I’ll start this review out by saying: I know that if Pando’s leadership reads this, they will know without a doubt who wrote it, as my experiences are very specific to me. Perhaps they can take this as delayed feedback for the exit interview they never offered me.
When I first started at Pando, Thiel and Janice had a wonderful set of values and a clear, positive vision for how they conducted themselves when doing business, and that was a welcome change from the corporate world as a whole. But this didn’t last long. As their project workload grew, and consequently the company needed more staff to handle the larger workload, rather than take the time to train new staff or seek out experienced staff to fill the need, Pando developed a high turnover by promising on-the-job training, setting high expectations, and terminating employees who could not meet these unrealistically high expectations. Lather, rinse, repeat. Stack this with the fact that leadership chose this time to emphasize their newfound “commitment” (not a real commitment, mind) to diversity, making efforts to hire employees of color, but with no intention of doing any sort of diversity or cultural sensitivity training. I asked bThiel and Janice about this multiple times - I do sensitivity training specific to my background as a volunteer activity - and I was told that they believed simply working together would help employees learn from one another. It’s worth noting here this is not effective, and tends to make marginalized employees feel like they bear the burden of educating others on top of doing their jobs. Between Pando’s hire-fire cycle for employees putting everyone on edge, and those who leave for culture reasons, I believe this speaks for itself.
As for my tenure at Pando- it would have been far shorter if the COVID-19 pandemic had not begun when it did. I had a conversation with ownership asking for a raise just before the pandemic began, only to have the amount I requested ($60k in very early 2020, for reference) be compared with what another employee in a different role from mine made. I was condescended to by the company founder, Janice, and told that I should live with my family for as long as I could (it was already a regular occurrence for her to comment on clothing or jewelry I wore, saying I shouldn’t spend money on these things - such as an Apple Watch I wore, which I’d had since before starting the job). When leadership KNOWS they are paying employees so poorly that they feel entitled to comment on their spending, then you know there’s an issue. I was already looking for new work at that time, but the pandemic put the search (and the job market as a whole) to a temporary halt. My requests for help, and pleading for assistance from Thiel or Janice, resulted only in my being penalized and threatened.
I could write a novel-length review of how terribly things went with this company. But I’ll keep it shorter. They hired a “Business Manager,” Nancy, in 2021 who believes that micromanagement is the best way to run things. When I say micromanagement, I mean she wanted me to share my screen for tasks as simple as writing email responses to clients, because she didn’t seem to think I was capable of putting words in a document - I assure you, I’ve written this review without supervision, and I write every day without supervision. When 2022 rolled around and the opportunity to provide reviews of managers was presented, I was honest, and shared that having to constantly share my screen and have her hawking over me was disruptive to my work. The way that the manager reviews were presented was that Thiel and Janice would receive the feedback, and go over it with our managers - it is VERY clear that this was communicated directly to Nancy, no anonymizing of the feedback. She was passive aggressive in her behavior to me and directly quoted my comments from the manager feedback portion. And, of course, her desire to micromanage included wanting to force me back into the office full-time- which I outright refused, saying I would quit on the spot if this demand was made of me.
Standing up for yourself in any way at Pando results in retaliation, plain and simple. Giving honest feedback on my manager-review of Nancy was part one; saying I would not return to the office full time was the next. Every little thing I did was nitpicked in the smallest ways - Nancy would message me or even Teams call me with no warning - and if I didn’t answer messages fast enough she would assume I wasn’t working. She has an inherent distrust of remote work. I was eventually put on a PIP- something I predicted would happen - and during one of our Teams calls to review the PIP progress report, she accidentally shared a notepad screen in which she was recording how long I was in the restroom during our in-office work day the prior day. The PIP progress report she shared, and expected me to sign, referenced that I took inconveniently timed and long restroom breaks - as an item for improvement.
Soon after, Nancy and I ‘disagreed’ over her trying to refuse me unpaid leave, which is in the employee handbook. I had used all of my paid leave and sick leave when I had COVID earlier in the year, and I still needed to take time off- and she tried to say I wasn’t eligible to be…. UNPAID? Fortunately, I had a job offer in the works, the same week that Nancy and Thiel sat me down to tell me that they were transitioning me to a part-time role - they tried to frame it as being “for my benefit” - because of course, being paid less and being forced out of the company is to my benefit. There’s a name for this, and it’s called constructive dismissal.
I had my new job offer lined up, and I had tons of detailed notes. I was already in touch with the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights, and my complaint had been forwarded to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The ONLY reason I didn’t follow my charge through was I had a family issue take precedence.
I write all of this now, a year and a half removed from my departure from Pando. I hope that anyone who is considering working here knows that they deserve to be treated better than this place treated me. It’s a pattern, and unless MAJOR changes take place- I don’t see it getting any better.