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WHO IS GASLIGHTING WHO?
Imagine a narcissist who has enough free time to sit down, bash the management of the company, but then offer their own advice on how to manage/run a company when they themselves have no experience doing it. I hope readers of this ad can see the irony.
While it's easy (and cliche IMHO) to accuse someone of gaslighting, there is no example that you indicate of this gaslighting you mention with your admittedly catchy title (kudos to your imaginative wording). We cannot pretend that we are going to take you advice as we are certain you have never managed anyone or started/run a company for as long as our founders have.
We cannot tell you to feel differently or invalidate those feelings and due to this regret that you had moments where you felt disenfranchised. Despite your feelings and comments the managers and ownership of Think Connected do care greatly about our employees and customers. While we would never say we are perfect, we are constantly learning of ways to foster a collaborative and fruitful professional experience. Clearly we missed the mark in some cases with you and truly (sincerely) hope that you find a better fit and experience going forward.
We maintain and have over 16 years of proof that the opportunity at Think Connected for future and current employees is as follows:
1. We are people who are knowledgeable and passionate about IT that care very much about our employees and customers. There is a lot to learn here and we are very giving of our time and knowledge.
2. We have many awesome new technology projects and products we support that would be perfect for someone that is looking to immerse themselves in a wealth of IT technologies. While some IT professionals may wait years to learn about networking, servers, MS365, and GSuite (etc) – these are things that will be part of your daily life in conjunction with direction by reasonable and thoughtful leadership (despite what is written in this review).
3. Our employees and company truly make a difference in in assisting others accomplish their goals.
Both owners of the company also assert that Think Connected is owned and run by good people and concede that while we are not perfect and constantly look for ways to improve that we are reasonable and trustworthy professionals that:
1. Have met or attempted our best to achieve every promise/expectation that we have made to our employees in regards to their future growth or compensation and the products we deliver to our customers.
2. Have a long list of professional and personal relationships that have endured the test of time and those relationships have helped Think Connected achieve its continued success in collaboration with our employees’ passion for technology and unparalleled customer support.
3. Are socially conscious and generous with their consistent and long-standing donations of time and money to the following non-profits (true story): schools and scholarship funds, Little League, Pet Assisted Therapy for the elderly in memory assisted care, organizations that feed the needy, March of Dimes, Wounded Warrior, Diabetes Foundation, mentorship programs, St. Baldricks, and more…
4. Despite a demanding schedule, makes a concerted effort to give every employee the time they need to ask questions about their work, engage them in how they are doing (both personally and professionally), and generously offer assistance to them to help solve the problems they face in serving our customers.
5. Over time have done the following things for our employees that is contrary to the portrayal of only caring about money:
a. Set and met expectations on what needed to be achieved in order to receive (nearly without fail) consistent yearly bonuses and raises.
b. Never laid someone off (we have been well managed, very profitable, and healthy business since our inception) and always provided our employees the benefit of the doubt when deciding if it was necessary to terminate our relationship for any reason.
c. Provided gifts and concessions for important personal events or needs in the form of: pay advances/loan, advanced PTO (ie – allowing negative balance), wedding gifts, gifts for newborn children, housewarming gifts, large bonuses, baseball tickets, asking them to take out their spouse to dinner on the company for a job well done, collaborating to allow a remote-work environment from different states, taken them deep sea fishing on work days, organized company hikes, purchased countless meals, taken the team to happy hours, and more…
Regarding your advice to management, while we feel it is fair from your perspective we also see it as interesting that someone who has never had experience starting, running a company from the ground up, with no management experience up would feel as such an authority on telling someone on how to do so. We also wonder how you reconcile the fact that while “in summary providing a negative review of the company” not realize that it affects both owners (the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ one), the current employees (some of which you must not have a gripe with), and the customers. We hope that as you continue to grow and mature as a professional that you use some of that maturity and professionalism when you write a public review of your future employers. FOR THE RECORD, Think Connected would never take to a public platform and indicate the worst part of our professional relationship with you (we don’t feel we did that when you were here) or anyone. For any ex-employee, we certainly would not take to defaming them out of some personal satisfaction to anonymously undermine them. We are certain you have made mistakes (so have we) when you were here as no one is perfect, we do not see or care to remember those mistakes, and lastly would not take the effort to attempt to recall them to hurt your reputation.
We wish you the best in all of your future endeavors both personal and professional. Let bygones be bygones, life is too short.
