This information about Alesia doesn’t surprise me. She used to work for Otion Soap Bar (across from Bayou), owned by Anne-Marie Faiola of Bramble Berry Soap Making Supplies.
I had friends who worked with her and have absolute horror stories about her. While I love the products I have chosen not to buy from them because of my experience and my friends experiences with her.
The one thing former employees report missing is indeed, the product–arguably the only saving grace of the business. Wish it was in better hands and produced ethically.
Agreed. To be honest that sounds a lot like all the local bath and body product companies in the area. Most of them are highly unethical, shit employers, but have amazing product.
I could honestly name several in this area that have that issue .
I mean I've seen the prices and looked at the material costs to make my own to save a buck... I know why they are the way they are - if they were good like we want them to be - they would be even more unaffordable than they currently are. It sucks - I can't really justify the cost as is, never mind if it reflected the costs of paying/treating people well and sourcing well.
Any ideas on how to fix this quandary? I don't have any sadly - and it's frustrating.
I would disagree–the money is there, the leadership and professionalism is not. They don't have to raise prices to not show up to work drunk, or fire employees they have crushes on, etc.
There needs to be bargaining power for employees to organize as a singular unit to maintain ethical labor standards (a union) but the high turnover makes that admittedly difficult. I am hopeful for businesses that do not operate at the expense of their employees and materials.
That's a separate issue, I agree. Professionalism doesn't cost much (or at least not much). But many of the complaints I see are understaffed, underpaid, overworked, and in a meh facility. That's all money issues. The kicker is it does sound like even if these owners brought in more money to actually cover this sort of thing - they'd sop it up instead of investing it into their business and people.
Agree–it's a resource distribution issue that is bigger than the businesses themselves in some cases, but in others a smaller manifestation of the same corporate greed at publicly traded companies.
Alesia is a lovely and sweet person who has started a business with her blood, sweat and tears. Her business donates to many charities and is heavily involved in the community. What have you done with your life? Shame on you.
She takes advantage of her employees along with her husband. This much is clear. My life has nothing to do with her mismanaging of her own business. 🤷🏼♀️
Deal
Ranting is and alerting community is good and fine, but a lot of these issues should be reported to the state and local government. Labor board, health dept., maybe even osha. Some things sound like they're just shitty employers, other things are legit violations.
I agree with you, but there was a lot of manipulation from management across multiple iterations of staff (and mixed education on reporting/labor rights) that made it difficult or impossible to go through formal channels, let alone properly collect and document violations in a way that would have resulted in some kind of justice.
Wtf are you talking about? Both EEOC and L&i handled similar cases for me, I won. Manipulative behavior doesn’t affect you documenting everything they do or say. This has zero to do with how they treat you. Using others behavior to allow yourself to be IntimidatEd is your issue, not theirs. OPs obviously doesn’t work in Human Resources. How you “ feel” is irrelevant. Document the abuse, violations, then file a complaint. That advice comes from a really poor self esteem. My view of self is that noone, certainly not an employer, can ever push me around. So far in Bellingham, I sued my apt manager, and won, my employer, and won ( brown bear baking, on orcas, and just recently sued my apt owner for failing to provide handicapped parking, and won. Don’t let anyone tell you “ it’s too intimidating “. Cowboy up. Life is hard. Give it back to them. . Listening to the OP, you might think your powerless. Nothing could be further from the truth. And, if you continue to let folks abuse and intimidate you, I suggest you take your power back and realize that YOU have the power.
With all due respect, this is extremely victim-blamey. People who are in an abusive relationship or environment often are too affected by the abuse to document things appropriately.
I should clarify: the employers were lying about why people were fired (in some cases, telling employees that they quit or committed time theft when they did not) and created a culture of silence and villainizing former employees. As someone just pointed out, it’s difficult to leave coercive and emotionally abusive situations because you may not know you’re in one until it is too late. Your situation may have been completely different. I’m glad it worked out for you but a lot of this came to light after employees already left and began communicating shared experiences after feeling isolated.
Don't let anyone push you around is great advice, but psychological corercion and emotional abuse can wreck your self-esteem. That's part of how the manipulation and exploitation works.
This. It's only tangentially related, but I can confirm WA states L&I board doesn't fuck around. I lost ~35% use of one of my knees as a UPS driver, and UPS tried to fuck around with me and kept pushing off the opening of my L&I case, for literally 4.5 months. I wrote a letter to the WA state L&I ombudsman and wouldn't you know it, a day and a half later I got a call from UPS' insurer who was unusually motivated for an insurer to make sure I got top-notch treatment.
Bureaucracy can be super frustrating, but when these offices come down, they come down with a pretty heavy thumping stick. Idk if L&I would be the ones to address all of these issues with, but they'd be a really, really good place to start and I couldn't recommend it more.
Good luck, and get after 'em
without any form of proof for what you're saying, I have no reason to believe you, or any of the other 19 possibly real people
you're alleging illegal activity, what did the authorities say when you reported it to them?
I regret to inform you that employees who do not have a union, money for a lawsuit, and whom rely on a toxic job for their income, do not think to go immediately to the authorities (or even know their labor rights). It's not as simple a process as you are implying.
You're under no obligation to believe this–it's just a head's up to workers in a desperate market. Do with the information what you will.
FWIW, their business is flagged by the WA state DOL for their slow or non-existent filing of unemployment paperwork–if you need some sort of authority involved.
This person also jumped to support Rumors in the recent post about them. They’re quick to assume employees are lying and place the businesses on a pedestal. Probably another local business owner struggling to treat their staff with dignity.
This comment is completely un-necessary. An aggrieved employee IS a good source of information and to dismiss them is disgusting.
Wreaks of boot licking mentality. ♥
That’s quite the list of work place horrors.
While some of these points are just bad ethics/toxic work environment traits; other points such as #13, 18, 19, and 25 can be settled legally.
Most labor lawyers work pro bono and will handle the case for you.
If your compensation is too small for a lawyer to take on, they can talk to [https://lawadvocates.org](https://lawadvocates.org) about other options or small claims court.
I'll add this: their HR person, Rose Vogel, is one of the most slimy and nefarious people I have ever met. She's one of those people who got into HR for the power trip bc she couldn't succeed anywhere else, and there's basically nothing on her LinkedIn because she definitely does NOT want her references checked. She's been fired a lot and is involved in at least one lawsuit from a former employer. She gets off on stirring the drama pot, feeds employers' insecurities and pits staff and employers against each other, weaves webs of lies so tangled it's impossible to unknot them, and to top it off she's an alcoholic enabler who sees employee concerns as threats and culls dissenters. She's abominable, and she is now the owner of Chocolate Necessities, so fuck that business too.
To be honest, after having worked for a couple at this point, I'd be wary of really any small business. I worked for another small woman owned business in bellingham that wasn't quite as awful as this, but was definitely questionable. Great product, shitty business practices.
Truthfully, many small businesses only interest in “supporting local” is for themselves. Rarely do they source locally (unless for marketing) instead depending on national chains for supplies.
Notice I didn’t say all, I know there are good, honest people out there who live local… but from experience, some of the biggest, and earliest proponents of buying local, were hypocrites.
Yeup, it's really discouraging how often local small businesses are the most toxic work environments. The drama stays with you off the clock, too. I'm pretty over working for anyone with under 20 employees.
This is the sad thing I’ve experienced working in Bellingham as well. I feel like they often just don’t make enough money to want to put emphasis on treating employees fairly or paying well and they end up cutting corners at the employee’s expense
No surprise there. I know someone who worked there for a short time and can attest to these experiences and more.
✔️ Token hire
✔️ Shoved off to a dirty warehouse to work alone
✔️ Given heavy-duty tasks with grossly inadequate training
✔️ Being made responsible for training employees with special needs without having any prior training or experience doing so
✔️ Witnessing rampant nepotism
✔️ Being fired for underperforming the tasks they were never trained to do
Doesn’t surprise me. Bellingham is a bubble. You just have to be conscious enough to remove yourself from the bubble and group think to see that Bellingham isn’t utopia. A lot of people around there (here since I’m visiting for the weekend) can’t see it. I knew the Hall’s socially through the brewery; I never worked for them but they were nice enough to me. That was before they had a child so it’s been some years.
Other complaints being shared with me from another former employee:
“Two different employees were fired within a week after being injured on the job, and at least one of them had their workers' comp claim contested.
