10/31/2009 - Every City, US

10/31/2009

Category	Rating
Pay	3
Respect	-5
Benefits	-5
Job Security	-5
Work/Life Balance	-4
Career Potential/Growth	0
Location	0
Co-worker Competence	4
Work Environment	4

Truely the worst experience of my life. I'm so sorry that I gave up my real career to pursue this nightmare. I looked at the money and the chance to advance. When I was interviewed 5 years ago, I stated that there is no way possible for me to relocate and that I would never change. This was fine at the time but I was asked many times over the years to relocate and present at many mtgs that discussed relocation and how it was the only way you would ever move up in the company. People that don't relocate are considered "Blockers" as they are "blocking other peoples careers. I busted my rear for years and earned my money and was a top performer in the company. I mentored and trained others to teach and help them be successful-and once I got my peers up to standards-I was handed a severance agreement. Why? Depends on who you talk to. I was told one thing, my peers were told another and my hub was told a totally different reason. Basically, I wasn't needed or wanted anymore. I had "trained my replacements." Which is also discussed at every mgr mtg. I was told I was hired into my position because I had my own thoughts and had a "different style". They wanted a fresh perspective on things. Almost immediately, they tried to change me into "one of them." I spent over a year trying to become "one of them". I am no longer with the company and have gotten my life and my dignity back. I can once again look at myself in the mirror and sleep at nite because I am true to myself and not trying to be someone they wanted me to be. I no longer am required to fire people and destroy their lives that don't really deserve it. My only regrets- 1. I wish I would have never taken this job and 2. I wish I would have seen the knife in my back earlier. HR in the company fires people because they "don't fit in, are quirky, are creepy," or "they just don't get it". Basically, the only thing good about HR is...when you leave-you will be offered a generous severance agreement. (the phrase by the way, comes from Reed's 128 slide presentation on the Netflix site.)

10/06/2009 - Hillsboro, OR

10/06/2009

Category	Rating
Pay	3
Respect	-4
Benefits	4
Job Security	-5
Work/Life Balance	-4
Career Potential/Growth	-2
Location	3
Co-worker Competence	-2
Work Environment	-5

Respect can seem like such a small thing to ask, but when you work for a company that doesn't respect you At All, it's hard to give your all. Sadly, Netflix stopped caring about their employees (and, in the process, their customers) and focused only on the bottom line. Yes, the economy is hard, yes, it's hard to find a good job, but that's no excuse for treating your employees like dirt.

09/22/2009 - Beverly Hills CA

09/22/2009

Category	Rating
Pay	3
Respect	3
Benefits	4
Job Security	-5
Work/Life Balance	-2
Career Potential/Growth	-5
Location	4
Co-worker Competence	3
Work Environment	-4

Although the company will talk endlessly about their work-ethics and talent (best-of-the-best, high-performance culture) this is also a mask for requiring an exceptionally high degree of work from all its employees. Learn all of your tasks and responsibilities ASAP -- for if not you will be let go immediately. After learning the tasks thats it.... don't look for a promotion or movement -- its just not there. This is also told to you when hired - so they can't say they didn't warn you. (To compensate for this are the perks - kitchen foods, vacation time, heath benefits. Its called lulling you into complacency)

The different departments FUNCTION well together but don't mis-interpret this as working well together. And YES there are favorites -- so be careful who you buddy up with. The clique system is in major effect with the acquisition and buying departments -- beware! Cross one and you cross them all.

Overall if you can get everything you need to done, and don't try to do more, then you will be fine here. But if you have an original thought -- keep it to yourself and save it for your 1year anniversary when you start looking for that new job elsewhere.

Use em then leave em -- everyone there wants to be at a studio anyway.

08/29/2009 - Sunnyvale, CA 94085

08/29/2009

Category	Rating
Pay	-2
Respect	-4
Benefits	0
Job Security	-4
Work/Life Balance	-4
Career Potential/Growth	-4
Location	-2
Co-worker Competence	-5
Work Environment	-3

545 Oakmead Parkway

Sunnyvale, CA 94085

07/02/2009 - Hillsboro, OR

07/02/2009

Category	Rating
Pay	-1
Respect	-5
Benefits	-1
Job Security	-5
Work/Life Balance	-4
Career Potential/Growth	-4
Location	0
Co-worker Competence	1
Work Environment	-4

I worked as a Customer Service Representative for nearly six months at the Netflix call center in Hillsboro, OR between 2008 and 2009. I can honestly say that it was the absolute worst work experience I've ever had in my professional career. The pay was about market average for CSR phone jobs but management had little or no respect for their employees.

