all companies who have shutdown would still call it paid? I wonder what the legal, because so many companies do it. Maybe it is a thing that we're not supposed to do? No, it seems so Because I know. The only thing I know about please, in my very limited knowledge, is it's like a per minima. So if the law says you are assigned 10 days for sick leave, then you are assigned those 10 days of sick leave. You can't assign them to something else. So if the organization, for example, says to you you need to use one of those sick days for well-being or a massage day or a mental health day or whatever, you can decline because you need your 10 days minimum as per the law. So I wonder, because in New Zealand law you get, I think, three weeks minimum, four weeks minimum, 20 days minimum. I'm not actually sure it's an ocean. It's why I've never been on the toxic work culture workplace podcast before, because how is it then nothing that you like? You are just not in the toxic workspace at all. No see optometry. Often the clinical staff get a week extra annual leave compared to non-clinical staff. It's like a perk, I suppose. So a lot of practices I've worked at I just don't remember. I just accept it as the norm and hope I get extra annual leave at my next pay rise because I'd rather have more time off than more money. Yeah, this is phenomenal.

Speaker 1: 42:55

This is fascinating, seeing as though we've spent literally two seasons talking about awful places to work. We had one woman on where the woman her boss didn't pay her for like a year. Oh my gosh, how can you continue with that? But she kept getting strung along. And then we had one guy I think it was the episode we had last week where the guy started and no one knew he'd started. He just showed up at work and someone gave him a laptop and they were like okay, there we go. And he's like where's my manager? Like who's the people? Does anyone know I've started? I mean, he was there for like a week before they realized I had a whole week of induction. So the person who had the job before me would normally give me the week induction, but there wasn't any overlap and so the person that employed is a local optometrist. For a couple of weeks months then would work, see all the patients while I observed for a week. Yeah, it's insane.

Speaker 1: 43:55

I feel like this is it's not a technically difficult job because you've already got the skills, because you're already an optometrist. Yeah, it's fascinating Very well supported. I feel like we all need to become optometrists. Is this your plug for becoming an optometrist? I do think optometry is a fantastic career. I think everyone should do it, but not too many of you, because then you'll flood the system, and then my job will be to replace me, and then it'll be a toxic job. It will be because we will be fighting for the jobs. Oh, that would be awful. Optometrists fighting for jobs. Have you got a shortage in optometry? I?

Speaker 2: 44:31

don't know.

Speaker 1: 44:34

In some areas. Yes, so, like a lot of situations, as often the rural areas don't have access to optometrists. There's some situations where, as a business expands, they could use a part-time optometrist, but there aren't any around. There's only people looking for full-time jobs. No, it's not really a shortage. You could pretty much. If you went to Picky and where you wanted to work, you could have a job pretty quick. Oh, I think the last time I looked at the one of the recruiting emails there were five positions in Wellington. They were advertised. Optometrists often stop advertising that they have a role because they advertise for so long and nobody applies Damn. So yeah, I guess there is a shortage, but it's not necessarily spread around the country evenly. See, now I'm going to go onto the career's website here for a second which we're taking a diversion at Careers NZ and I'm curious to know what the because.

Speaker 1: 45:32

I feel like we're going to get everybody on this now. On what On?

Speaker 2: 45:36

optometry.

Speaker 1: 45:36

Yeah, it is a great job. It's a good job, if you like, the idea of a medical job, but not the a key stuff like blood Can we spell, even.

Speaker 1: 45:45

Yeah, I'm not going to spell it. Okay, dispensing optician. It's not quite an optometrist, it's a slightly different. It's the optometrist there we go. Okay, all right, optometrists, because you know, I clearly know so much about what you do. Optometrists examine client's eyes to diagnose and provide solutions for vision problems. They also diagnose, monitor and manage eye diseases such as cataracts. Is this true? Yes, I don't know that we I guess we do manage cataracts. Basically, we wait till they're bad enough and then we refer them to someone else to remove the cataracts.

Speaker 1: 46:19

Job opportunities it's got a good. Chances of getting a job as an optometrist are good. Due to shortage of people in the role yeah, that makes sense. Length of training five years of training expected or required. I would just say, do you have to do like a, like an internship afterwards? No, but you do a lot of clinical work while you're in the degree, so it's not just an academic degree, so I think it's a whole year. You're just patient based Damn. Your salary bands are also not sad. So you're coming out of uni one to two years experience and you're earning between 65 and 114K a year. I don't know about that because I don't hang out with a lot of new grads and also they're not about to tell me what they earn.