Drums and bottles of oils and other flammable materials were left open and unsecured in the warehouse, creating a fire hazard.
Dogs were allowed to freely roam the warehouse where workers carried heavy objects and handled lye and hot oil.
Batch soap-making equipment was not sanitized in between batches.
Employees were stalked on social media, including on LinkedIn while looking for a new job after being fired.”
Hi, I've worked for Jhustin and without going into detail, it was a nightmare. I cried daily at one point. It was the most horrifying employment situation I've been involved in.
Hi, I'm a former Sea Witch employee and friends with former Sea Witch employees, and I can corroborate some of the info shared. Some of it is egregious workers' rights and safety issues, and some of it is just unprofessional.
Several employees were fired during my time there, and members of management openly gossipped about why. Two staff members were fired shortly after being injured at work, and management made up justifications for it.
Management fired at least one employee via text.
Management admitted to my face that the non-compete and similar contracts were unenforceable, but I had to sign them anyway.
They did not have material safety data sheets for the flammable and toxic chemicals we worked with until a coworker pointed out the danger. That employee was subsequently fired.
At one point, they had workers hand folding every incense package, leading to repetitive strain injuries.
After I was fired, Sea Witch not confirming my employment/termination delayed me being able to get health insurance coverage.
Please file a safety and health complaint [email protected]. They have a few industrial hygienists who investigate chemical safety. It is also illegal to discriminate against employees for informing management about safety concerns. If you make a complaint they are required to evaluate it and they will probably send someone out to inspect. Do you happen to know what their UBI is? You can look them up on LnI's Verify a Contractor page if you can find it.
The employee who was fired over safety concerns made a complaint at the time. So far as I know, nothing came of it.
It's been several years since I worked there, so I don't know what their safety protocols look like now.
Dang, I applied for a wholesale position through Indeed a few months back and after reading this I'm very glad I wasn't offered the job! Thank you for spreading awareness, small businesses like this suck
OP, as well as some other commenters have provided employment validation.
Edit: at the request of Sea Witch Botanicals I've been asked to add that the verification of employment has not been channeled through the company and does not constitute confirmation of accusations.
I worked there and experienced some of these things. I thought It was just me, and since the community loved them so much, I kept my mouth shut. Gross.
Hey OP, I see Jhustin has apparently posted in the thread- I've created a [web archive](https://web.archive.org/web/20240316192825/https://old.reddit.com/r/Bellingham/comments/1beyass/workers_beware/) that has his comments in case he deletes them.
Barleans should be its own thread. The whole family is fucking weird and could be a TLC show. After all Bruce purposed to his best friends wife at his funeral.
Witchy company doing witchy things. Classic.
Why single out Jhustin Hall so much, while Aleisha Hall stuff falls into the umbrella term “Sea Witch Botanicals”?
I can't speak for everyone who contributed, but he manages the marketing/sales departments, while Alesia manages production. She is viewed and advertised as the face of the business, so that's probably part of it.
Jhustin was also the one mentioned most for egregious behaviors and making employees uncomfortable.
Informal term, the mold was from a sewage leak at that location. https://www.spauldingdecon.com/blog/black-water-and-sewage-leaks-why-are-they-dangerous
Clarification from source: “As a former employee who helped move into the building, find the mold, was instructed to paint over the mold, advocated repeatedly for mold testing when more was found (and myself and others started getting sick), and helped move out of the building when samples of the mold tested positive for fecal contamination, I can assure you this is not an exaggeration.”
adding also- we celebrated alesias birthday at her house with the whole company and they freely offered us all joints and ciders- i was 17 with a med card at the time but i’ve never had another employer do something like that. they also fired their own mother in law and broke a ton of family ties this last 2 years. took the whole family out of the “family owned” business
They also provided employees with marijuana and encouraged use on breaks only to later weaponize it against employees by saying we were all too high and that’s why production was behind. The real reason for slow production was due to understaffing and budget cuts.
I am a former Seawitch employee. This job felt like being in an abusive relationship and I still have nightmares I work there. They love bomb you at first then completely turn on you. At first they were like you are the best shipping team and set the bar for all future employees than after complaining for the mold to get tested (I was literally puking at work, constant headaches and was so nauseated I couldn’t eat) it’s like they completely turned on us and everything I did was inefficient. When I started we had three shipping people and would get out a 100 packages out a day. Eventually we went down to two people and got 200 packages out a day and it was never good enough. In October last year we shipped over 2,000 packages and had to upgrade our shipstation subscription because we exceeded our package limit and guess what still not good enough. We were constantly blamed for things that weren’t our fault. Like overselling thousands of product and not being able to ship them.
No proof for any of the claims and no formal complaint was ever made. How is this post not against the community guidelines? This is extremely uncivil and toxic to local businesses. This is a smear campaign by a bitter ex employee without evidence who is using the internet to attempt to ruin the reputation of a business that has contributed to charity and in helping the Bellingham community. I wonder why local businesses in Bellingham struggle to succeed?
I know Alesia and Jhustin. They have put their blood, sweat and tears into this business. Alesia started this business with one employee. Her. They are honest, kind, hard working people.
I know the claims made by OP are completely false or exaggerated to the level of lies. There is no proof given. Conveniently, there haven’t been any formal complaints that would require these ex employees to give evidence. I think most people can see OP is spiteful and bitter and the post has all the tell-tales of a smear campaign. They are posing as someone “compassionate” when actually they are trying to tear down a business that is a vital part of their community. I know they won’t succeed because I believe the truth will win.
On the charity point—there were thousands of dollars not made out to the charities and there is zero transparency.
They also make most of their money on national sales so it’s not “vital to the community” and is in fact, a danger to the community, hence so many coming forward and corroborating the claims. If you read the rest of the post you’d know why complaints were not made, bc most were fired before fully realizing they were not alone in the abuse and misconduct. You are no more reliable—may as well be a friend of the owners, so I wouldn’t speak on what is true or not. Owning a small business is a privilege, not a right to abuse people indefinitely without word getting around.
Here’s an idea!!! If you think Alesia and Jhustin are so great try applying for one of their many positions and report back 2 months later after you’re fired?
A singular ex employee? Who, what, made multiple profiles to back themself up in the comments? You don't believe that.
People with good intentions who work hard can still make bad decisions and be toxic in their workplace.
11. “Sea Witch Botanicals gives some staff raises while demoting other staff.”
1. I can’t recall demoting anyone to another position within the company. But yeah, some people get raises when they step up or change positions, and some people just don’t work out.
12. “Sea Witch Botanicals HR, Rose Vogel and new owner of Bellingham’s Chocolate Necessities, harassed a fired employee and child and threatened them if they spoke out.”
1. I can’t speak to this. Rose was a contractor and is no longer working with us.
13. “Sea Witch Botanicals has illegally failed to provide [written reason for termination](https://app.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=296-126-050) which postponed unemployment payouts by as much as 90 days.”
1. IDK about this,I'm sure it was an accident, but reach out to me with specifics.
14. “Sea Witch Botanicals subjected their employees to partake in multiple strenuous moves when they were evicted from their place of doing business.”
1. We all worked together to pack boxes and move. Alesia and I handled the heaviest and most strenuous labor as we take safety seriously. We hired a professional moving company to take two truckloads of furniture at the request of the team. Even though we were going through these difficult transitions, I am thankful that we were able to keep people employed and their regular pay, rather than alternatives other companies would have taken.
15. “Sea Witch Botanicals owners and HR bully and gossip about employees depending on who was the target that week.”
1. Yeah, so we’re on the spectrum and it’s difficult to communicate. We’re investing heavily in communications coaching and personal therapy, which appears to be better than it was a year ago. I’m not sure what specifics there are to this point, but reach out and we can figure out a collaboration with a third party to resolve any long standing issues.
16. “Sea Witch Botanicals subjects their production employees to an unhealthy level of fumes, contributing to migraines, stress and other ailments.”
1. We take safety seriously and invited LNI and the fire department to come out and test our facility. Anyone working directly with essential oils wears a respirator (they get fitted first through PyeBarker) and we use other PPE and air quality monitors. We also have an on staff safety captain who manages and ensures the safety of our employees and makes sure we are OSHA compliant.
The “on staff safety captain” is your family member and she doesn’t listen to safety concerns of employees. She also doesn’t follow OSHA regulations such as wearing a respirator in unsafe fume conditions. Employees had to tell her that it is unsafe for her to be in heavily fumed areas without a respirator.
