A young woman who used to work at Yelp wrote “An Open Letter To My CEO” complaining about her life challenges and how she sees them as caused by her company’s inability to compensate her as she wishes. She was fired by the company shortly afterward.
I don’t think I need to comment on her “open letter” or her firing. There are a whole lot of people hitting it from every angle already and I don’t think I can improve the effort.
What I did think of as I read about this situation, however, is how funny it would be if Yelp had it’s own Yelp page. Now, Yelp is set up so that customers of businesses can rate and comment on their experience at that business. It would be innovative, but inappropriate, for an employee of that business to write a review– that isn’t really what Yelp is for.
That being said, I can imagine what this young woman’s Yelp review might’ve looked like and, as the operator of a business that has seen its fair share of Yelp-crazies leaving nasty, unreasonable reviews, I believe it would sound something like this:
Name: Jane T.
Rating — X x x x x (1 star)
Comment — What a joke of a company. I’d give them negative 5 stars if I could!!! Where do I even begin? I am a college-graduate with a degree in English and dreams of making it big in media. I joined this company at a low-level position where I’d have to work with customers and answer phones because I got suckered by the hype and believed this company actually cared about people… which they DON’T!! I took on all kinds of debt and started a long commute only to find out that I wouldn’t be getting promoted like the company practically promised I would be so now I am stuck while the CEO makes $300 million acquisitions like money is no object.
First of all, I have to eat nothing but rice every single day. Yeah, some people voluntarily eat nothing but rice when they go through weird eating phases in high school and college, but they CHOOSE to do that. For me this is not a choice and it’s truly unbearable. Secondly, just when I thought it couldn’t get any WORSE, I made a bunch of recommendations to the company on how they could volunteer their time and nobody listened to me! It’s like they don’t even know I have a college degree!! What does it say about a company when the suggestions of lower-level new recruits aren’t immediately adopted as part of corporate strategy?
Every single person I’ve complained to has basically ignored me. I don’t think this company is setting a good example of good customer service by treating me and my complaints about this company and how unjust everything is like it’s MY problem.
To anyone reading this thinking about getting off welfare and getting a productive job at this company, STAY AWAY. This is the worst possible company in the world to work for I don’t know how anyone puts up with this. I bet no one will even read this because this company could care LESS about its employees and how much they suffer, I should just quit!!
[Yelp Business portal review note: The user has requested that the business NOT contact them.]
Reply from Yelp – Jeremy Stoppelman:
Hi Jane T.,
We are so sorry to hear about the frustrations you’ve had as an employee at Yelp.
“We’re passionate about connecting people with great local businesses. At Yelp, we’re bringing together world-class talent from different experiences, disciplines and areas of study to produce a world-class product.” It sounds like you have a lot of talent and we appreciate you wanting to share that with the company.
“We believe in giving our employees the tools and resources to keep them healthy, wealthy and wise. Whether it’s a gym subsidy, unlimited snacks or healthcare benefits, we believe happy employees are successful employees.” We believe our benefits package is competitive based on what is available within and without our industry but we understand you didn’t see it that way.
“Yelp employees live, work and play in five-star cities throughout the United States and Europe.” It’s true that some of these cities can be a bit pricey to live in!
By the way, we looked up your name in our HR database and we couldn’t find a “Jane T.” Do you work for our company? We are wondering if maybe you meant to post this review somewhere else?
Anyway, we are sincerely sorry to see your experience hasn’t lived up to your expectations so far, but we do hope you’ll take the time to get in touch with us personally so we can resolve your concerns fully. We’ll take your concerns into consideration as we look to further improve our service and employee offerings in the future.
Sincerely,
Jeremy Stoppelman
CEO, Yelp
“Start living your five-star career at Yelp”
Updated review, rating Xxxx (1 star):
Well, they fired me. If that doesn’t prove what a bunch of incompetent losers these people are, I don’t know what does. I could’ve been a really valuable employee for this company if they had treated me right but they made it clear I don’t matter to them. From the CEO down, it just makes me want to puke it’s so unfair!
A House Rises 