Fake company culture is exhausting - Anonymous employee CARVANA Employee Review

Leadership has gradually reduced employee perks and benefits while continuing to claim that "it's so much fun to work here." The recent push to return to a five-day office schedule blatantly ignores employee feedback and needs. This change was framed as a way to "bring us back to our roots before COVID," but employees who were around back only talked about the in-office culture as enjoyable largely due to perks like gourmet snacks, extravagant parties, and frequent paid-for happy hours—none of which exist anymore due to budget cuts. Leadership now insists that the company's "roots" are about "being together," yet they’ve done little to make office life enjoyable. Raising concerns about this often leads to being labeled as "not a team player" or "difficult." Do free sodas, snacks beyond gold fish, or having a trash can at your desk make a huge difference on their own? Probably not. Is commuting five days a week the end of the world? No, but there's a clear lack of consideration for the majority of employees who desire a better work-life balance—who want to spend more time with their kids, step away for a quick lunch, or walk their dog during the workday. Will executives be held accountable for their own absences from the office? No. Will mid- to senior-level leaders be held accountable for their lack of interaction with individual contributors? Also no. These issues may seem small in isolation, but they build up, especially for employees who worked tirelessly to help the company avoid bankruptcy, only to see benefit after benefit disappear. While none of these cuts are disastrous on their own, the ongoing erosion of the employee experience under the guise of "reviving the old culture" makes it clear that senior leadership is either out of touch, indifferent, or comfortable with misleading their workforce. Their priority seems to be increasing profitability—and their own stock value—at the expense of employees. Who benefits from the "benefits the whole at the cost of some" decisions? Execs and senior leaders with a lot of stocks do.