I have thought for many months if whether or not I should write this but after working for Ronnie Mellen I think it is only fair that I let other people know what they are getting into if they do decide to work for her. Read this and you could DODGE A BULLET!
I worked for Ronnie for about half a year and it was the most difficult place I have ever been. She is very demeaning and speaks down to her employees. She will make you feel stupid all the time. She will constantly and I mean CONSTANTLY tell you she told you to do something, when in fact she didn't. I honestly think she is just at an age where she is losing her memory. And when she brings this up, you will tell her, "You never told me that," and she will proceed to yell and say, "YES I DID I ASKED A THOUSAND TIMES!" This is very typical. This is what happened to me on the daily. I just learned to respond, "of course you asked me a thousand times." You will never be right in her eyes. She hates being wrong so when she is right she will basically rub it in your face, casually of course.
She also calls you, emails you every day, after work, at 2 AM, over the weekend, ALL THE TIME. In my case, she would leave me dozens of emails and voicemails over the weekend. 90% of those emails and voicemails were screaming at you for doing something wrong in her eyes. I never answered or responded because I think that just gives her the excuse to continue to do so. One day I let my parents and family listen to a voicemail she left me. They all agreed that she was harassing me. She was telling me what a bad person I was and that I should figure out a new career for about a good 4 minutes.
She doesn’t pay overtime. She will work you till 10:00 pm if you allow her to do so. And when you request your overtime she will act like it never happened or in my case she will say, "no one pays overtime." She owes me about $1,000.00 in overtime.
Don't expect her to be in the office. She leaves you there all day alone until about 5 or 6 o'clock. That's when she decides to come in and that's when you should be off. But since she gets there last minute she wants to start working on all this stuff that could have been accomplished in the morning. Instead she sleeps in until about 11:00 am and then just calls the office from time to time. Then usually around 5:00 she comes in and wants to start working on projects. At this point you want to wrap up and she is just beginning. She doesn't care. She thinks that this is how it works and that this is "production." I know production is an ongoing task but I do not agree with the fact that things have to get done at 5:00 pm. She could get to the office at 9:00 am just like all of us and work all day to accomplish multiple things. She will be at home all day, making phone calls, eating and sitting on her bed. That's what her day is like. And when she feels like it she decides to come into the office.
Every day she gives you scraps of newspaper clippings. Some very very useless. And she will expect you to organize all these meaningless pieces of paper for her schedule, for jobs, for scouting, etc. I don't agree with this because there can be a faster way of doing so, if she just learned how to use a computer. Instead she is SO old school that she clips out stuff from magazines and asks questions on those pieces of paper like, "find this persons email" and when you look at the clipping it will be a photo of a person, and that's it! How do you find a person’s email with just a picture??? And most clippings are the size of a half dollar. SO SMALL. They can get lost easily.
She will also make you do personal stuff for her. For example, set Dr.'s appointments, and when you ask for her birthday because the doctor is asking she will get angry and say, "THEY NEVER ASK THAT! HANG UP!" We all know your 72 Ronnie and no one cares.
She will make you call CVS to see if they have her favorite lotion. She will make you call Trader Joes to get a guy to call her. She will make you research all the places she can get some dance shoes. She will make you set up appointments for her to get vein screenings. She will make you run her life. Not the company.
She does this thing where every day she leaves the office phone voicemails. So at 9:00 am when you get into the office you have to listen to all those voicemails. There will be AT LEAST 10 voicemails from her. If you decide to work at SBLS prepare yourself every morning for these voicemails. Most of the time she will just put you down, make you feel stupid, and then tell you what to do for the day. THIS IS VERY TYPICAL, TRUST ME!!
She never sleeps. I really think she hasn’t retired because if she didn’t have the company she wouldn’t have anything else to do. I don’t blame her. But unfortunately this has made her almost obsessed with running the company. So because she never sleeps she is up all night working on ways to improve stuff in the office. That may sound promising at first, but the way she fixes things is VERY VERY complicated! There are more efficient ways of doing so and we have explained this to her but she just gets angry. For example, she will spend all night looking at photos on her iPad and choose ones she wants for her website. She will then proceed to leave you a voicemail that sounds something like this, “I want the picture with the tree in the background in the fourth row to be put in the website, also add the one picture with the sun shining on the car that one should also go in the website.” Now this may seem okay, but she has THOUSANDS of photos on her iPad and yes she may tell you what album it’s in but it still is a long arduous task to go find that one photo with the tree in the background. Do you know how many of her photos have a tree in the background?
The pay is VERY VERY low for the amount of work you do. She constantly says she has no money. But then again it’s hard to believe her when her husband is a lawyer in Beverly Hills, she rents out about 4 or 5 houses and collects rent every month, every weekend she eats at the most expensive restaurants and attends a show or concert EVERY WEEKEND. Trust me there will not be a weekend that she isn’t doing something. Not to mention that she needs to get her nails and hair done every Saturday. So yes, she is very poor and can’t pay her employees a little more. It’s sad and greedy.
Overall, she is just a very mean person. I honestly feel bad for her. It’s sad to see someone at that age always angry. You should be enjoying life, laughing, and making new friendships. Life isn’t all about work. It’s about finding a balance! I just wish you were kinder Ronnie. You hurt people in many ways that you don’t seem to recognize. Life is precious you should be grateful for the people that work for you. They put up with you. You should treat them with some respect. I know 100% if you were generous, kind, and respectful your company would flourish.