Speaker 1: 47:01

No, it's at a New Zealand website. Yes, it is Okay. Can I screenshot that? Yes, you can. Optometrist the three or more years experience can earn between 114 and 225,000 a year. There was a recent article done by some optometrists about the pay scale. I think that is skewed a little bit by business owners.

Speaker 1: 47:22

A lot of optometrists are also business owners. That makes sense. All right, I think. If you take out the business owners, that salary band drops significantly. Well, so, on this thing, it says you can't stuff around. So complete your five year bachelor of optometry, be registered with the optometrist and dispensing opticians board and hold a current annual practicing certificate. I feel like that's actually quite a lot of boxes to take. Oh, no, they kind of all come together as soon as you finish your degree. Oh, it's usually just an application, very short, not short application process, but being registered is pretty straightforward.

Speaker 1: 48:01

Can you do post grad stuff? You can, yes, you can do masters and PhD and it's a research space. I'm a specialist. No, you can't really. You can do a little special. You can specialise. For instance, there's you could do something called my OPA management, so then you can just start doing that. But if you wanted to have specific training, do training and something like ortho-keratology, so you can go and do an extra course overseas. Sometimes you can do it. What's it called when you do it? Online? Online learning, online learning, yeah, so there are different, different countries offer different training options and you can, you can and you can touch up and become somebody who can prescribe for glaucoma. I was, I'm too tired to think about this, and I was just. We were just going to read comments and now you're asking me about your job. But it's so fascinating because it's so not toxic. Well, it could be. It's just it depends what environment you're in. I suppose there's a lot of pressure in some, some businesses and some some business structures are a little bit different.

Speaker 1: 49:11

Do optometrists work in the hospitals. Yes, I feel like that would be stressful. Yes, that would be stressful, partly because I think a lot of them aren't recognised for their skills and perhaps aren't paid for their skills. And an optometrist who's got a lot of experience, especially one who's worked in the hospital, is worth their weight in gold and they can cut down the number of staff you need to support staff. They can almost triage for an ophthalmologist. So if you've got a good team going, you can really enhance, you can really just you can get through a lot of patients quickly with really good service and care if you've got an optometrist on your team. So they're really. They're really helpful in the hospital system. But they're not not all. You're not universally recognised for their value. Okay, that's fascinating. Well, thank you for that. I feel like we've just done like a tiki tour of Shannon's job.

Speaker 1: 50:00

Didn't you want to do your job when you were like two ten? I was two years of age when I decided I wanted to be an optometrist. Yeah, it's a bit geeky, it's not geeky. I was lucky. It was very lucky to have a very clear path. I wanted to be a rally car driver. How'd that go? I haven't been in a car with you, did not pan out. Do you still drive like you're a rally car?

Speaker 2: 50:21

driver? Absolutely not. I am a responsible adult.

Speaker 1: 50:24

So a rally car drivers. They're very responsible drivers, they're very skilled. They take safety very importantly. They do take safety importantly. I would be concerned, though, having a pilot with me, because they'd be like left and I'd be like turn right, oh okay, it would be so bad. We just say safety is really importantly. I think we're quite tired, maybe that's not the best. Safety importantly they take their safety very importantly. It's a very important job. So much job-sing. I watched a rally driver. He was doing the olive man thingy, he was doing the rally car one, and he almost had a car accident.

Speaker 2: 51:10

Almost.

Speaker 1: 51:11

And there was video and I was like, oh okay, and from the front, like from his box, and he's driving and he's you can see on his face he's just focused and his pilot's talking to him and something happens where he hits almost like a pothole and in the car nothing moves, but the outside camera looks like he's going to roll the whole car, but he pulls it back and I was just like um.

Speaker 1: 51:38

You keep saying pilot. I'm thinking I can't remember the actual word for the person who sits in the. I thought it was a pilot, no pilot, somebody who drives a plane.

Speaker 2: 51:46

No, they're also people.

Speaker 1: 51:49

they're also people that drive. Do you know that? They're also the people that drive ships home? That's a pilot, I'd say that's a captain.

Speaker 2: 51:58

All right, maybe I'll be honest.