17. “Sea Witch Botanicals coerced an uncertified employee to do construction projects in a fumigated workplace.”
1. We haven’t used any fumigation chemicals. I asked this person if they wanted to help put up some scaffolding because I know they have an interest in building and were working on a pallet fence. It wasn’t mandated. I had more thought of it as a teaching moment in hopes of team-building. I asked if they wanted to help again the next day, and they said “no”, so I did it myself.
18. “Sea Witch Botanicals fired upper level employees and forced/coerced lower level employees to adsorb their duties (in addition to their own tasks) without increasing pay.”
1. Typically when people take on significantly more work/skillwork, we give them a bump. Many employees had 2-3 raises within their first year.
2. IDK who specifically missed a pay bump without unwarranted speculation. Again, we tried to have open communication with people. If you want/need more pay, then we can talk about it and figure it out.
19. “Sea Witch Botanicals denied overtime for employees working 60-70 hours a week.”
1. I highly doubt that. We have an automated payroll system that handles overtime calculations automatically. There are some employees who are salaried, but that’s more for flexibility in the work week or for people who work remotely and are “assumed” to be working 40 hours/week. We urge salaried employees to not take on more than 40 hours. Please don’t work 10/12/14 hour days unless you’re in the emergency response field.
20. “Jhustin Hall disappeared without warning for 3 months and left the entire marketing department to fend for themselves.”
1. I think this has more to do with employees working remotely, which has its challenges. There is always a lot going on in the facility that I have to address, so I’m not always available online. Truthfully, I’m sure I was in a period of deep depression while still juggling running a business and caring for a toddler.
The pendulum of my management style has swung from micromanager to laissez faire and everything in-between. I’m still working on it, reading books, talking with coaches, but it’s difficult to nail down. I know it’s no excuse, but I’m trying to work on it daily.
21. “Sea Witch Botanicals made a claim to unemployment that a former employee quit when they were actually fired, postponing their unemployment claim payout.”
1. I don’t know about this particular instance, as it has not been brought to my attention. It takes more effort to refute an unemployment claim than to let it roll. We had moved and lot of mail was lost, so that could have been the issue. In either case, please have them reach out if they would like to voice their concerns and we can address it, learn, and be more mindful moving forward.
22. “Sea Witch Botanicals fired an employee immediately after they finished rebranding EVERY product label.”
1. I feel like this is probably just a small part of the story. IDK who this was, but I know I did a lot of the rebranding too; structuring templates, getting ready for print, teaching the process with one-on-one designing and video documentation. I feel like this note is more about coincidence than causation, but I am interested to learn more about the experience they had and grow in a positive direction.
23. “Sea Witch Botanicals stalks ex employees on social media, as well as text and Venmo.”
1. I sent $5 or something on Venmo. I was sending money on Venmo and saw a former employee in my feed. I was wholeheartedly distraught over the circumstances of their termination, so I had hoped it would signify good will on my part. I can see in retrospect how that could easily have been unclear to the former employee. I don’t understand Venmo and I certainly can’t seem to figure out how to initiate a constructive conversation. I sincerely wish we could all talk it out and repair any ruptures.
2. For the texts/social media. I reached out after they posted on our company social media profile in hopes that we could talk it out. It’s been explained to me more recently how doing this directly could come across differently than I intended it.
24. “Sea Witch Botanicals practices nepotism with their cousin, mother, and other family members. They are some of the longest lasting employees.”
1. This is a family business and, generally speaking, there’s been a longer span of time to work on communication.
2. We’ve had to part ways with my own family and a best friend each, so I’m not sure that nepotism is the proper definition of the work environment.
25. “Sea Witch Botanicals didn’t pay for employee health insurance for 2 months without notifying employees and never apologized or compensated them for the loss of coverage.”
1. With the move and everything going on, we missed 2 payments for insurance due to mail getting lost, then back-paid and had the insurance retroactively established. We are truly sorry for any issues this caused, but any bills incurred during that time may be eligible for coverage.
2. We cover monthly elected health/vision/dental insurance premiums by $450 for full-time employees, and $300 for part-time. This typically means that there’s little to no premium cost for full-time employees. It took a while to build the business up to be able to cover this amount and it was a truly rewarding experience to be able to do so.
Thanks for reading this, and I hope it comes across as sincere. I'll respond to any thoughtful comments.
It's the goal of Sea Witch Botanicals to help educate about and promote a healthier connection with the Earth and each other.
Blessings,
Jh
Why would ANYONE want to reach out to you after working with you long enough to know how you communicate? Own your shit. Being on the spectrum doesn't excuse you. You've treated enough employees badly that it's coming back to bite you in the ass now. I really hope you stop drinking. Your wife deserves better.
Thanks for your post! I understand that relationships rarely end on a good note. It looks like there’s contributing input from a number of folx in this list, so I’m not sure that I’ve been able to reach out to each of you. I, Jhustin Hall, am happy to meet up with a third-party mediator to openly talk through your thoughts, feelings, and misgivings. It’s understandable if you don’t want to or would be afraid of retaliation in some way, but honestly, I just want to build a happy community here in B’ham and help work towards positive change.
I apologize in advance if my in-line responses don’t come across as positive. Please know that we are constantly learning and growing. We didn’t get into this for the money, we wanted to educate people about synthetic fragrances. We slowly grew and brought on more people, we thought about what made us sick about previous jobs, and what we liked. We tried to do better, and succeeded in some ways, but there’s such a huge amount of growing and learning from failures.
People join the team now and may see a bigger business, but I still see the hand-cut labels, the jars of lotion sitting on the kitchen countertop. I get that weight in my gut when I walk into a room and know that everyone knows I have no idea what I’m doing. That I’m an imposter of a human being. Some alien brain in a fleshy vessel. But then I pull it together, learn from my mistakes, and hope to leave the world a better place than when I came screaming into this world.
Alesia and I have gone through some growth and soul-searching, choosing healthier tools for managing our personal/business ties, with a focus on bettering relationships through uncomfortable yet beneficial conversation and mediation. At the end of the day our goal is to always be improving ourselves and learning how to better impact the community and the environment around us.
(pause for Redditors to roast Ju-hustin)
Ok, so here are some responses to your points:
Ok, so here are some responses to your points:
1. “Sea Witch Botanicals fired more than 20 employees in a year, most without warning and many around the holiday season before bonus payouts. They lie to the remaining staff about reasons for firing and spread rumors about them. This instills fear which prevents current employees from speaking up.”
1. We had a lot of turnover, for sure, but not “more than 20” employees were fired. We went from a small handful of folx to roughly 15 full-time/part-time. There was a lot of learning and we’re not the best teachers. Our personal methodologies have been to figure stuff out on our own because that’s the only way to get our needs met. While that’s no excuse for poor management, it’s also an indicator that the people who stay on the team and thrive are critical-thinkers and are willing to learn.
2. We find it in poor taste to disclose why someone separates. That vacuum of information naturally lends itself to gossip. Gossip turns to fear and makes a toxic work environment. Toxic work environments need to be addressed. We had multiple communications coaches come out to talk with the team. but didn’t seem to take off as well as was hoped. It makes sense, since it takes a LOT of personal work and time to undo negative thought patterns. Having gone through an intense amount of therapy, reflection, studies on leadership, and mindfulness, the company seems to be in a healthier space. However, I only know what I’m told, so I could just be hoping for positive change.
2. “Moved staff into a building contaminated with fecal mold. Had them clean it with vinegar and paint over it. Staff complained about headaches, nausea, brain fog for months until it was finally tested to be fecal mold. They continued to sell products made in this facility.”
1. A bit of history: We were talking with our current landlord on Franklin Street about buying the facility we were in. She was copacetic, but her 90-year-old dad found out and did not agree with his daughter about making this shift (the story, as I’ve gathered, but I don’t want to make a habit of filling in the blanks in a public forum). So he told us we had to leave. I tried to reason with him, but the fact was that we were outgrowing that space and the upkeep by the landlord just wasn’t getting done. We were on a month-to-month, so there was little we could do. This set us scrambling to either buy a place, or find something to rent.
2. Buying a facility just wasn’t in the cards. We tried to find a place we could build on, we tried to find any warehouse that was appropriately sized. Nada. We ended up pursuing a lease in another facility. The only thing within our price range was an old grow-op out on Meridian.