Santa Barbara Reviews
I have thought for many months if whether or not I should write this but after working for Ronnie Mellen I think it is only fair that I let other people know what they are getting into if they do decide to work for her. Read this and you could DODGE A BULLET!
I worked for Ronnie for about half a year and it was the most difficult place I have ever been. She is very demeaning and speaks down to her employees. She will make you feel stupid all the time. She will constantly and I mean CONSTANTLY tell you she told you to do something, when in fact she didn't. I honestly think she is just at an age where she is losing her memory. And when she brings this up, you will tell her, "You never told me that," and she will proceed to yell and say, "YES I DID I ASKED A THOUSAND TIMES!" This is very typical. This is what happened to me on the daily. I just learned to respond, "of course you asked me a thousand times." You will never be right in her eyes. She hates being wrong so when she is right she will basically rub it in your face, casually of course.
She also calls you, emails you every day, after work, at 2 AM, over the weekend, ALL THE TIME. In my case, she would leave me dozens of emails and voicemails over the weekend. 90% of those emails and voicemails were screaming at you for doing something wrong in her eyes. I never answered or responded because I think that just gives her the excuse to continue to do so. One day I let my parents and family listen to a voicemail she left me. They all agreed that she was harassing me. She was telling me what a bad person I was and that I should figure out a new career for about a good 4 minutes.
She doesn’t pay overtime. She will work you till 10:00 pm if you allow her to do so. And when you request your overtime she will act like it never happened or in my case she will say, "no one pays overtime." She owes me about $1,000.00 in overtime.
Don't expect her to be in the office. She leaves you there all day alone until about 5 or 6 o'clock. That's when she decides to come in and that's when you should be off. But since she gets there last minute she wants to start working on all this stuff that could have been accomplished in the morning. Instead she sleeps in until about 11:00 am and then just calls the office from time to time. Then usually around 5:00 she comes in and wants to start working on projects. At this point you want to wrap up and she is just beginning. She doesn't care. She thinks that this is how it works and that this is "production." I know production is an ongoing task but I do not agree with the fact that things have to get done at 5:00 pm. She could get to the office at 9:00 am just like all of us and work all day to accomplish multiple things. She will be at home all day, making phone calls, eating and sitting on her bed. That's what her day is like. And when she feels like it she decides to come into the office.
Every day she gives you scraps of newspaper clippings. Some very very useless. And she will expect you to organize all these meaningless pieces of paper for her schedule, for jobs, for scouting, etc. I don't agree with this because there can be a faster way of doing so, if she just learned how to use a computer. Instead she is SO old school that she clips out stuff from magazines and asks questions on those pieces of paper like, "find this persons email" and when you look at the clipping it will be a photo of a person, and that's it! How do you find a person’s email with just a picture??? And most clippings are the size of a half dollar. SO SMALL. They can get lost easily.
She will also make you do personal stuff for her. For example, set Dr.'s appointments, and when you ask for her birthday because the doctor is asking she will get angry and say, "THEY NEVER ASK THAT! HANG UP!" We all know your 72 Ronnie and no one cares.
She will make you call CVS to see if they have her favorite lotion. She will make you call Trader Joes to get a guy to call her. She will make you research all the places she can get some dance shoes. She will make you set up appointments for her to get vein screenings. She will make you run her life. Not the company.
She does this thing where every day she leaves the office phone voicemails. So at 9:00 am when you get into the office you have to listen to all those voicemails. There will be AT LEAST 10 voicemails from her. If you decide to work at SBLS prepare yourself every morning for these voicemails. Most of the time she will just put you down, make you feel stupid, and then tell you what to do for the day. THIS IS VERY TYPICAL, TRUST ME!!
She never sleeps. I really think she hasn’t retired because if she didn’t have the company she wouldn’t have anything else to do. I don’t blame her. But unfortunately this has made her almost obsessed with running the company. So because she never sleeps she is up all night working on ways to improve stuff in the office. That may sound promising at first, but the way she fixes things is VERY VERY complicated! There are more efficient ways of doing so and we have explained this to her but she just gets angry. For example, she will spend all night looking at photos on her iPad and choose ones she wants for her website. She will then proceed to leave you a voicemail that sounds something like this, “I want the picture with the tree in the background in the fourth row to be put in the website, also add the one picture with the sun shining on the car that one should also go in the website.” Now this may seem okay, but she has THOUSANDS of photos on her iPad and yes she may tell you what album it’s in but it still is a long arduous task to go find that one photo with the tree in the background. Do you know how many of her photos have a tree in the background?
The pay is VERY VERY low for the amount of work you do. She constantly says she has no money. But then again it’s hard to believe her when her husband is a lawyer in Beverly Hills, she rents out about 4 or 5 houses and collects rent every month, every weekend she eats at the most expensive restaurants and attends a show or concert EVERY WEEKEND. Trust me there will not be a weekend that she isn’t doing something. Not to mention that she needs to get her nails and hair done every Saturday. So yes, she is very poor and can’t pay her employees a little more. It’s sad and greedy.
Overall, she is just a very mean person. I honestly feel bad for her. It’s sad to see someone at that age always angry. You should be enjoying life, laughing, and making new friendships. Life isn’t all about work. It’s about finding a balance! I just wish you were kinder Ronnie. You hurt people in many ways that you don’t seem to recognize. Life is precious you should be grateful for the people that work for you. They put up with you. You should treat them with some respect. I know 100% if you were generous, kind, and respectful your company would flourish.