Complaint Review: Boylston Group - Stride And Associates - Philadelphia Pennsylvania

It baffles me to think that someone took the time to write this report over a job they only worked at for 3 months. I worked for Stride and Associates 16 months, and not a day goes by I am not thankful for accepting the position. To address some of these claims:

1. Lunch: Nor I or anyone I worked with in either office was ever "FORCED" to get any manager lunch. Did I sometimes do a lunch run? Yes, but every time I did, my manager bought my lunch as well. Yes, managers make a lot of money. Welcome to corporate America. They also were some of the most generous people I've known. I can't even keep count of all the lunches, drinks, sporting events they treated us to.

2. Work Day: I was never forced to work from 7:30 to 7pm. Some days I'd have my head down in work and not even realize that 7pm had arrived. Thats a good thing! I certainly didnt want a job where I was just staring at the clock watching the minutes tick away. Some days, I'd have my stuff done and I'd leave at 5:30. In fact, some of the most successful people I worked with at that company rarely stayed in the office past 6pm. If I or my team was not where I/we wanted to be for the week/month, absolutely I would stay till whatever time necessary to make sure we were successful the next day. 8:30? That is extremely exaggerated. 12 hour day? Yeah! Welcome to the real world! It happens. I can't think of any successful people I have ever known who hasn't put in a 12-hour day. Besides, its not like we are 40 years old and have to take little Tommy to T-ball practice after work. We are 22. We've got time, we've got energy.

3. ARPO Projects: I can remember a trainee on his 2nd day trying to get a candidate to tell him where he interviewed. The only reason it was shady is because he wouldn't just come right out and tell him what/why he was asking. We were recruiters; we needed to be experts in our market. Chances are, we were already calling that company or spoken to them already. We were not taking the chances away from that candidate. If he was the best man/woman for the job, it wouldn't matter who we tried to send to that company. I never pitched a fake job, nor was I told to. I would just come right out and say, "I don't have anything right now, but that can change tomorrow." And that's the truth. Simple.

4. Training meetings: These were in fact some of my favorite activities. It was great to be able to get knowledge and perspective from other colleagues/managers in the company. It was great learning something at 8am, and then seeing it work on the phone at 9am. We took notes on every meeting, and to this day, I still refer back to my notebook to keep fresh on all the sales tips I learned. Meetings were 3 times a week, so it really helped break up the monotony. It was fun to go in to the other Stride office, see your colleagues you were competing against, maybe talk a little smack. All healthy competition. Whoever was stealing leads was pathetic and most of the time they werent good enough to pick up the job anyway. Probably why they were stealing leads.

4. Manager from different cities: Yes, they came from different cities and didn't know anyone when they got here. DUH! Thats like saying, "I moved to go to college and they only people I know are the people that I got to school with." Not many people have the balls to be asked to take on such a challenge with just a few days notice. I admired that courage.

5. Happy Hour: For someone to talk about this aspect of the job negatively is quite alarming. Maybe it just me, but I enjoy when a company takes me out once a week, buys me food and as many drinks as I want. They appreciated that we worked our butts off during the week, and repaid us for our efforts. Some of the best times I've had were started at a Stride Happy Hour. Sometimes I didn't go to happy hour. No problem. Sometimes, I went out, had one drink, and went home. No problem. Happy hour was ultimately designed to help all of us trainees. It gave us the opportunity to talk to our managers, and get help with whatever we were working on. Our managers were always there for us, and that time was for us. I don't see how giving us that opportunity every week is them asking us to abandon our friends and family. Sometimes I brought my friends out and my managers picked up their tabs too! On that generosity note, Stride also flew the entire company, over 350 employees from around the country to Boston for our Christmas party. They put us in a beautiful hotel, paid to shut down the Hard Rock just for us and had an open bar party for 5 hours with Dinner, DJ, and raffle prizes. If that wasnt enough, when we got home we were given a paid week off for Christmas/New Years. When I asked my buddies from college what their work was doing for a Christmas party, they responded, Going to Dave & Busters for 2 hours with a $10 Play card and 2 drink tickets. I just pointed and laughed at them.

6. High turnover: Yes, this job is not for everyone. That's ok. If it for you, great, if not, its ok. You'll find something else in life.

I'm not sure if its this generation, or an American thing(I'm originally from Canada) but I know a lot of people around my age that have this sense of entitlement, much like the individual who filed this complaint report. You have a college degree? So what? Welcome to the club. Kids in this country graduate college thinking the hard part of life is over, and that there is some cushy job just waiting for them. Very sad, and very ignorant. Years ago, my parents emigrated from Asia to Canada to follow their dreams and give their kids a better life. My Dad and Mom are some of the hardest working people I have ever known. They taught me that nothing good in life will come without hard work, determination, and the ability to overcome adversity. Stride holds you accountable to all of those. In fact, my manager at Stride reminded me a lot of my father. He was direct, held me accountable, pushed me to be the best I could be, made me do it for me not him, called me a little girl whenever I whined, etc. This style was familiar to me, so I responded well and respected my management team.

Ultimately, I decided the career path in Stride was not exactly what I was looking for. In fact, the job I took when I left was with a company that I had staffed 3 candidates at during my tenure at Stride. Stride transformed me from shy kid, to a polished professional, and now a global software company wanted me on their sales team. The opportunity was something that sparked my interest, so I jumped on it. Its funny, when I started there, everyone could not believe how young I was and how much sales knowledge I had. There were people in this company that had been working in sales for 10+ years and didn't know half the things I did. Ive been with this software company for almost 2 years now, and I was just awarded a promotion ahead of many other candidates, most of whom had much more experience in the company/industry. I have Stride to thank for all of this.

To this day, some of my best friends are past co-workers from Stride. Some of them being managers that are still working there, some like me, have moved on to different ventures. And although I don't work with them anymore, I can still come to them for career advice and know I will always get a whole-hearted response.

I could have taken the low-road on this rebuttal. I could have discredited the author by bringing to light the numerous grammatical/spelling errors they made, and the fact that the tone of the report resembles the tone of a 3-year old throwing tantrum in a toy store. I wanted people to see the other side of this story. At the end of the day, you dont have to become a manager making a six figure salary to achieve success. The race has no finish line. I did not become a manager at Stride, nor did I earn a high income. What I got from them was far more important than any monetary compensation; business skills, people skills, career lessons, life lessons, great friends and business relationships. The main point I am trying to get across is a job is what you make out of it. There's a down-side to every job. Again, that's life. One of the keys to becoming successful is focusing on the positive parts of your job and letting those have a constructive influence on your career.