Shortly after I was hired, call center director Melissa O'Keefe instituted mandatory overtime which had some reps working 50-60+ hours a week depending on their shifts assigned. This carried over into the last week of February, causing many workers to quit and burn out from exhaustion. In December through the first week of January, the Portland metro area experienced extreme weather conditions which made it impossible for some employees to make it in due to legitmately dangerous weather conditions. They refused to close the call center even though the Oregon Dept of Transportation and the Washington County police considered the road conditions extremely hazardous and Tri-Met buses and light rail trains shut down service in the Portland metro area entirely. The employees that could not make it in during the blizzard were simply dismissed when they were able to return to work. Meanwhile, those of us who did make it in with damage to our vehicles were forced to maintain the mandatory overtime schedules and work additional hours due to the dismissal of our colleagues.

There is no job security at Netflix or any chance of career growth, at least at the Hillsboro center. In January, Netflix made the decision to lay off their entire tech support team and force untrained CSRs to take highly technical calls without any additional classroom training. They cited the floundering economy for this change, yet in Nov 2008 Netflix gained over 2 million subscribers. A number of workers, including myself, who are Customer Service veterans showed interest in vacant escalation team positions only to have people hired for those positions from outside the company.

I worked along side many fine and intelligent people who continually were bullied and intimidated by team managers who constantly changed statistic satisfaction requirements on a daily basis. I witnessed two fellow teammates mocked openly about their weight by our team manager Kiana Phi-Lewis. She was an absolute nightmare to work under. I experienced harassment on a regular basis to the point where she openly told me I should quit, even though I consistantly performed above department expectations on all metrics. We were routinely timed on our bathroom breaks and told we had a maximum of five minutes of restroom time per day before it started to effect our stats.

The situation finally reached its climax when in late March 2009 nearly 3 dozen of us were terminated over a fabricated situation regarding our customer satisfaction surveys. They accused us of "gaming the system" in an over-emotional company wide e-mail sent to all team members by the call center director. When asked for proof of any kind of wrong doing, every one of us were denied any evidence. They simply got rid of everyone they wanted to and tried to weasel their way out of paying unemployment benefits. This didn't sit well with the State of Oregon who granted us our benefits after an investigation was opened regarding Netflix's shady business practices.

In short, don't work for Netflix and don't support companies who push around an intimidate American workers. I encourage anyone who reads this to cancel their Netflix account as a show of support for the people who endured this awful company. Thank you.

07/15/2008 - Beverly Hills, CA

07/15/2008

Category	Rating
Pay	3
Respect	2
Benefits	4
Job Security	-5
Work/Life Balance	-2
Career Potential/Growth	-2
Location	4
Co-worker Competence	3
Work Environment	4

"3" for pay because while they do pay above the industry average per your job title, the job titles are also deflated, which means that as a Manager at this company, you might have the same level of responsibility as a Director at another company. In other words, they had better pay above the industry average for your job title, or you'd be getting seriously screwed. Either way, your salary is about average for the level of responsibility you probably carry.

"2" for respect because you'll hear when you've done something wrong, but you'll rarely hear when you've done something right - and even if you do, it's an end in itself. (A great work ethic doesn't really give you an advantage over someone who does the bare minimum.) Also, it is very common for employees to feel that nobody is listening to them, even if what they are advocating is for the good of the company.

"4" for benefits because they are pretty good, but not Google-good.

"-5" for job security because between the changing of business strategy, cleaning house in the attempt to maintain a high-performance culture, and operating by the philosophy that even the most valuable employee is easily replaceable, there is a good chance you will get fired. Everyone does get severance, though. I once heard someone say that Netflix doesn't value people. There might be some truth to that statement.

