Zipline

Many years ago, you could do cool things here. They wouldn’t let you finish or actually look at your work, but you could have a moment or two.

The shares might be worth a lot some day. The technology isn’t hard to learn.

I’m the person who criticized my boss when he made fun of Israelis (when the head of a different team was from Israel).

I’m the person who stood up when the same executive regularly made derogatory jokes about cultures of folks on other teams.

They still work at Zipline.

During Covid, we were one of those companies that had a huge expectation that folks who worked with hardware (other teams too) came in daily.

It didn’t matter if you could do your work remotely, you needed to come to a daily meeting so packed that folks were sitting on the floor.

I resisted that pressure, especially when cases were high, and my boss generally ghosted me in our 1:1s and any other meetings I tried to get his feedback with.

Other executives spent the whole pandemic saying it was a joke, even dogs get it! …imagine this is how the company handles safety or any situation.

When your executive leadership is all old friends, and they cite their friendship as the reason they’re hired, they can do stuff like that, and you can’t get help from anyone.

In return for standing up, I was bullied more.

I got talked down to by my boss at every chance.

He avoided me, but when I caught him, he made fun of my accent.

I had my work activities change from a lead engineer’s work to trivial silo work.

Also, I was invited to sessions where that same executive yelled at me and tried to humiliate me for work he didn’t bother to look at or allow me to speak for.

Other folks mentioned salaries, I’m mentioning specifics, so here is what I made of the cool mission tax:

Salary comparison: I was paid 10% more at the job before and 30% more at the job after.

Replace your leadership team with professionals.