crew member

construction foreman

sales professional

branch manager

secretary

Cleary Building Corp.

I worked at Cleary for almost two years at the corporate office and believe me when I say that you do not want to work here. The CEO/higher ups truly do not care about your well-being in the slightest and only care about themselves. The starting pay is not “competitive” at all and be prepared to never get a raise, at least in the accounting department. I also just found out that their PTO policy has changed as well so in addition to only getting 2 weeks and not being able to use them until a year of working there, ALL PTO must be submitted and approved a month prior to taking it. That means that you can literally never be sick or be prepared to not get paid for it as PTO and sick time are one in the same at this horrible place. When I worked there many people across all departments had second jobs just to support themselves because the pay was so meager. Even people that had been there 10+ years had a second income to make up for the lack of financial security this place gave their people. Also, “overtime” (if you could call it that), was only offered when we were really busy and it just so happened to fall on a holiday week every single time. Meaning we could work up to 40 hours to make up for the HOLIDAY we got off, if we didn’t work more during that week we would get reprimanded and deemed “not a team player”. It is extremely cold in the office during winter and very hot in the summer. The heat/air conditioning is monitored so vigilantly and is not to be touched by anyone, no matter how uncomfortable we were in the office. Any company events we had we were to clock out early for and provide our own food. We were expected to make up this time or use PTO in order to attend a WORK party that was scheduled during office hours. It was severely frowned upon if we didn’t go because this made the CEO unhappy, you had to attend. This company is all about saving a buck in order to make more money, that is all they care about. Believe me when I say that I hated every day I had to come to this place, if I could give it 0 stars I would. You don’t want to work here in any capacity, trust me.

Cleary is the cheapest company I have ever worked for.  Pay is $10 per hour minus the benefits you have to pay for yourself, which makes it about a minimum wage job.  My secretary job included cleaning the office once a week, and also shampooing the carpet myself.  Ridiculously cheap way to save a buck. Can they not pay for a carpet cleaning company to come in once a year?  No, apparently not.  I spent 5 hours going over the carpet with the shampooer and still not totally clean.  I also had to buy office supplies myself and then wait to get reimbursed.  Bought my own coffee for the office at my own expense.  Can they not even supply coffee? The corporate people are abusive and hostile.  Almost every day I deal with their stupidity and verbal abuse.  Lots of snag people there. The crews are young punks who whine and complain and cuss and then put up shoddy buildings, which then need to be repaired. Then Cleary tries to minimize the repair costs. Lots of turnover with the crew.  Corporate is all about the collection report:  when do we get our final payment, what time and date is the collection appointment, etc.  We often had customers calling in and complaining about their buildings that need repairs, then corporate tries to minimize the repairs to save a buck.  Some buildings need repairs over and over again.  Often the salesmen have to pay for materials out of their own pocket.  Our branch manager made a whole $75 a week extra to be manager on top of his sales job, and worked about 60 hours a week, so made about minimum wage.  They took away half the managers' salaries to hire this other guy, which is downright cold in my opinion.

This place was by far the worst place I have ever worked. I was hired and then jacked around for four weeks about my start date, due to their high turnover rate they couldn't find anyone to train me. Then I was told I would be getting mileage reimbursement as well as gas reimbursement. I was told travel may be 2-3 days a week and I would be making 14.00/hr. I got my paycheck, had no mileage pay, worked for three weeks and was only home one day each week, and was paid 12.00/hour.
When I finally was able to start on my way to the job site with the other employees they were talking about why the last guy quit-because they had beat him up. They said they were kicked off the last job site because they trashed the hotel room, and also stated once we had got to our destination they were picking up an "eight ball." My wife had to come pick me up because I knew this was not for me. The manager then talked me into staying and put me on a different crew where I was then criticized for getting the gentleman mentioned above fired. He talked down to me, yelled at me for showering 2 times a day (after work, and to wake up in the morning), and talking to my wife on the phone nightly. I was told I was being trained by their number one foreman...if this is their number one foreman then this company has a lot of learning to do, and should never question their turnover rate being so high!
 I was lied to over and over and repeatedly promised many things that never happened. Also I had to use my own personal vehicle to get to and from the site (300 miles one way) and only reimbursed for my gas. I would not recommend this job to ANYBODY. I spent more money then I made and was never home!

You are told to lie about build dates, Very Poor Management at the Corp level and local level.  They will lie to you about your pay scale.  They have a way of keeping all the money you was told you will make on every job.  Crews are under educated to be building Buildings.  Micro Manage every move you make and then complain about everything you do.  They will give you a fake budget to hit then tell you that they want you to be 130% higher to make bonus.  Force you to sell buildings that can not be built any time in the next 6 months. CUSTOMERS HAVE YOUR CELL NUMBER!!! The customers will call you all times of day and night complaining about their building not being started on time or the job is completely messed up. They will not give a honest start date. I can go on for ever about this company.  Do NOT waist your time.  Go sell somewhere else and make real money.  This place is a complete joke!!  OH WAIT!!!! They break labor laws all the time.  Expect to work every other Sat for FREE WITH OUT PAY!!  You will work Trade shows for FREE WITH OUT PAY !!  your commission pay is determined by the build crew that can NOT and WILL NOT EVER complete a job on time or correct.  When they fire you the Manager of the location you work will get all the Commission money that you was supposed to get.  I really dont know how the Attorney Generals office has not been contacted and shut this company down.  They want salesman to sell so they can get the down payment to keep payroll going, because they cant complete buildings to get a final payment to pay employees.  We in Construction call that Robbing Peter to Pay Paul.   I'm a Union Journeyman Carpenter and this Ratty company needs shut down.

