In the Press section of the Custom Ink website there is a “We Top the Charts” list of articles, with certifications of the company being listed in best workplaces by different rankings, with #74 for women in the large workplace category at the very top.
Whether #74 is good or not, it links to a glowing review which includes this highlighted quote: “The attitudes of the people here really mesh well with my own values. Everyone starts the day on a positive note, and tries to find the positive in even the stickiest of situations. It's such a unique group of people. We are all different, with different backgrounds and interests, but everyone is respected from day 1--which is such an amazing feeling.”
In contrast, for former Reno Custom Ink employees who reached out to us, including some recently let go after the online provider of custom apparel and mementoes decided to close its production facilities here, it’s a unanimous relief they no longer work there.
Former “inkers” all chose to share their views anonymously, some of them after signing NDAs. One wrote about “brutal” hours and expectations, with many late nights. Working overtime, they said, was often requested of employees on very late notice. “Three a.m. overtime was projected every day after Thanksgiving until Christmas,” they indicated.
Another wrote they didn’t believe Custom Ink could keep the production facility staffed because of refusing “to provide cost of living increases” for production staff which didn’t get commissions like employees in other departments.
Overall conditions, several wrote, were also deteriorating, leading to staff departures in recent months.
“There was a total lack of cleaning in the building, dust and grease coated everything and the ceiling air vents were surrounded with dust, the only thing they hired anyone to clean professionally was the bathrooms, break room, and the machines to make the shirts,” one former employee wrote.
They went on to say there was recently an outbreak of flies at the Reno facility, which was initially blamed on employees having snacks, but then traced back to dirty materials forgotten in a biohazard bin. It go so bad, one coworker brought their own fly zapper to survive their shift.
Employees who reached out said they were expected to be on their feet for hours and hours on end, and that low pay, insufficient promotion opportunities, poor communication from management, and unsanitary conditions just didn’t make it worthwhile.
Another former employee called Custom Ink, “capital T Toxic.”
Job insecurity was on everyone’s mind with employees regularly fired at the end of busy periods for “questionable reasons,” they alleged.
Another former employee said raises had been promised in October 2022 but never materialized, and that hours had already been reduced to half days the last two weeks of operation.
They said they then got an abrupt “separation package email.”
Over 130 employees were working at the Reno facility when its shutdown was announced three days into 2023.
“Due to rising costs and increasingly tight markets for production talent, Custom Ink has decided to close our production sites in Reno, Nevada and Charlottesville, Virginia and consolidate in-house production in our Dallas, Texas facility,” was the official Custom Ink statement.
The Virginia-headquartered company said it would retain 245 employees in non-production roles in Reno, with most of them working remotely. The company’s annual revenue is estimated at $400 million. The average salary for employees in Nevada is estimated at about $36,000.
One employee said they had to sign an NDA to “receive additional severance monies” according to an internal Custom Ink document they shared, which asked them not to disparage the company. “(Not speaking or writing negatively about Custom Ink, including online,)” the inkersupport DocuSign indicated in parentheses to explain the word disparaging.