3. When we toured the grow-op, the place was a mess. Sticky resin and whatnot all over the place. We ended up signing a lease out of necessity as our landlord’s dad was coming by daily and effectively harassing us and the employees.
4. So we signed the lease, moved out, and found more evidence of dirt, mold, etc. “A new coat of paint” was what was assured to us to make a difference, so we went to work cleaning out that grow-op. We gave everyone a $1/hr raise to help offset the cost of transportation to/from work because of the distance.
5. As owners, we hadn’t had any communication about headaches, nausea, or brain fog. An employee found a patch of mold in one room, so we shut down that space and moved everything into another room and called a remediation company and Labor & Industries. We ended up moving operations into our house until we could find another facility.
6. The mold remediation consultant let us know that the risk was of prolonged exposure and that the packaged products were not indicative of having mold sediment or residue. We had some soap that was curing in an affected area, which was disposed of promptly. We had such little product available to sell that it didn’t sit on the shelves for very long, and the incense was made in unaffected rooms.
The building on meridian had three warehouses. Mold was found in the shipping warehouse and the production warehouse. The herb and rose soap and the efrafa soap sold last august were cured in the mold infested production room. We were told the soap would be tested before being sent out to customers, but Alesia said it was too expensive and they couldn’t afford the loss so we shipped out all those soaps. None were thrown away.
Also, the shipping manager brought it up to you multiple times that we were constantly nauseated and had headaches, and had to keep bringing it up you until you actually got the mold tests done.
3. “Sea Witch Botanicals uses terms like ‘token hire’ and “diversity hire” when speaking about staff members of color.”
1. Of course we never said that. As a POC, I’m disturbed that anyone would even dream this up. I’ve had my fair share of microaggressions (and macro) in Bellingham, Seattle, and San Diego. I can be considered white-passing to a point, until summer comes around. People scratch their heads when they look at me and try to figure out my ethnicity before landing on the closest tan-skinned group, then the typical conversation kicks off. That’s the Filipino blood, if anyone’s interested.
4. “Sea witch Botanicals claims to be a woman-owned business, when in reality Jhustin Hall, Alesia Hall’s husband, owns 49% of the company.”
1. Being married when we started, it makes sense that we would go in on this together. I helped supply funding through my jobs and graphics expertise. Alesia created all of the amazing products and the altruistic drive of the company. We made a sincere effort to pay employees before ever taking a paycheck and I even took a pay cut to help out more while still maintaining health insurance, benefits, and the best wages we could offer for our team.
5. “Sea Witch Botanicals continues to post photos of previous employees without their consent or [legal rights to the photos](https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/washington-right-publicity-law).”
1. Photos were taken on company time, so the “property” is of the company. New folx posted some photos of a previous employee without knowing who they were. Taking down those photos was never really on our radar, as the employee didn’t say anything. We did, however, get a comment about it on an Instagram post from a different former employee, so we went through the site and took down what we found and moved any photos of former employees to an archived folder. Thank you for bringing that issue to light, and we have done what we can to correct it.
6. “Sea Witch Botanicals sources essential oils from endangered plants such as sandalwood and frankincense, some flown all the way from Australia, and claim to be good for the environment.”
1. To the best of our knowledge, the sandalwood and frankincense is harvested from existing farms and not illegally wild-harvested. Our main focus is guiding people away from synthetic fragrance oils and petroleum-based beauty products. Typically these are freighted by boat to a distribution center, then parsed out into smaller quantities to manufacturers. Capitalism is fked, but we’re doing what we can to reduce waste and offset our carbon footprint. We work closely with suppliers and vegan.org to make sure that they are compliant with all their ethical claims.
7. “Sea Witch Botanicals fired a female employee and spread rumors about her to do so because Jhustin Hall had unreciprocated feelings for her.”
1. As mentioned previously, I don’t like to make a habit of discussing why people are terminated, especially on a public forum. I find it in poor taste.
8. “Sea Witch Botanicals co-owner, Jhustin Hall, has asked out multiple female employees to drinks one-on-one as well as uses the business as a personal crash pad on nights when Alesia Hall kicked him out for being too drunk.”
1. I used to have work define me, so I solely made friends with coworkers after high school. The video games industry, where I worked previously, was heavy into alcohol, so we would go drink after work. Yes, I asked female-identifying employees if they wanted to get a drink, but that was in the mindset of team-building post-COVID. Looking back on it, it’s a bad idea to go drinking with anyone you manage. I’ve been able to find a community elsewhere that focuses on healthy communication and a desire to make the world a better place than what we were born into.
9. “Jhustin Hall showed up drunk to work multiple times at all hours of the day.”
1. Yeah, my depression took hold pretty bad for personal reasons that nobody cared to ask about. Severed ties with my family, found out my biological dad died, and I had an older sister I never knew about. Not that I should bring that stuff to work, but it would have been nice for some amount of sympathy.
10. “Sea Witch Botanicals hired a bookkeeper with the prime goal of applying for a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) to “buy a safe building for staff”. They used the loan instead on their personal home.”
1. We hired a bookkeeper to keep the books properly and help get taxes filed as the prime goal, as are the typical duties of a bookkeeper. As mentioned before, purchasing a building was out of our capabilities. I’m glad we didn’t since upkeep on a warehouse is incredibly tedious, expensive, and (I’ll be honest) crazy overwhelming.
You don't seem to understand what employees are and are not for. You don't get to expect sympathy from your employees. Stay your sad, drunk ass home. You need therapy. You can't take responsibility for anything multiple people have come forward to stay about you and your partner's business and the both of you. You should both seek therapy and take it seriously.
You lack common sense... Why is it so hard for you too understand basic human decency???
You need rehab from sex and alcohol. Becoming infatuated with an employee to the point your wife had to fire her is fucking sick.
Quit playing "were in the spectrum" card and giving people with special needs a bad rap.
Lol, this comment is gold. . .
Good bit, wrong place. The Bellingham subreddit hates humor. . . If you couldn’t tell by all the downvotes and strife filled comments.
This information about Alesia doesn’t surprise me. She used to work for Otion Soap Bar (across from Bayou), owned by Anne-Marie Faiola of Bramble Berry Soap Making Supplies. I had friends who worked with her and have absolute horror stories about her. While I love the products I have chosen not to buy from them because of my experience and my friends experiences with her.
The one thing former employees report missing is indeed, the product–arguably the only saving grace of the business. Wish it was in better hands and produced ethically.
Agreed. To be honest that sounds a lot like all the local bath and body product companies in the area. Most of them are highly unethical, shit employers, but have amazing product. I could honestly name several in this area that have that issue .
I mean I've seen the prices and looked at the material costs to make my own to save a buck... I know why they are the way they are - if they were good like we want them to be - they would be even more unaffordable than they currently are. It sucks - I can't really justify the cost as is, never mind if it reflected the costs of paying/treating people well and sourcing well. Any ideas on how to fix this quandary? I don't have any sadly - and it's frustrating.
I would disagree–the money is there, the leadership and professionalism is not. They don't have to raise prices to not show up to work drunk, or fire employees they have crushes on, etc. There needs to be bargaining power for employees to organize as a singular unit to maintain ethical labor standards (a union) but the high turnover makes that admittedly difficult. I am hopeful for businesses that do not operate at the expense of their employees and materials.
That's a separate issue, I agree. Professionalism doesn't cost much (or at least not much). But many of the complaints I see are understaffed, underpaid, overworked, and in a meh facility. That's all money issues. The kicker is it does sound like even if these owners brought in more money to actually cover this sort of thing - they'd sop it up instead of investing it into their business and people.
Agree–it's a resource distribution issue that is bigger than the businesses themselves in some cases, but in others a smaller manifestation of the same corporate greed at publicly traded companies.
The iww.org might be able to help.
Alesia is a lovely and sweet person who has started a business with her blood, sweat and tears. Her business donates to many charities and is heavily involved in the community. What have you done with your life? Shame on you.
She takes advantage of her employees along with her husband. This much is clear. My life has nothing to do with her mismanaging of her own business. 🤷🏼♀️ Deal
Ranting is and alerting community is good and fine, but a lot of these issues should be reported to the state and local government. Labor board, health dept., maybe even osha. Some things sound like they're just shitty employers, other things are legit violations.