"-2" for work/life balance because it's your responsibility to establish and maintain that balance, BUT it's a high-pressure culture which means that unless you fight your own conscience and force yourself to put away the laptop and Blackberry, you will end up taking LESS vacation and less personal time BECAUSE they said you can have as much as you want, than you would if the company had a standard vacation policy and you had to "accrue" your days off.

"-2" for career potential because even though they will point to certain people as examples, it is rare that there is a true promotion - a true promotion being one in which the person was mentored/trained in preparation for a role with new or additional responsibilities, a new job title, and a raise, in a position that they actually wanted to take on. The company is very clear and open about the fact that their hiring strategy is to let other companies spend resources on training people - and then go and poach those people when they have a proven track record of success. (This is also why they tend to hire overqualified people. So people will come in and then realize they are overqualified, while at the same time, there is no opportunity for them to advance because someone has been poached into the spot just above them.) What's ironic is that someday, some company is going to figure out that Netflix itself is a great place to poach from. They've done the work of weeding out the best of the best, and many of those best would jump at the opportunity to leave if given the right offer. They generally do not fight to keep exemplary employees, and they generally do not make counter-offers.

"4" for location is pretty self-explanatory.

"3" for co-worker competence because I have to admit that most of the people are great. However, the review process is far from being able to identify those whose only talent is putting on a good show. This gets frustrating when the company preaches so much about its high-performance culture and values. Certain people are prime examples of why it's bad for the entire company when the values that are preached are not enforced or practiced.

"4" for work environment because as long as you're content doing exactly what they hired you to do for your entire length of employment, and are not really concerned with challenging yourself or learning what you need to learn to get to the next level, it's a great place to be. "Status Quo" people will be happy here. (They are also the ones who are in it for the benefits and are not very motivated to excel.) It also is actually exciting to work for a company that is helping to redefine an industry. There's no blueprint for where the company is going, and they are doing very well in the market. When you look at things in that context, it's a great place to be.

The bottom line here is that you get what you take for yourself, good and bad. While that works in some cases, there are also things you can't just take for yourself. In those cases, it would be your responsibility to take the initiative and "manage up" to someone who has the power to make a change... only, you can't manage up to anyone who doesn't want to be managed up TO. The root cause of most of these issues is management without leadership skills. The company is data-driven, but it could benefit by using some intuition and instinct in dealing with its people.

One more thing is that the company doesn't strike me as very socially responsible or socially conscious. In this time of "going green," very little has been said in support of taking action. There has also not been any mention of support for any kind of community service or "giving back;" employees are not encouraged to do so. If anything, it is discouraged because it falls into the "nurturing / teaching / preparing people for the future" category.

07/10/2008 - Beverly Hills, CA

07/10/2008

Category	Rating
Pay	3
Respect	-1
Benefits	3
Job Security	-5
Work/Life Balance	-4
Career Potential/Growth	-3
Location	0
Co-worker Competence	2
Work Environment	2

While I like most of the Netflix culture (freedom & responsibility, high performance etc.) - unfortunately, at least in the LA office, due to poor leadership, their actions don't always seem consistent with the company's philosophies. There is almost no room for growth (they say they promote from within - but yes they do - ALMOST NEVER). They say they value high performance, however, there are some people that have been there for years that are anything but. However, these same people are good at APPEARING like they get it - and that's the problem. The LA office has grown very quickly over the last couple of years, and they also have a new Director of HR who unfortunately can not be trusted and likes/dislikes people based on 'appearances' and other factors that don't accurately reflect their job performance and abilities. It's very sad - because Netflix overall has some great values - too bad that the learderhip in the LA office (including LA's HR people) do not accurately implement those values.

05/09/2008 - Los Gatos

05/09/2008

Category	Rating
Pay	4
Respect	3
Benefits	3
Job Security	-2
Work/Life Balance	4
Career Potential/Growth	-4
Location	4
Co-worker Competence	3
Work Environment	2

Netflix is a popular company with consumers and recruiters, but many people do not enjoy working there. There is no skills or career development. The atmosphere is judgmental and dry. They leave people in their jobs for 7 years and counting. It's very operational and they do not encourage innovation or creativity. The HQ operations are run like the hubs. They say quite clearly in writing: This is not your family, this is not a place to have fun, this is where you work.

JobVent - Netflix - Company Reviews