Like an Abusive Relationship, There Was Good and Bad, But Mainly Bad - Anonymous Calinana Employee Review

It’s taken me a lot of time to muster up the proper words over my experience at Calinana. I thought perhaps maybe waiting after I left would change my opinion, but the thought of my experience only makes me physically shake my head in disagreement and at the same time grinning with joy that I’m not longer bound to the greedy impatient entity that is Calinana, more specifically, the owner and her husband. The details of my story require a lot of attention so the best thing to do is to regurgitate a summary of the experience. When I first interviewed, they offered me a position on the spot (the interview itself took 4 hours and this occurred on a Monday). I asked if it’s ok to give a response by the end of the week because I have been interviewing at several places and I didn’t want to rush into any company or position that wouldn’t fit right. Yes, they gave me more time – LIKE ONE DAY, they wanted to know my decision by mid-day the next day. Fearful on not coming upon not receiving any offer, I agreed the next day and they wanted me working on Wednesday. WOW. I should have suspected something foul from this impatient behavior but my arrogance lead me to believe perhaps they really liked me. Suspiciously I accepted the job and hit the ground running. I was promised a great work life balance and my work schedule was generally 8-5 or a mixture as long as I put the hours in. So if I were to come in at 8:30, I could leave at 5:30. This was perfect; it worked because the traffic to Irvine is stupid. 2 months into working, I arrive 8:20 (this was my first time doing this) and the owner calls me and lectures me (yes like a child) about how I should never do that again although her Husband was the negotiator of these terms she seemed to disagree with. They also seem to always forget the original plan set in motion and occurrences like that only seem to keep going. The owner will demand that something get done her way and against your professional recommendation you do it because she demands it. When you do what she ask and the results were poor she’ll yell “Why did you do that” Or “This isn’t good” it was all very contradictory behavior, worse than dealing with a 2 year old child. The owner would just blame others on her poor decisions. During meetings, they would ask for ideas, when any ideas that she didn’t like were shared she would literally laugh in your face. This was way worse than Regina George from mean girls, like there is no actual constructive feedback given nor is there any recognition on any positive results. Another odd and awkward thing to experience was when both husband and wife would speak to each other during a meeting in their native tongue…uhhh..rude? What broke the camels’ back for me was when I discovered that the warehouse girls in the back weren’t getting paid for over time. One of the main girls in charge in the back left because of this and in a mere couple of days, the entire team all agreed that there was something out there much more deserving and compassionate of our skillset. It’s extremely disappointing because I put so much time and effort into growing this company and all they did was set more and more unrealistic expectations. Yes I feel like I failed but that’s because I was set up to fail with their impatient goals, radically greedy and unfit approach towards business. Although this job compensated me extremely well, it was not worth the hives I started developing or the anxiety. I thought this job would provide me a better life with my family, but all it did was take time away from them.