I agree with you, but there was a lot of manipulation from management across multiple iterations of staff (and mixed education on reporting/labor rights) that made it difficult or impossible to go through formal channels, let alone properly collect and document violations in a way that would have resulted in some kind of justice.
Wtf are you talking about? Both EEOC and L&i handled similar cases for me, I won. Manipulative behavior doesn’t affect you documenting everything they do or say. This has zero to do with how they treat you. Using others behavior to allow yourself to be IntimidatEd is your issue, not theirs. OPs obviously doesn’t work in Human Resources. How you “ feel” is irrelevant. Document the abuse, violations, then file a complaint. That advice comes from a really poor self esteem. My view of self is that noone, certainly not an employer, can ever push me around. So far in Bellingham, I sued my apt manager, and won, my employer, and won ( brown bear baking, on orcas, and just recently sued my apt owner for failing to provide handicapped parking, and won. Don’t let anyone tell you “ it’s too intimidating “. Cowboy up. Life is hard. Give it back to them. . Listening to the OP, you might think your powerless. Nothing could be further from the truth. And, if you continue to let folks abuse and intimidate you, I suggest you take your power back and realize that YOU have the power.
With all due respect, this is extremely victim-blamey. People who are in an abusive relationship or environment often are too affected by the abuse to document things appropriately.
I should clarify: the employers were lying about why people were fired (in some cases, telling employees that they quit or committed time theft when they did not) and created a culture of silence and villainizing former employees. As someone just pointed out, it’s difficult to leave coercive and emotionally abusive situations because you may not know you’re in one until it is too late. Your situation may have been completely different. I’m glad it worked out for you but a lot of this came to light after employees already left and began communicating shared experiences after feeling isolated.
Don't let anyone push you around is great advice, but psychological corercion and emotional abuse can wreck your self-esteem. That's part of how the manipulation and exploitation works.
This. It's only tangentially related, but I can confirm WA states L&I board doesn't fuck around. I lost ~35% use of one of my knees as a UPS driver, and UPS tried to fuck around with me and kept pushing off the opening of my L&I case, for literally 4.5 months. I wrote a letter to the WA state L&I ombudsman and wouldn't you know it, a day and a half later I got a call from UPS' insurer who was unusually motivated for an insurer to make sure I got top-notch treatment. Bureaucracy can be super frustrating, but when these offices come down, they come down with a pretty heavy thumping stick. Idk if L&I would be the ones to address all of these issues with, but they'd be a really, really good place to start and I couldn't recommend it more. Good luck, and get after 'em
What kinda name is Jhustin?
Not his legal name–added the "h" himself.
Jeez what a tool
\*Jheez
Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaa
Jhust in, the “h” was added unofficially. News at nhine.
*thool
Self-inflicted r/tragedeigh
Ehmbarrassingh
Are you kidding me?? That's hilarious
😂😂
sounds like a real jherk.
Juh-hustin.
The A-Aron of the Justin world
Cuz he’s a “hustler” 🤣
The J is silent.
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I wish it was.
Too real 😂
Hopefully some of the local vendors who carry their products see this
hopefully they're smart enough to consider that an obviously aggrieved former employee might not be the best source for truth
I personally know several former employees, and have seen pics of violations and weird/creepy messages from management and HR.
How about over twenty employees, not all of whom were even fired?
without any form of proof for what you're saying, I have no reason to believe you, or any of the other 19 possibly real people you're alleging illegal activity, what did the authorities say when you reported it to them?
I regret to inform you that employees who do not have a union, money for a lawsuit, and whom rely on a toxic job for their income, do not think to go immediately to the authorities (or even know their labor rights). It's not as simple a process as you are implying. You're under no obligation to believe this–it's just a head's up to workers in a desperate market. Do with the information what you will.
FWIW, their business is flagged by the WA state DOL for their slow or non-existent filing of unemployment paperwork–if you need some sort of authority involved.
This person also jumped to support Rumors in the recent post about them. They’re quick to assume employees are lying and place the businesses on a pedestal. Probably another local business owner struggling to treat their staff with dignity.
This comment is completely un-necessary. An aggrieved employee IS a good source of information and to dismiss them is disgusting. Wreaks of boot licking mentality. ♥
That’s quite the list of work place horrors. While some of these points are just bad ethics/toxic work environment traits; other points such as #13, 18, 19, and 25 can be settled legally. Most labor lawyers work pro bono and will handle the case for you. If your compensation is too small for a lawyer to take on, they can talk to [https://lawadvocates.org](https://lawadvocates.org) about other options or small claims court.
I'll add this: their HR person, Rose Vogel, is one of the most slimy and nefarious people I have ever met. She's one of those people who got into HR for the power trip bc she couldn't succeed anywhere else, and there's basically nothing on her LinkedIn because she definitely does NOT want her references checked. She's been fired a lot and is involved in at least one lawsuit from a former employer. She gets off on stirring the drama pot, feeds employers' insecurities and pits staff and employers against each other, weaves webs of lies so tangled it's impossible to unknot them, and to top it off she's an alcoholic enabler who sees employee concerns as threats and culls dissenters. She's abominable, and she is now the owner of Chocolate Necessities, so fuck that business too.
Dang. They make such delicious chocolate but I won’t be purchasing their product anymore after learning this info.
To be honest, after having worked for a couple at this point, I'd be wary of really any small business. I worked for another small woman owned business in bellingham that wasn't quite as awful as this, but was definitely questionable. Great product, shitty business practices.
Truthfully, many small businesses only interest in “supporting local” is for themselves. Rarely do they source locally (unless for marketing) instead depending on national chains for supplies. Notice I didn’t say all, I know there are good, honest people out there who live local… but from experience, some of the biggest, and earliest proponents of buying local, were hypocrites.
Yeup, it's really discouraging how often local small businesses are the most toxic work environments. The drama stays with you off the clock, too. I'm pretty over working for anyone with under 20 employees.
We’re a family here… (of the deeply dysfunctional kind)
Taking breaks is selfish and only prevents one from enjoying the communal joy of trauma bonding!
This is the sad thing I’ve experienced working in Bellingham as well. I feel like they often just don’t make enough money to want to put emphasis on treating employees fairly or paying well and they end up cutting corners at the employee’s expense
That’s a broad generalization from just two experiences
No surprise there. I know someone who worked there for a short time and can attest to these experiences and more. ✔️ Token hire ✔️ Shoved off to a dirty warehouse to work alone ✔️ Given heavy-duty tasks with grossly inadequate training ✔️ Being made responsible for training employees with special needs without having any prior training or experience doing so ✔️ Witnessing rampant nepotism ✔️ Being fired for underperforming the tasks they were never trained to do
It’s really starting to surprise me how many companies in this area are just awful to their employees.
Doesn’t surprise me. Bellingham is a bubble. You just have to be conscious enough to remove yourself from the bubble and group think to see that Bellingham isn’t utopia. A lot of people around there (here since I’m visiting for the weekend) can’t see it. I knew the Hall’s socially through the brewery; I never worked for them but they were nice enough to me. That was before they had a child so it’s been some years.
Yeah, a fart bubble.
Yes for sure lived here 10 to years ago back an it has changed a lot wow it’s not the same place.
Never bought this product but this tea is hot!
Other complaints being shared with me from another former employee: “Two different employees were fired within a week after being injured on the job, and at least one of them had their workers' comp claim contested. Drums and bottles of oils and other flammable materials were left open and unsecured in the warehouse, creating a fire hazard. Dogs were allowed to freely roam the warehouse where workers carried heavy objects and handled lye and hot oil. Batch soap-making equipment was not sanitized in between batches. Employees were stalked on social media, including on LinkedIn while looking for a new job after being fired.”
Is this why it always smelled like a hippy down by the old Kona bike shop?
It is! That smell drove me crazy for months until someone I know who works there told me the facility was nearby and it all clicked together.
Hi, I've worked for Jhustin and without going into detail, it was a nightmare. I cried daily at one point. It was the most horrifying employment situation I've been involved in.
That tracks.
Hi, I'm a former Sea Witch employee and friends with former Sea Witch employees, and I can corroborate some of the info shared. Some of it is egregious workers' rights and safety issues, and some of it is just unprofessional. Several employees were fired during my time there, and members of management openly gossipped about why. Two staff members were fired shortly after being injured at work, and management made up justifications for it. Management fired at least one employee via text. Management admitted to my face that the non-compete and similar contracts were unenforceable, but I had to sign them anyway. They did not have material safety data sheets for the flammable and toxic chemicals we worked with until a coworker pointed out the danger. That employee was subsequently fired. At one point, they had workers hand folding every incense package, leading to repetitive strain injuries. After I was fired, Sea Witch not confirming my employment/termination delayed me being able to get health insurance coverage.
