Dysfunctional and gross. - Recensione dipendente - Mentor presso Thinkful

I was a mentor and I worked at a coding bootcamp called Bloc that Thinkful acquired. I was let go for what I believe are completely astroturfed reasons. During the last few months of my employment at Thinkful I was listed in the top ten mentors with positive student reviews. They still fired me. The following is my story and the reasons they gave for my termination. I have also included a few other comments about the company. Hopefully my story gives you a taste of the cultural milieu to expect working there. The Story Three months prior to my termination I had a student who literally told me that "she doesn't feel like doing anything" and that she "has trouble scheduling her time". She said that when she gets off work she has no desire to code. In response I told the student what she needed to hear - that her time scheduling is her responsibility and that I can't help her with that. I also told her that the most that I can do is to share with her how I schedule my time. After the session the student sent the company a complaint. My team lead then had an online meeting with me about the issue and my team lead insisted that I was in the wrong. She also said that I might be "causing harm" to the student. Prior to the meeting my team lead said that my student feedback was good, but during this meeting she changed her narrative and said that I was doing poorly. It just so happened that during our meeting the Looker feedback data (the service that tracks our reviews) had a glitch and a bunch of mentors feedback ratings were changed to poor (yes, this really happened). When I asked about the glitch to another liaison at Bloc I was sent an email saying that I was being "demanding". In the email I simply asked why the Looker data was displayed incorrectly (especially when my job is on the line). Anyway, as a result of the student complaint my team lead said that I would be on a three month probation period. During this time I did fine. I had some student problems (which is normal when you are teaching 20+ students) and I did my best to navigate. I also went above and beyond and helped students offline without pay when I felt they needed it! Many students require much more help than they were getting and I stepped in many times performing a kind of unpaid "damage control" to keep them moving forward. On the second month of my probation I was listed in the companies top ten mentors with positive student feedback. During my second probation meeting I was expected to improve my email "tone". I told my team lead that I had been conforming to writing emails the way she did by exagerating politeness and adding exclamation marks to the end of words like "awesome!!" and "Thank you!!!". She said this was a great improvement. The last week of my probation (about 2 days before it was supposed to end) my team lead said that I had another student complaint. The complaint stated that I was acting frustrated and that I refused to look at a students code. This simply never happened. I've never, ever refused to look at any students code! In my last probationary meeting with my team lead I was abruptly terminated. There was no discussion. In addition to my team lead, the meeting was attended by one of the managers at Thinkful. The reason given by my team lead for my termination was that I didn't give a warning about the student that complained. I said that I didn't know there was a problem because the student gave no indication of one. I also said that I was listed as a top ten mentor with positive feedback. My team lead said that it didn't matter and that I was still terminated. At the end of each student meeting I always ask (as matter of habit) "was this a good session". If they say "yes" then I have no indication that their is any problem. In other words, the reason for my termination is basically that I am not a mind reader! The last little bit of the story is that on LinkedIn I am connected to one of the founders of ThinkfuI. I have had cordial conversations with him in the past. After my termination he refused to even acknowledge me when I messaged him about all of this. Oh' one last detail, I used to work for Thinkful and I quit to work for Bloc before Thinkful bought them. Yes, I originally worked at Thinkful, I left Thinkful to work at Bloc then Thinkful bought Bloc and I was fired! What is this really all about ? Right before Thinkful bought Bloc their was a explicit shift in the way mentors were expected to interact with students. Instead of mentors helping students solve problems we were told to defer most of that responsibility to an online Slack channel where other mentors help students via an online forum. We were told as mentors to assume the role of a motivational speaker. Yes, they told us this! Why? It's simple. See, (in my opinion) Thinkful really has very little to offer students that they can't get somewhere else online for cheaper or for free. So in order to keep student in the program and spending money (spending thousands of dollars) they need mentors to revert to Tony Robbins style cult psychology. At Bloc students are customers - and the customer is always right. Your job at Bloc as a mentor (in my opinion) is not to be a real educator - it's to keep students feeling good irrespective of how confused or poorly they understand the topics. The message is simple - keep the illusion going or get canned. In my case I also believe age discrimination played a factor on the part of my team lead. For context I am in my early 40's and my team lead is in her early 20's. Of course I can not prove this but I do believe it was a factor. She literally doesn't have half the teaching experience I have nor was she listed as a top ten mentor with positive student reviews. How she was given a managerial role of "team lead" while being so young and underaccomplished is another mystery. Their are a many problems I can point out about Thinkful and I will mention two more. 1. Bloc gives students a job guarantee (or their tuition returned) if they complete the program within a certain amount of time. If students take longer than the allotted amount of time (then according to the contract students sign) they forfeit these privileges. The way the course I taught is designed pretty much guarantees (in my opinion) that very few students complete on time. For this reason, I believe student failure is heavily built into the companies business model. 2. The level of JavaScript comprehension students are expected to know before they are thrust into learning the React web framework and Node.js is laughable. I've funneled students through two months of "learning" React and at the end of the two months they literally can't answer basic JavaScript questions that they should have learned from the previous module. This is a common occurrence. This isn't the students or the instructors fault. It is because the program (in my opinion) gives a false perception of the amount of time and work needed to learn the material. The way everything is set up and the false expectations imposed on students almost (in my opinion) insures student failure. The only way students can realistically get their monies worth at Thinkful/Bloc (in my opinion) is if they already know how to code and simply use the program as a catalyst to get a job. That way they can complete the program on time due to their prior knowledge and thus DEMAND that Thinkful/Bloc live up to their part of the deal and get them a job. Beyond that, I don't see any value here. Like most Silicon Valley funded gig economy start ups - there is a big illusion at work. There is nothing special here. It is the Uber of education where students are paying thousands of dollars with the hope of moving forward in life fast. The problem is, most of them would probably be better off just taking the bus.