As an employee…I had the absolute worst experience here. I cannot stress the amount of disdain I have for this place. Not only is it one of the most underwhelming tourist traps the city has to offer, it's also an extremely hostile work environment.
A comment I overheard a LOT was confusion over why there was barely anyone there. The weekends are the only somewhat crowded days. Because all the tourist traps are now in Midtown, there isn't much to do downtown, so it's already at a disadvantage. Then you add the confusing route from the lobby to the observation deck and back down to the bottom. The lobby is absurdly tiny and can get very congested extremely quickly, even with a small number of guests. The escalator (do not get me started on how many escalators are in this building (NOT FRIENDLY FOR THOSE USING MOBILITY AIDS) almost sends the guest back out of the building and into the Oculus. The rest of the experience is a stop-and-go of listening to the workers and do it yourself, and there is no indication of this flip-flopping, leaving the guest confused about what to do and where to go. There is also not much there, a sky portal- a live feed of the ground below; I'd rather go to the Edge, where they have an actual glass floor. The Summit also has plenty of picturesque opportunities.
Another comment I heard an overwhelming amount of times was, "This is it?". This observation deck offers two things. One, the name. It is, in fact, The World Trade Center. And two, it being the highest observatory in the city. Other than that, it is nothing to write home about. The elevator ride has two different videos that are somewhat interesting, and another video once you get to the top that is pointless as it fails its purpose to build excitement once the screens open to the view. After this meaningless video, you are greeted by another company trying to get you to rent an iPad that shows you around the city. Most, if not all, of the feedback on these ipads, has been negative. This makes the experience feel ingenuine, robotic, and Impersonal, and when you just paid a pretty hefty price to get up to the top, the last thing you want is ANOTHER company trying to sell you something.
This brings me to the working experience here.
This observatory has recently got some pretty bad reviews, specifically about employees leaning over and “looking miserable.” I would love to explain why I think that is.
I was recently rehired after a 3 month sabbatical where I immediately got word of a mass firing. I was told that this past summer, they fired a LARGE number of employees from the same staffing agency and did not give a credible reason both to the employees and the staffing agency that hired them. With most of the employees being hired at the beginning of the year, I got the feeling that a lot of the remaining staff were feeling ill at ease about their continued employment at the OWO.
After that mass firing, bad reviews started to pile up. Those reviews consisted of customers not being happy with the experience due to "miserable looking employees" who are "always leaning over."
Instead of management asking the employees why these unsavory reviews might be coming in (my guess would be because management fired a number of people in one day) they chose the route of micro-managing staff on how to school their faces to not show displeasure. As an employee, I will also say the ill advisement on where staff should be throughout the day, and becoming accusatory instead of remorseful when that ill advisement became apparent, would also lend a hand in the apparent displeasure being shown. There was no manager there to start the rotation from station to station or to assist with the large number of people who passed through. A good amount of those customers being international, who were sometimes confused about which direction they should be going at what times. This was completely overwhelming with no guidance from management.
You can also blame management for not educating staff on how to properly assist those with physical impairments as well as folks who are hard of hearing or deaf. Not to say that this falls completely on management, but with the amount of customers who come to the WTCO, you would assume that there would be some training to create a more inclusive environment.
Next, Employees who had to take a leave of absence due to health problems, school, or simply because of life were not allowed the leave of absence but rather forced to quit with the promise of a POTENTIAL rehire.
Finally The scheduling issues. For an organization that loves to utilize (over utilize in my opinion) excel, you would think they would have no problems in knowing who is supposed to come in on any given day. But alas, tis’ not the case. Frustration would be understandable after multiple days of not being listed on the schedule for the positions that I would need to be on that day (a schedule that is easiest to access and that is the most disseminated) but still being listed as working that day and being discarded (and not told what my next posts would be or even when my lunch would be). All of this being done at random by a confused, unprepared manager. With this happening for the three shifts throughout the day, the schedule is immediately outdated and unreliable.
Also, This building is freezing cold, and to be told that you can’t wear the PROVIDED company jacket because it is ‘out of dress code’ seems pretty unreasonable when there are CLEARLY more important issues that need to be addressed, but I digress.
As for my reason for leaving, it was over something that I deem ridiculous. I am human, just like everybody else. I left my ID card at home. A simple mistake/accident, something I'm sure almost everyone has done once or twice. (And before you ask “well why not run home and grab it”, this is New York where you can live 20 minutes away, leave an hour early, and still be 5 minutes late.) It wasn't until I had gotten into the building and came to the first security checkpoint that I realized I did not have it. I walked up and explained the situation to the guard, who knew I worked there. He then ran off to find another security guard. This is where my confusion started since I knew the man had seen me come in before and usually would be allowed through anyway. Another guard who I knew came up and told me to call management. I did so and was met with not an understanding person but by a woman who said I was "unprepared for work" because "it's part of the uniform" and that the only way around this was to go to HR and have them make another card and pay $35! They only pay each employee $17 and haven't given raises to anyone since before covid. I’m sorry but the only organizations where you have to pay to work are MLMS and I’m certain I didn’t sign up for Lularoe. After all of the stress I had had ENOUGH.
The World Trade Center should be welcoming and friendly, not just utter bleakness with a hostile, you mess up once and your fired, work environment. Call me petty, but I would rather tell as many people as I can about this experience to save you the time, money, and stress.