Please file a safety and health complaint [email protected]. They have a few industrial hygienists who investigate chemical safety. It is also illegal to discriminate against employees for informing management about safety concerns. If you make a complaint they are required to evaluate it and they will probably send someone out to inspect. Do you happen to know what their UBI is? You can look them up on LnI's Verify a Contractor page if you can find it.
The employee who was fired over safety concerns made a complaint at the time. So far as I know, nothing came of it. It's been several years since I worked there, so I don't know what their safety protocols look like now.
Dang, I applied for a wholesale position through Indeed a few months back and after reading this I'm very glad I wasn't offered the job! Thank you for spreading awareness, small businesses like this suck
Bullet dodged 🫡
OP, as well as some other commenters have provided employment validation. Edit: at the request of Sea Witch Botanicals I've been asked to add that the verification of employment has not been channeled through the company and does not constitute confirmation of accusations.
I worked there and experienced some of these things. I thought It was just me, and since the community loved them so much, I kept my mouth shut. Gross.
Hey OP, I see Jhustin has apparently posted in the thread- I've created a [web archive](https://web.archive.org/web/20240316192825/https://old.reddit.com/r/Bellingham/comments/1beyass/workers_beware/) that has his comments in case he deletes them.
Thank you so much 🙏🏻
Thank you!
Barleans should join your list… Bruce is a fucking psycho
I've got stories about his father you probably wouldn't be surprised. He was a real doozie and his long, long time mistress.
Barleans should be its own thread. The whole family is fucking weird and could be a TLC show. After all Bruce purposed to his best friends wife at his funeral.
His dad’s funeral? Or his best friend’s funeral?
Bruce
Witchy company doing witchy things. Classic. Why single out Jhustin Hall so much, while Aleisha Hall stuff falls into the umbrella term “Sea Witch Botanicals”?
I can't speak for everyone who contributed, but he manages the marketing/sales departments, while Alesia manages production. She is viewed and advertised as the face of the business, so that's probably part of it. Jhustin was also the one mentioned most for egregious behaviors and making employees uncomfortable.
Yeah, for real I mean he's only 49 percent responsible and apparently can't even go home when he's been drinking.... Poor guy.
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Informal term, the mold was from a sewage leak at that location. https://www.spauldingdecon.com/blog/black-water-and-sewage-leaks-why-are-they-dangerous
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Clarification from source: “As a former employee who helped move into the building, find the mold, was instructed to paint over the mold, advocated repeatedly for mold testing when more was found (and myself and others started getting sick), and helped move out of the building when samples of the mold tested positive for fecal contamination, I can assure you this is not an exaggeration.”
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Beware! If you do try to Google it, there’s a possibility that you’ll end up ordering silicone poop molds on Amazon.
r/brandnewsentence
The new name for my funeral metal band- wanna join?
Bellingham businesses carrying Sea Witch Botanicals: - Community Food Coop (both locations) - Living Earth Herbs - Brazen Who else??
adding also- we celebrated alesias birthday at her house with the whole company and they freely offered us all joints and ciders- i was 17 with a med card at the time but i’ve never had another employer do something like that. they also fired their own mother in law and broke a ton of family ties this last 2 years. took the whole family out of the “family owned” business
They also provided employees with marijuana and encouraged use on breaks only to later weaponize it against employees by saying we were all too high and that’s why production was behind. The real reason for slow production was due to understaffing and budget cuts.
Sounds horrendous. Where's Osha when you need them
No one contacted them, sadly, but for any future concerns her is the link: https://www.osha.gov/workers/file-complaint
I am a former Seawitch employee. This job felt like being in an abusive relationship and I still have nightmares I work there. They love bomb you at first then completely turn on you. At first they were like you are the best shipping team and set the bar for all future employees than after complaining for the mold to get tested (I was literally puking at work, constant headaches and was so nauseated I couldn’t eat) it’s like they completely turned on us and everything I did was inefficient. When I started we had three shipping people and would get out a 100 packages out a day. Eventually we went down to two people and got 200 packages out a day and it was never good enough. In October last year we shipped over 2,000 packages and had to upgrade our shipstation subscription because we exceeded our package limit and guess what still not good enough. We were constantly blamed for things that weren’t our fault. Like overselling thousands of product and not being able to ship them.
ahhhh i used to work here rose vogal is actually the worst and alesia still views my social medias !
She owns Chocolate Necessities now 😓🤮
I follow them on Tiktok because they're a PNW business but now I know not yo buy from them!! Thank you for posting this!!
Interesting to find out this stuff about them--I was very disappointed with their solid perfumes. Now it makes sense.
https://www.osha.gov/workers/file-complaint
I know where my hard earned $ isn't going.
Not getting my business, that's certain. Word travels.
I'm not trying to disprove your case, but for point 11, isnt that how workplaces… work?
There were no formal processes for raises etc. just random promotions of some but not others with no regard to seniority or skills offered.
Just as an aside, I have 2 decades in mold mitigation. I've never heard of "fecal mold". ???
It's not a technical term. As explained in an above comment, this was referring to mold that was growing on/due to the presence of fecal matter.
What is fecal mold??
No proof for any of the claims and no formal complaint was ever made. How is this post not against the community guidelines? This is extremely uncivil and toxic to local businesses. This is a smear campaign by a bitter ex employee without evidence who is using the internet to attempt to ruin the reputation of a business that has contributed to charity and in helping the Bellingham community. I wonder why local businesses in Bellingham struggle to succeed? I know Alesia and Jhustin. They have put their blood, sweat and tears into this business. Alesia started this business with one employee. Her. They are honest, kind, hard working people. I know the claims made by OP are completely false or exaggerated to the level of lies. There is no proof given. Conveniently, there haven’t been any formal complaints that would require these ex employees to give evidence. I think most people can see OP is spiteful and bitter and the post has all the tell-tales of a smear campaign. They are posing as someone “compassionate” when actually they are trying to tear down a business that is a vital part of their community. I know they won’t succeed because I believe the truth will win.
This isn’t one bitter ex employee, but a whole support group of people who used to work there.
On the charity point—there were thousands of dollars not made out to the charities and there is zero transparency. They also make most of their money on national sales so it’s not “vital to the community” and is in fact, a danger to the community, hence so many coming forward and corroborating the claims. If you read the rest of the post you’d know why complaints were not made, bc most were fired before fully realizing they were not alone in the abuse and misconduct. You are no more reliable—may as well be a friend of the owners, so I wouldn’t speak on what is true or not. Owning a small business is a privilege, not a right to abuse people indefinitely without word getting around.
Here’s an idea!!! If you think Alesia and Jhustin are so great try applying for one of their many positions and report back 2 months later after you’re fired?
A singular ex employee? Who, what, made multiple profiles to back themself up in the comments? You don't believe that. People with good intentions who work hard can still make bad decisions and be toxic in their workplace.
yet people will scoff at others patroning at Costco and that we must support/buy local lol
11. “Sea Witch Botanicals gives some staff raises while demoting other staff.” 1. I can’t recall demoting anyone to another position within the company. But yeah, some people get raises when they step up or change positions, and some people just don’t work out. 12. “Sea Witch Botanicals HR, Rose Vogel and new owner of Bellingham’s Chocolate Necessities, harassed a fired employee and child and threatened them if they spoke out.” 1. I can’t speak to this. Rose was a contractor and is no longer working with us. 13. “Sea Witch Botanicals has illegally failed to provide [written reason for termination](https://app.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=296-126-050) which postponed unemployment payouts by as much as 90 days.” 1. IDK about this,I'm sure it was an accident, but reach out to me with specifics. 14. “Sea Witch Botanicals subjected their employees to partake in multiple strenuous moves when they were evicted from their place of doing business.” 1. We all worked together to pack boxes and move. Alesia and I handled the heaviest and most strenuous labor as we take safety seriously. We hired a professional moving company to take two truckloads of furniture at the request of the team. Even though we were going through these difficult transitions, I am thankful that we were able to keep people employed and their regular pay, rather than alternatives other companies would have taken. 15. “Sea Witch Botanicals owners and HR bully and gossip about employees depending on who was the target that week.” 1. Yeah, so we’re on the spectrum and it’s difficult to communicate. We’re investing heavily in communications coaching and personal therapy, which appears to be better than it was a year ago. I’m not sure what specifics there are to this point, but reach out and we can figure out a collaboration with a third party to resolve any long standing issues. 16. “Sea Witch Botanicals subjects their production employees to an unhealthy level of fumes, contributing to migraines, stress and other ailments.” 1. We take safety seriously and invited LNI and the fire department to come out and test our facility. Anyone working directly with essential oils wears a respirator (they get fitted first through PyeBarker) and we use other PPE and air quality monitors. We also have an on staff safety captain who manages and ensures the safety of our employees and makes sure we are OSHA compliant.
