Total Lack Of Respect For Employees - Customer Service Representative Netflix Employee Review

1.0
Jun 25, 2010
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

-$$$$$$$$$$!!! ($13-$14/hr to start w/full time hours immediately) -Free rental subscription--the highest one they offer (8 @ a time) -Medical/Dental/Vision Insurance available right away -free food in breakroom along with Netflix connection & big screen TV to watch shows -showers in bathrooms if you walk/ride a bike and need to clean up before work -peers are fun to work with -high speed internet & laptops available to check e-mail, facebook, myspace on breaks

Cons

-fear-based company -anyone higher up than you will NOT respect you. Period. -cliquish environment (if you're not with the in crowd, you're invisible.) -very poor communication about job performance -do not uphold their own company values -rarely promote from within -contradictions galore! In the nine days I was there for training before being unfairly dismissed, I saw several examples of employees being treated like children and unreasonably scolded. One girl was in the classroom 5 minutes before break was over. She suddenly had a bathroom emergency, so she left quickly to take care of it. She made it back just as they were shutting the door. On the next break, she was taken aside by the supervisor (supe) who said, "I noticed you made it back from break just as I was shutting the door. I just wanted to let you know that's unacceptable. You need to be back from break several minutes early." (In other words, you really don't get your full break.) She apologized, saying she'd been there five minutes early but had an emergency. He said, "I'm sure it won't happen again." One girl had to call in sick because her child gave her the flu. They forced her to speak to three different people who scolded her, the last of which was the call center manager himself! He said he was going to give her the opportunity to come in for the rest of the week. Another girl simply asked her neighbor for a pen during class. She was pulled into a conference room afterward and told by two different supes that talking during class was unacceptable and wouldn't be tolerated. Netflix has a zero-tolerance policy for what they call "push back". They touched on this very briefly in class during our second week of training. The example they gave was this: "If your supe tells you to change something and you say, 'I don't feel like it, so I'm not going to', that's considered push back and will not be tolerated." Basically, it's outright insubordination. My supe said I needed to work on verifying every account. When people call in, their account auto-pops onscreen....unless they don't give their service code to the automated answering service before they're transferred to a live person. This happens about half the time and it's mostly people who don't have accounts and are just asking about the service. So I asked my supe, "Is that even when they're just calling with a general question about the website?" He said we needed to at least ask for a name and warned me that what I'd just said was considered push back but he'd let it slide this time. I was baffled but just said, "Okay." The same supe told me he liked that I was resolution oriented because that was a good thing. An hour later, he took it back saying it was bad and I needed to focus on empathy. When I was let go, they gave me the opportunity to give feedback. I mentioned the contradictions I'd noticed and also that I didn't understand how asking a simple question during training was considered "push back". I was told that it's all about perception and I just wasn't a right fit. They also said this sort of thing happens often. Before you go to work for Netflix, ask yourself this: if the pay is excellent and the benefits are great, why is the turnover rate at Netflix so high??? Why are there so many bad employee reviews out there? Notice the recurring themes in the reviews, i.e. lack of respect, no job security, fear based business, no career growth opportunity, etc. There comes a time when the realization that it's not everybody else, it's the company, has to set in.

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5.0
Jun 10, 2026
Recommend
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Pros

Career growth is excellent. Great benefits

Cons

Life work balance is not the best

3.0
Sep 20, 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

- Paycheck - So many good people - Such a great service - Hope

Cons

I have been working for a year at Netflix. I've seen what was supposed to be very mature people, sharing absolutely almost no contact that anyone would qualify as "human". Sure, that sounds hyperbolic, let me develop (and maybe cherry-pick a little). Have you heard about our culture? The one about giving candid feedback? - I have seen people complaining of behavior they literally demonstrated themselves in the following days. But I have also seen these feedbacks resulting in tears both in the eyes of HR persons or fellow engineers. How human does that sound? Have you heard about our culture? The one about not tolerating brilliant jerks? I have nonetheless seen angriness and frustration, expressed in private, public and meeting. People rejecting new ideas by default, like, any ideas they wouldn't have worked themselves on for days wouldn't count. Even if those ideas are from the best examples in the industry or academics. How many publications/contributions have you seen from Netflix to computer science in general? How does it compare against any other company of that size in the Bay Area? Can you imagine either the real insecurity (x)or the lack of innovation that could lead to this situation? Except for a few managers, directors or VPs feeling free enough to behave at work in the same way than how they live, almost every engineer I have been interacting with, have shared as little as possible about their private life. The rare exceptions of interpersonal exchange ends up around some sort of competitive behavior: Who is the most geeky, sportive, owns the fastest car/biggest house/visited the strangest place. I've heard workaholic people complaining about ambitious peers who were over-managing, over-working to get even more work to do after. I feel like we're past workaholism at this point. Maybe there are a lot of shy people! Maybe there is a culture of fear, not only of being fired, but also a fear of interacting with people going to be fired. Maybe it's all in my head, maybe people giving 5 stars to their experience here don't care the human aspect of a company. And maybe they're right. What about your crush, your fears, your desires for the future, your appetite for life? I've been blessed to work in enough large companies to know that the behavior that I'm seeing in Netflix is not a healthy one. I've also been lucky enough to work in other industries more socializing than tech and I can tell that Netflix has a lot to do on that side, and off-sites or team meeting won't solve that problem. I am afraid about the tragic, but inevitable consequences of the ways people operate in this company: I guess that the day the worst will happen, it will be addressed in an impersonal memo by Reed; followed-up by 1 or 2 reminders during offsites. Possibly commented by HR in a Q&A document. And move on. This company seems as reactive in its management of people as it is proactive in its business operations. I still work at Netflix though, not only for the paycheck, but because I hope. I hope it will change. The needed change can't happen from a candid feedback, a Q&A, or only from inside. Change has to come from everyone, including people who take time to read comments like this one. Netflix has so many good people and offers such a great service. As a curious Netflix employee reading this review: think about your past, isn't there a big human thing that you would love to feel again in your current company that you've felt in the past? As a candidate: think about what would be a good question to ask to that HR partner once your package is almost here to be offered to you, think about that comment you make at the end of an interview when you're being asked by an engineer: "Do you have any question for me?" What Netflix needs is an inception, something that anyone and everyone would think about after leaving the call or the room they were sharing with you. Ask yourself, and then the others, the question you should ask if you think you want to spend a good amount of your life and energy in the place you're applying for. - Will I learn and contribute to the knowledge of other's? Even outside the company? - Will I see emotional responses from my peers? Will that be for other reasons than being fired or bluntly criticized? - Will I find a friendly environment that will nurture my appetite for life? - What is the amount of emotional interaction (celebrating, sharing, playing) to expect from a company whose service is the best to "entertain"? - Do androids dream of electric sheep?

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