This is going to be long, but I want people to get as much info as they can so they can judge whether this job is right for them. Here we go...
First off, the job description I read online was very different from the job I was told about at my orientation. Had I known that I would be traveling literally all over the city to inspect apartments while lugging around 40lbs in duvet covers and wine glasses, I wouldn't have even applied. I had an extremely hard time learning and doing my job well because --- I wasn't trained! At my orientation I was told that that was info day, and sometime that week I would shadow another HA to learn the job, and get answers any questions I may have. At the end of my orientation, I was sent out into the field to inspect an apartment, and was never trained after that. I had conflict with my main manager due to the fact that I was making mistakes, which caused me to go into every day with extreme anxiety (at all times I felt I could be fired at any moment). Maybe if they had taught me how to do the job, these mistakes wouldn't have happened.
I've worked at a few startups, and I've always noticed that there is a culture of anxiety that impacts every aspect of the company. The office environment was extremely depressing, I hated going there. It was always quiet, and everyone looked extremely somber, tired, and stressed out. The management put quite a lot of pressure on the HAs to complete quality assurance checks (QAs), which was extremely stressful because during my time there, there were only two full time HAs (myself included). The part time ones didn't seem to work even 20h/week. I could never understand why they didn't hire more full time employees, or manage the schedules of the part time employees better. Very disorganized. I would sometimes have three managers talking to me at once, telling me different things. Often times I would be called or messaged about an "emergency" (such as a guest getting locked out), only to take an uber, and find that the problem had been resolved, and nobody told me.
There is no HR department, which I find ridiculous. I'm sure this has something to do with the lack of equality/diversity. There were only two women in salaried positions, and all the employees in salaried positions were white. As a person of color, that was one of the first things I noticed when I met everyone on the team. The only people of color I met were doing maintenance, or were HAs. Issues are handled between boss and subordinate, and it is extremely intimidating and uncomfortable. When people were fired, they were given no notice, and I often heard that the person doing the firing was typically pretty rude about it. They need to hire someone that deals with these issues directly.
I found my manager to be condescending, and didn't feel that he took me seriously. There were times when he would reprimand me seemingly out of nowhere - almost always talking down to me. One time that really stood out to me was when he called me to tell me that the order in which I had decided to do my tasks was inefficient, and proceeded to reprimand me the way someone would their child. I assured him that I had chosen the most efficient way based on train and bus schedules (knowing that he either drives or takes the commuter trains, I do resent that he criticized the path I chose when I have been using transportation here all my life), and apologized, to which he simply hung up. 1.5-2h later I had finished my tasks with 3 hours to spare, let him know, asked if there was anything else he needed me to do, and he didn't reply. He didn't talk to me at all the next day, which is honestly so petty.
Another time that stands out was when I asked my managers (both men) a question, and they responded by looking at each other, letting out a quick laugh, and giving me a task to do, completely ignoring my question. I heard a similar complaint from another female HA, but never from any of the male HAs - miraculously, I never heard a complaint about them from any of the male HAs. I always felt like I was being talked at, or someone was trying to educate me - which I really did not appreciate.
Guests constantly complained about how cheap everything was. During a big problem with a guest, my manager disappeared, and left me to deal with everything with little support. The guest referred to him as a coward - which didn't offend me personally, but I really didn't like that I had been put in this position. Management just told the guests what they wanted to hear, telling them that I knew exactly how to fix the problem, when that wasn't true at all. Management seems to be primarily concerned with expanding, and not quality customer service. If you want to be considered a luxury service, provide guests with luxury-quality items (which I'm sure you could afford if you would stop expanding so quickly). After working there, I wouldn't use things like the coffee filters, and I would wash all the towels before using them. You have no idea how many times I've seen these things dropped on the ground (and put back on the shelf) of a storage facility.
15/h is not terrible, but it didn't feel worth it for a few reasons. I was miserable every day of this job, and the anxiety I felt the entire time working here was awful; you can't put a price on mental health. The work HAs do is not rocket science, but it is incredibly draining. I don't think anyone in the management positions really have a grasp on how much time some of the tasks take simply due to travel. I was often asked to take large amounts of supplies - wine glasses, water glasses, draino, an entire pot and pan set, two pillows (yes, this is a real example), and aluminum foil to apartments all over the city. Everything was kept at one place that was in quite a remote location (for a city), so I had no choice but to carry all of these things with me at once. When I asked whether someone with a car could do the task instead, I was ignored. Many times when I got to apartments to drop off "missing" items, they were not missing, or someone had replaced them before I had arrived, and nobody told me.
Poor communication. There were several instances when guests would arrive early, and we were not notified, so I ended up going to buildings for nothing.
I was also asked to buy SEVERAL things for units and/or guests. These things are reimbursed, but took sometimes 1-1.5 months to get my money back. I'm a student, and didn't start this job with a ton of money. I frequently had to buy cards, wine, flowers, chocolate, etc..., for guests, and also had to buy things like smell absorbers, laundry detergent, draino, cutting boards, baking pangs, etc.., which are all things they should have plenty of. I couldn't afford to be spending so much, and then wait a month or more for a reimbursement. You shouldn't have to spend money for your job on a regular basis, especially when you're not a salaried worker.
I'm sure there's more I could say, but you get the gist of it.
TLDR;
Keep looking elsewhere.