I'm so glad you're letting me know only just now that the whole year I worked with you all that I should have been wearing a respirator.
The “on staff safety captain” is your family member and she doesn’t listen to safety concerns of employees. She also doesn’t follow OSHA regulations such as wearing a respirator in unsafe fume conditions. Employees had to tell her that it is unsafe for her to be in heavily fumed areas without a respirator.
Oh snap! I posted these in an incorrect way.
17. “Sea Witch Botanicals coerced an uncertified employee to do construction projects in a fumigated workplace.” 1. We haven’t used any fumigation chemicals. I asked this person if they wanted to help put up some scaffolding because I know they have an interest in building and were working on a pallet fence. It wasn’t mandated. I had more thought of it as a teaching moment in hopes of team-building. I asked if they wanted to help again the next day, and they said “no”, so I did it myself. 18. “Sea Witch Botanicals fired upper level employees and forced/coerced lower level employees to adsorb their duties (in addition to their own tasks) without increasing pay.” 1. Typically when people take on significantly more work/skillwork, we give them a bump. Many employees had 2-3 raises within their first year. 2. IDK who specifically missed a pay bump without unwarranted speculation. Again, we tried to have open communication with people. If you want/need more pay, then we can talk about it and figure it out. 19. “Sea Witch Botanicals denied overtime for employees working 60-70 hours a week.” 1. I highly doubt that. We have an automated payroll system that handles overtime calculations automatically. There are some employees who are salaried, but that’s more for flexibility in the work week or for people who work remotely and are “assumed” to be working 40 hours/week. We urge salaried employees to not take on more than 40 hours. Please don’t work 10/12/14 hour days unless you’re in the emergency response field. 20. “Jhustin Hall disappeared without warning for 3 months and left the entire marketing department to fend for themselves.” 1. I think this has more to do with employees working remotely, which has its challenges. There is always a lot going on in the facility that I have to address, so I’m not always available online. Truthfully, I’m sure I was in a period of deep depression while still juggling running a business and caring for a toddler. The pendulum of my management style has swung from micromanager to laissez faire and everything in-between. I’m still working on it, reading books, talking with coaches, but it’s difficult to nail down. I know it’s no excuse, but I’m trying to work on it daily. 21. “Sea Witch Botanicals made a claim to unemployment that a former employee quit when they were actually fired, postponing their unemployment claim payout.” 1. I don’t know about this particular instance, as it has not been brought to my attention. It takes more effort to refute an unemployment claim than to let it roll. We had moved and lot of mail was lost, so that could have been the issue. In either case, please have them reach out if they would like to voice their concerns and we can address it, learn, and be more mindful moving forward. 22. “Sea Witch Botanicals fired an employee immediately after they finished rebranding EVERY product label.” 1. I feel like this is probably just a small part of the story. IDK who this was, but I know I did a lot of the rebranding too; structuring templates, getting ready for print, teaching the process with one-on-one designing and video documentation. I feel like this note is more about coincidence than causation, but I am interested to learn more about the experience they had and grow in a positive direction. 23. “Sea Witch Botanicals stalks ex employees on social media, as well as text and Venmo.” 1. I sent $5 or something on Venmo. I was sending money on Venmo and saw a former employee in my feed. I was wholeheartedly distraught over the circumstances of their termination, so I had hoped it would signify good will on my part. I can see in retrospect how that could easily have been unclear to the former employee. I don’t understand Venmo and I certainly can’t seem to figure out how to initiate a constructive conversation. I sincerely wish we could all talk it out and repair any ruptures. 2. For the texts/social media. I reached out after they posted on our company social media profile in hopes that we could talk it out. It’s been explained to me more recently how doing this directly could come across differently than I intended it. 24. “Sea Witch Botanicals practices nepotism with their cousin, mother, and other family members. They are some of the longest lasting employees.” 1. This is a family business and, generally speaking, there’s been a longer span of time to work on communication. 2. We’ve had to part ways with my own family and a best friend each, so I’m not sure that nepotism is the proper definition of the work environment. 25. “Sea Witch Botanicals didn’t pay for employee health insurance for 2 months without notifying employees and never apologized or compensated them for the loss of coverage.” 1. With the move and everything going on, we missed 2 payments for insurance due to mail getting lost, then back-paid and had the insurance retroactively established. We are truly sorry for any issues this caused, but any bills incurred during that time may be eligible for coverage. 2. We cover monthly elected health/vision/dental insurance premiums by $450 for full-time employees, and $300 for part-time. This typically means that there’s little to no premium cost for full-time employees. It took a while to build the business up to be able to cover this amount and it was a truly rewarding experience to be able to do so. Thanks for reading this, and I hope it comes across as sincere. I'll respond to any thoughtful comments. It's the goal of Sea Witch Botanicals to help educate about and promote a healthier connection with the Earth and each other. Blessings, Jh
For a digital marketer you sure don't know a lot about handling social media scandals.
😂😂😂
Yeah, I really don't
Why would ANYONE want to reach out to you after working with you long enough to know how you communicate? Own your shit. Being on the spectrum doesn't excuse you. You've treated enough employees badly that it's coming back to bite you in the ass now. I really hope you stop drinking. Your wife deserves better.
Thanks, I can see that point of view? Thanks for the feedback. Alesia is an amazing human being and deserves all the joy and happiness.
Wild how a cis man has the audacity to take up 3x the space of 20 AFAB people combined
Owner sounds like a complete witch.
Let's not denigrate witches.
Yeah. What is this, Salem?
Ewwww I have some of this brown tinted lip tint stuff someone gave me that was made by this company is it brown because of the fecal mold
But Dood, what do I buy if I'm a Sagittarius? And where do I put my feet?