Speaker 1: 52:00

No, no the captain is the guy who drives the ship, and then there is a guy called a pilot, oh, who takes it to harbour, who brings it into harbour, and then he outranks the captain, for that pilot. Is it called a pilot driver, though, or a pilot? Okay, hold on, is it?

Speaker 2: 52:16

a co-driver.

Speaker 1: 52:19

A co-driver. No, they've got another name because they're the person who holds the maps as well. A cartographer, no, really A co-driver in Rally Path, I should know. Navigator, a navigator? Oh, neither of us could pull that one. No, there was no. What's that word? Oh my god, oh, pace notes. I was like panic to note. I was like panic to note there.

Speaker 2: 52:42

I was like panicota. I was also like is that a panicota A?

Speaker 1: 52:46

co-driver's job is to navigate, commonly by reading off a set of pace notes to the driver Girl. You're going at pace, like how do you know when is a good time to read the notes? Are you reading them constantly? Oh shit, the left right. I mean right now, no left earlier. I'm so confused. What do the pace notes say, turn coming and what intensity of turn it is and what obstacles and things like that. But there's also they do it quite irregular, there's like almost a metronome way. They say it. They think it, yeah, they've driven the course and they sort of have an idea of the pace. What does a navigate? I feel like that's a stressful job. Navigate a sound like in a rally car Calling turns in the high stakes world of rally racing.

Speaker 2: 53:48

The most unique part of rally car racing is if a regular person were to hear the in-car audio of a driver and a co-driver, it would seem like they were speaking gibberish. So for this example, we have 50 here. So that means before the next note I call, you'll have 50 meters. And then T for me stands for turn, which means you'll change roads from the road that you're currently on. And then a left three. Left obviously means your corner is going to go to the left, and a three is the degree of the corner. Do you feel like that's a toxic?

Speaker 1: 54:23

job.

Speaker 1: 54:25

No, I think you'd have to be in such a good partnership with a driver and a navigator that you probably have a few years experience. It would be an intense job. I don't know if it was toxic. I feel like it would just be solid stress. Yeah, but at least people who get a buzz from that sort of thing how much do they get paid? I think it's based on how much they win. Oh, unless they get like a contract in there sponsored by someone.

Speaker 1: 54:50

I find her notes fascinating because her handwriting is a little rubbish, so I find it quite curious that this is what she's reading out, how she keeps track as well. Yeah, like is she moving her finger down the page? I'm very confused at this point. Interesting though I should know more. We had family members who were really big and really really driving when I was growing up, and one of the girls who was, I think, a little bit old yeah, I can't remember if she was older or younger than me. Now she became she was a navigator, but I think she also was, on her own right, her rally car driver too.

Speaker 1: 55:23

My dream was to do the Dakar. I don't know. I love it better. What's the Dakar? The Dakar was the like, the one up in the African Horn, so it was the one that kind of crossed the desert and then, oh my God, it was huge. It went like from Paris to somewhere, somewhere, to Dakar, I think, in like Morocco or something.

Speaker 1: 55:42

Please, have you met? Have we met? My geography is terrible, oh OK, terrible. I can't even tell you where it is, but I know that it was up in the top of Africa somewhere. That's all right. So you need to know. I like how you do it. I like the top of Africa, like I'm standing at the South African store. The top is in the North, I think of the top of the country as the North, you're accurate. Oh well, thanks for thanks for entertaining our people this week. My pleasure, sorry, I wasn't more prepared and could, could, could, could extol more the virtues of optometrists. I'm sure it was fine. I think we'll live Good. I'm sure there are other podcast people go to when they want to hear about optometry. Is there? I don't know? There's probably optometry podcasts. Surely it's not.

Speaker 2: 56:29

No, no no, no, no, no no.

Speaker 1: 56:34

Well, okay. So Merry Christmas to all of our wonderful listeners. We appreciate your listening. You're listening this year and we hope you have an amazing break. We're taking a bit of a break as well, and we will see you again in the new year. This is the last episode. I think for this year. We might sneak in another one. We're not sure. Let's see how how Gina's doing, If we can sell her away from her vacation. But other than that, we'll see you in the new year and be nice, and be nice to those workers at Subway, Starbucks and McDonald's. Be very kind to those people.

Speaker 1: 57:08

If there's any takeaways today? Be kind, because apparently we're the rude people, we're the toxic ones and other people's work environments. That's a milestone. Yeah, all right, thank you Bye.