Former Employee Alleges ZocDoc Is A Rodent-Infested 'Frat House' Where Men Sexually Harass Women
ZocDoc is a site you can use to find and make appointments with doctors. It's based in New York and Arizona.
This summer, reports said the company was seeking to raise $152 million at a $1.6 billion valuation.
The former employee alleges:
- "There were things the men who worked there could get away with saying like 'you aren't bubbly enough', 'you look hot today', "That secretary is a c---' etc. It was just accepted."
- "There was a distinct difference between the way upper management talked to and treated the women in the company. Male employees were at a great advantage and very buddy buddy with each other and the women (who weren't sleeping with someone in upper management) were on their own."
- "I would often overhear managers say some of the girls dressed slutty, when I brought it up one gentleman even jokingly saying 'there's nothing wrong with that' while laughing it off."
- "Words like 'tits,' and 'pussy,' were common phrases heard on the sales floor."
- " They have several mice who run around the office during the day and late at night, defecate in mugs kept in the kitchen. Cleaning mice feces out of your desk was a daily routine."
The employee says she has documents to prove her allegations.
The former ZocDoc employee published an anonymous rant about the company on Kinja and forwarded the link to Business Insider this morning. Business Insider has since learned the former employee's name and confirmed her employment.
The former employee asked us to keep her anonymous because of the "shame" she has been made to feel by ZocDoc.
She says the company is aware of her identity because she is suing it.
ZocDoc provided Business Insider with the following statement: "As a company, we pride ourselves on being a great place to work, and we have a long-standing policy against any forms of unlawful harassment or discrimination.?"
Here is the former ZocDoc employee's allegation in full:
Weeks prior to working at ZocDoc I was excited by the prospect of working for an amazing company called ZocDoc who prides itself on hiring " great people", who has an image of being one of the "best places to work in NYC" voted by Crains NYC three times in a row. The company boasts an image of being seen as a company where employees were valued, and the success of those around you would aid the overall success of the company. After doing research for the first time I was impressed. I saw a nurturing, growing, and fantastic opportunity to be a part of a team that was like none other. So I starting at ZocDoc and took an entry level position as a Sales Origination Associate and I was thrilled.
I was soon quickly disillusioned:
The following is an example of some of the things I was subject to while working at ZocDoc:
I was subject to sexual harassment by members of my training class on a daily basis via the company's internal communication system "HipChat", and immediately felt thrust into a very "frat house" like atmosphere where there were things the men who worked there could get away with saying like "you aren't bubbly enough", "you look hot today", "That secretary is a c---" etc. It was just accepted. Mostly because most of the people who work there are fresh out of college and have never had a real job, and do not know how to behave in the work place.
There was a distinct difference between the way upper management talked to and treated the women in the company. Many employees expressed concerns that were ignored. Some were told "this a sales floor", it was brushed it off as just being part of the job. The male employees were at a great advantage and very buddy buddy with each other and the women (who weren't sleeping with someone in upper management) were on their own.
I would often overhear managers say some of the girls dressed slutty, when I brought it up one gentleman even jokingly saying "there's nothing wrong with that" while laughing it off. Words like "tits", and "pussy", were common phrases heard on the sales floor. Coworkers would explicitly talk about sexual encounters out loud on the sales floor management would hear it and not say anything. After bringing this to the attention of upper management I was assured they would talk to him, but instead he took him out for drinks after work.
People were constantly cheated out of sales, and for a company who has a core policy to "Speak up" when anyone brought up anything they were labeled as a "complainer" To "Speak up" was the worst thing you could do if you cared about your job.Even bringing concerns to the attention of Human resources was pointless as they told you to talk to someone else about it. Um what is their role?
The company had a in house happy hour with wine and beer every Friday. Which was an awesome perk. Except for the fact that employees fresh out of college snuck in their friends who were still in college around 20 year old (even sneaking in dates) to partake in the company's complimentary beverages.
The most interesting part of working there was as a health company who compares itself to hospitals like Kaiser Permanente they are disgusting. They have several mice who run around the office during the day and late at night, defecate in mugs kept in the kitchen. Cleaning mice feces out of your desk was a daily routine. There were even mice in the the snack room, where they served us free and loose nuts, dried fruit, and other treats that mice love. All of this was just accepted.
As a sales representative I was told to blatantly lie to Dr.'s and I overheard people around me lie to them on a consistent basis. ZocDoc was even recently sued by a bund of doctors in a class action lawsuit brought forth by a group of Doctors.
I would like to point out that I am not a malicious person, I have numerous years of work experience. I have never been treated so disrespectfully, improperly, and unprofessionally by someone I was working for. I am certain that I am not the first person to experience these things by the hand of ZocDoc. This is evident by the fact that the people who did this to me believed that they could get away with what they did. And, ZocDoc as a company allowed them to by ignoring their actions.
ZocDoc does not care. This speaks volumes about who they truly are. You may view this as a letter coming from a disgruntled employee, but I assure you that I am not disgruntled, I just believe that for a company whose motto is "Patients First" I am a bit baffled by how they can treat their employees that way. Where do the employees come in? I wasn't asking to be 2nd 3rd 4th or 5th, I was merely hoping that I could have been acknowledge as a human being whose sole intentions were to help a potentially great startup find success.
Not to mention the constant workplace bullying I was subject to creating a toxic work environment. ZocDoc prides itself on being a company that is dedicated to improving the health of millions of people around the world, what about the health of their employees? What about their employees to are subject to draws full of mice excrement? What about your employees who are subject to running into at least 24 mice on a daily basis who defecate everywhere, and carry disease?
Cyrus stated in an interview that he has "a really high bar." when it comes to the type of people who are employed by ZocDoc. By what is this measured? Please define this, because in the simplest sense I was Bamboozled.
When I initially went to Human Resources (or People Ops) with my concerns instead of expressing concern or interest in what I was saying about my ongoing treatment they asked "Do you have proof?". This taught me that no one cares about what happened to you, not your manager, not the director of the department, not the company you work for, not your lawyer, not your significant other, not the judge, not the press, not even Jesusunless you can prove it. ZocDoc taught me to be prepared, so to answer that question: Yes I do.