I can understand that DreamHost is wanting to put their image forward as being a company that is “employee-owned“, but does it really have to come down to this?

Haha, I can’t take this company seriously. The random employee images on the front of the DreamHost website are just so tragically bad. I get that the unpolished “raw” photos are supposed to express the idea that their employees are just regular people like the rest of us. But…I don’t know. I just don’t get the sense that I’m being fully convinced of that fact. To me, the photos are just BAD photos that don’t tell me AT ALL that my site is being taken care of by even semi-professionals. It’s just funny to me that there’s an absolute wrong way to make your company feel care-free and personal and that DreamHost has unknowingly hit upon it.

Take Meebo for example. They are also a tech company that values their staff and the very direct relationships and communication they have with the site’s users. In essence, they are also an “employee-owned” company. That’s how they improve and work on a day-to-day basis. However, I’ve never thought for a second from their party photos or their blog posts that they were anything like how I’m currently viewing the DreamHost team.

Maybe it’s the fact that Meebo’s staff photos are actually photos of the staff having fun while being at work and that the DreamHost employee photos seem more like the staff having fun while not at work. It’s almost as if somebody — one of the employees, of course — at DreamHost came back from a good weekend and said to the webmaster, “Hey, post these photos up! They’re hilarious!” Meanwhile, the photos really have nothing to do with the company whatsoever. At least the Meebo photos are centered around company functions and not just some random photos of employees smiling and dancing.

I’m not sure if I get my point across. I just know that the photos on the DreamHost website look as unprofessional as unprofessional photos can get and that they make me think that DreamHost, while run by employees, might actually, in some sense at least, be run by MONKEYS dressed in employee costumes!

I hope they don’t read this and pull the plug on the server just for the heck of it. That wouldn’t be very employee-like at all.

DISCLAIMER: Doobybrain.com is hosted on an “employee-owned” DreamHost server. Yar.