Are you tired of living and working with technology? Do you enjoy having little to no input on policies and procedures? Do you enjoy not getting trained for your specific position? Do you enjoy not being paid enough to live within an hour of the office without supplemental income? Do you enjoy bonuses being contingent on every other department performing perfectly instead of being based on personal metrics? Then Cleary is the place for you! This company is still living in 1980. Be prepared for your bonus to go toward expanding the office space and then being berated by the CEO for other departments not carrying their weight. There’s so much turnover because of extremely poor policies passed down from ignorant managers in the company who don’t understand what happens to the job after the customer signs the dotted line. If you are looking to get into civil engineering or construction admin, this is a good place to get experience de under your belt before moving somewhere that will actually teach you something and help you grow.

If yiur looking for a job, this isn't a bad one. However, if you're looking for a career, find a more professional environment and company who values their employees. 
Work life balance? Not hardly. Be prepared to answer emails and calls on weekends, holidays, vacation days and even if you're home sick with covid. 
Advancement? Well, kind of. But only because there is a revolving door of management. In 3 years, I went through 3 different supervisors, with no direct supervisor for about 8 months because no one wanted the position. As for field employees, low pay, poor training, and limited tools and equipment keep quality personnel away. Cleary has learned that if they increase turnover, they increase profit.
Pay? Sub standard when you review the job description but extremely low for all the extras they have you do. Mowing the lawn- yeah, your job. Taking payments, renting out and cleaning their storage units (owned by corporate VPs)- yep, your job. The list goes on. 
Retention? As long as you can take it or until you can find a better job. Be prepared to be threatened with termination for everything. Employees get termed before an investigation has even concluded.
Oh, and the fun part. If someone steels equipment that a foreman leaves out- the manager gets to pay for it out of his own pocket.



Cleary is a good company to work for. My manager was a kind, fair person and the office was a relaxed atmosphere. The buildings that Cleary builds are quality, and are priced quite high. They do have a good warranty service in place, and generally do care about their customers. The hours were flexible, and they provided me with a company car and a lot of sales supplies. They also provided excellent training, which I was very happy with. I have two main issues with Cleary: 1) They have very high expectations for their sales people. If you're not selling every week, you're on their blacklist,  2) The pay scale is very complicated and not easy to understand. Essentially, they pay you a base wage + bonuses. The bonuses are determined by how well the project is completed. In other words, if the project goes south, you don't make your bonus. Bonuses are paid out several months following the completion on a project, which makes it very difficult to survive the first few months working at Cleary. If you are a sales person who can make quick sales, and don't have any issues with your projects, you will do well here. Overall, I'd give them a 6.5 out of 10.

Short and sweet: loved working here. Everyone I worked with was awesome and really helpful. Im glad I worked here, and i cant say I wouldnt apply here again if the situation arose. My only complaint is the pay. benefits are what they are and float around the same ballpark as anywhere really. they upped the ante's on paid vacay days while I was there, (likely a tactic to reduce turnover, as most companies have done this.)The proprietary BIM software they use in house is very good. easy to navigate. AutoCAD is the drafting software used, (because its extremely trainable.) very little exp. required. Everthing is set up with list routines. you just edit what is needed.Very good job for early 20's or an aspiring drafter coming from other career.  It simply comes down to pay. starting wage is about $2 to $3 lower than should be for someone with my particular age and exp.. Wick offered me $3 more an hour than I was making just to start! Cleary is 'debt free' because they arent quite at the wage level as everyone else. Im not by any means knocking, but a bit of a pay scale boost up to where it should be and Id probly try to get back in!  Id have no problem working my #$% off for em, if they offered the pay they should be.Other than that, GREAT place!

Cleary has a product and design team that meets and generally exceeds the competition in quality.  Its management is strictly guided by the bottom line and will sacrifice customer satisfaction to save a dollar.  While I was considered a branch manager I could make few decisions without prior approval from corporate.  At a local level the employees were enjoyable to work with as we were working within the same managerial restraints.

A typical week day started at 6:30 in the morning and ended around 5:00 to 6:00 in the evening depending on work load and customers' needs.  I was required to staff the office every Saturday from 8:00 AM until noon making Sunday my only day off.  With being only employed for about 6 months I spent most of my time trying to repair customer relations that existed prior to my arrival, re-establishing Cleary's credibility in the marketplace and learning the product I represented.  At the end of six months I was terminated for not making sales goals.

The hardest part was trying to repair branch problems within management constraints.  

The best part was interacting with potential customers. 


Worked as a sales rep for almost 5 years. Great product for the value. However, upper management has lost touch with people at the branch level. They didn't give help to our branch for getting projects built after the derecho storm hit. We had phenominal sales, but no help to get the projects built after sub crews decided to do other work instead of Cleary jobs. That ultimately led to myself and the branch manager both leaving. Also, after covid hit, one of the first things they did was to reduce secretary hours to 30, and were happy that it was saving the company $9k per week. Company was constantly coming up with ways to take money away from the sales reps if they slipped up. In my opinion, this is the most greedy company I've ever seen. They make tons of profits, while only giving their employees a .25% "discretionary" match on 401k, and they think their really doing something great with that. They preach that their employees are their best asset, but the culture is definitely not representative of that. I do think that their product is the best value on the market, but the culture is not good. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Crew member 2506 salaries reported	$24.69 per hour
Construction foreman 393 salaries reported	$34.52 per hour
Sales professional 1245 salaries reported	$132,500 per year
Branch manager 378 salaries reported	$137,500 per year
Secretary 72 salaries reported	$13.00 per hour

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