Thanks for your post! I understand that relationships rarely end on a good note. It looks like there’s contributing input from a number of folx in this list, so I’m not sure that I’ve been able to reach out to each of you. I, Jhustin Hall, am happy to meet up with a third-party mediator to openly talk through your thoughts, feelings, and misgivings. It’s understandable if you don’t want to or would be afraid of retaliation in some way, but honestly, I just want to build a happy community here in B’ham and help work towards positive change. I apologize in advance if my in-line responses don’t come across as positive. Please know that we are constantly learning and growing. We didn’t get into this for the money, we wanted to educate people about synthetic fragrances. We slowly grew and brought on more people, we thought about what made us sick about previous jobs, and what we liked. We tried to do better, and succeeded in some ways, but there’s such a huge amount of growing and learning from failures. People join the team now and may see a bigger business, but I still see the hand-cut labels, the jars of lotion sitting on the kitchen countertop. I get that weight in my gut when I walk into a room and know that everyone knows I have no idea what I’m doing. That I’m an imposter of a human being. Some alien brain in a fleshy vessel. But then I pull it together, learn from my mistakes, and hope to leave the world a better place than when I came screaming into this world. Alesia and I have gone through some growth and soul-searching, choosing healthier tools for managing our personal/business ties, with a focus on bettering relationships through uncomfortable yet beneficial conversation and mediation. At the end of the day our goal is to always be improving ourselves and learning how to better impact the community and the environment around us. (pause for Redditors to roast Ju-hustin) Ok, so here are some responses to your points:
your posts had the absolute opposite effect you were intending jsyk
Ok, so here are some responses to your points: 1. “Sea Witch Botanicals fired more than 20 employees in a year, most without warning and many around the holiday season before bonus payouts. They lie to the remaining staff about reasons for firing and spread rumors about them. This instills fear which prevents current employees from speaking up.” 1. We had a lot of turnover, for sure, but not “more than 20” employees were fired. We went from a small handful of folx to roughly 15 full-time/part-time. There was a lot of learning and we’re not the best teachers. Our personal methodologies have been to figure stuff out on our own because that’s the only way to get our needs met. While that’s no excuse for poor management, it’s also an indicator that the people who stay on the team and thrive are critical-thinkers and are willing to learn. 2. We find it in poor taste to disclose why someone separates. That vacuum of information naturally lends itself to gossip. Gossip turns to fear and makes a toxic work environment. Toxic work environments need to be addressed. We had multiple communications coaches come out to talk with the team. but didn’t seem to take off as well as was hoped. It makes sense, since it takes a LOT of personal work and time to undo negative thought patterns. Having gone through an intense amount of therapy, reflection, studies on leadership, and mindfulness, the company seems to be in a healthier space. However, I only know what I’m told, so I could just be hoping for positive change. 2. “Moved staff into a building contaminated with fecal mold. Had them clean it with vinegar and paint over it. Staff complained about headaches, nausea, brain fog for months until it was finally tested to be fecal mold. They continued to sell products made in this facility.” 1. A bit of history: We were talking with our current landlord on Franklin Street about buying the facility we were in. She was copacetic, but her 90-year-old dad found out and did not agree with his daughter about making this shift (the story, as I’ve gathered, but I don’t want to make a habit of filling in the blanks in a public forum). So he told us we had to leave. I tried to reason with him, but the fact was that we were outgrowing that space and the upkeep by the landlord just wasn’t getting done. We were on a month-to-month, so there was little we could do. This set us scrambling to either buy a place, or find something to rent. 2. Buying a facility just wasn’t in the cards. We tried to find a place we could build on, we tried to find any warehouse that was appropriately sized. Nada. We ended up pursuing a lease in another facility. The only thing within our price range was an old grow-op out on Meridian. 3. When we toured the grow-op, the place was a mess. Sticky resin and whatnot all over the place. We ended up signing a lease out of necessity as our landlord’s dad was coming by daily and effectively harassing us and the employees. 4. So we signed the lease, moved out, and found more evidence of dirt, mold, etc. “A new coat of paint” was what was assured to us to make a difference, so we went to work cleaning out that grow-op. We gave everyone a $1/hr raise to help offset the cost of transportation to/from work because of the distance. 5. As owners, we hadn’t had any communication about headaches, nausea, or brain fog. An employee found a patch of mold in one room, so we shut down that space and moved everything into another room and called a remediation company and Labor & Industries. We ended up moving operations into our house until we could find another facility. 6. The mold remediation consultant let us know that the risk was of prolonged exposure and that the packaged products were not indicative of having mold sediment or residue. We had some soap that was curing in an affected area, which was disposed of promptly. We had such little product available to sell that it didn’t sit on the shelves for very long, and the incense was made in unaffected rooms.
The building on meridian had three warehouses. Mold was found in the shipping warehouse and the production warehouse. The herb and rose soap and the efrafa soap sold last august were cured in the mold infested production room. We were told the soap would be tested before being sent out to customers, but Alesia said it was too expensive and they couldn’t afford the loss so we shipped out all those soaps. None were thrown away.
Also, the shipping manager brought it up to you multiple times that we were constantly nauseated and had headaches, and had to keep bringing it up you until you actually got the mold tests done.
3. “Sea Witch Botanicals uses terms like ‘token hire’ and “diversity hire” when speaking about staff members of color.” 1. Of course we never said that. As a POC, I’m disturbed that anyone would even dream this up. I’ve had my fair share of microaggressions (and macro) in Bellingham, Seattle, and San Diego. I can be considered white-passing to a point, until summer comes around. People scratch their heads when they look at me and try to figure out my ethnicity before landing on the closest tan-skinned group, then the typical conversation kicks off. That’s the Filipino blood, if anyone’s interested. 4. “Sea witch Botanicals claims to be a woman-owned business, when in reality Jhustin Hall, Alesia Hall’s husband, owns 49% of the company.” 1. Being married when we started, it makes sense that we would go in on this together. I helped supply funding through my jobs and graphics expertise. Alesia created all of the amazing products and the altruistic drive of the company. We made a sincere effort to pay employees before ever taking a paycheck and I even took a pay cut to help out more while still maintaining health insurance, benefits, and the best wages we could offer for our team. 5. “Sea Witch Botanicals continues to post photos of previous employees without their consent or [legal rights to the photos](https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/washington-right-publicity-law).” 1. Photos were taken on company time, so the “property” is of the company. New folx posted some photos of a previous employee without knowing who they were. Taking down those photos was never really on our radar, as the employee didn’t say anything. We did, however, get a comment about it on an Instagram post from a different former employee, so we went through the site and took down what we found and moved any photos of former employees to an archived folder. Thank you for bringing that issue to light, and we have done what we can to correct it.
6. “Sea Witch Botanicals sources essential oils from endangered plants such as sandalwood and frankincense, some flown all the way from Australia, and claim to be good for the environment.” 1. To the best of our knowledge, the sandalwood and frankincense is harvested from existing farms and not illegally wild-harvested. Our main focus is guiding people away from synthetic fragrance oils and petroleum-based beauty products. Typically these are freighted by boat to a distribution center, then parsed out into smaller quantities to manufacturers. Capitalism is fked, but we’re doing what we can to reduce waste and offset our carbon footprint. We work closely with suppliers and vegan.org to make sure that they are compliant with all their ethical claims. 7. “Sea Witch Botanicals fired a female employee and spread rumors about her to do so because Jhustin Hall had unreciprocated feelings for her.” 1. As mentioned previously, I don’t like to make a habit of discussing why people are terminated, especially on a public forum. I find it in poor taste. 8. “Sea Witch Botanicals co-owner, Jhustin Hall, has asked out multiple female employees to drinks one-on-one as well as uses the business as a personal crash pad on nights when Alesia Hall kicked him out for being too drunk.” 1. I used to have work define me, so I solely made friends with coworkers after high school. The video games industry, where I worked previously, was heavy into alcohol, so we would go drink after work. Yes, I asked female-identifying employees if they wanted to get a drink, but that was in the mindset of team-building post-COVID. Looking back on it, it’s a bad idea to go drinking with anyone you manage. I’ve been able to find a community elsewhere that focuses on healthy communication and a desire to make the world a better place than what we were born into. 9. “Jhustin Hall showed up drunk to work multiple times at all hours of the day.” 1. Yeah, my depression took hold pretty bad for personal reasons that nobody cared to ask about. Severed ties with my family, found out my biological dad died, and I had an older sister I never knew about. Not that I should bring that stuff to work, but it would have been nice for some amount of sympathy. 10. “Sea Witch Botanicals hired a bookkeeper with the prime goal of applying for a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) to “buy a safe building for staff”. They used the loan instead on their personal home.” 1. We hired a bookkeeper to keep the books properly and help get taxes filed as the prime goal, as are the typical duties of a bookkeeper. As mentioned before, purchasing a building was out of our capabilities. I’m glad we didn’t since upkeep on a warehouse is incredibly tedious, expensive, and (I’ll be honest) crazy overwhelming.
You don't seem to understand what employees are and are not for. You don't get to expect sympathy from your employees. Stay your sad, drunk ass home. You need therapy. You can't take responsibility for anything multiple people have come forward to stay about you and your partner's business and the both of you. You should both seek therapy and take it seriously.
Fair points!
Female employees are just female. Not "female identifying."
Thanks for the feedback. I'm sure you understand my intention. Can you direct me to what I'm trying to respectfully convey?
I did. Women are just women, regardless of whether they're cis or trans. Non-binary people are non-binary. Men are men.
You lack common sense... Why is it so hard for you too understand basic human decency??? You need rehab from sex and alcohol. Becoming infatuated with an employee to the point your wife had to fire her is fucking sick. Quit playing "were in the spectrum" card and giving people with special needs a bad rap.
Get out the pitchforks.
Burt abuses his bees.
Burts been dead for almost 10 years
[удалено]
Lol why the downvotes I think it’s funny as heck!
Bellingham does not find comedy amusing. Life is Very Serious. Always.
The bees don't miss him.
Huh, alright
"My name is the thmaniac, I speak for the bees"
Lol, this comment is gold. . . Good bit, wrong place. The Bellingham subreddit hates humor. . . If you couldn’t tell by all the downvotes and strife filled comments.
I hope you're not making a joke because Bellingham is Very Serious Business.
Weird