Anntoine Marketing + Design Reviews

To preface, I’ve never had to deal with intense, gut wrenching anxiety at a job until I started at Anntoine. The experience below is my opinion, and is only a fraction of the issues that made me miserable to come into work everyday: Anntoine Marketing + Design office in Hammond, Louisiana, has a unique clientele and body of work for the Gulf Coast region. However, another story unfolds behind closed doors, revealing a different picture of how this agency treats and discards employees. Having seen multiple red flags throughout my interview process, I decided to accept the job. I was welcomed into what appeared to be an extremely positive and cooperative work environment, seemingly perfect for the first two months. One of the issues that I noticed was that there were tons of promises that just fell flat: Monthly team building that are supposed to happen but never do, Friday morning "fixer mixers" where the entire office drinks Mimosas, Weekly progress meetings, Quarterly employee reviews that would be incessantly cancelled, etc. Under the surface of a seemingly exciting and fun workplace is a toxic work environment with directors who treat and speak to employees with a complete lack of respect and abrasiveness. Upper management refuses to do anything about the situation, and would rather employees leave over issues instead of correcting the (known) problem with the directors. Throughout my experience, it felt like I had no safe place to turn as I didn’t feel comfortable going to my director about their abrasiveness, and after being ridiculed for trying to go directly to the owners to determine a solution, was ridiculed for that as-well. Another major red flag is that management dislikes salaried employees who arrive on time and leave on time (Including when the day’s work was completed on time). The claims of a "perfect work/life balance" and "never forcing you to work after hours" are, in my opinion, false. Instead, only employees who "live and breathe the company" will be hired to work and be allowed to stay in the company's agency. Because of the high employee turnover rate, the agency is in constant disarray. You are expected to provide a quality of work on par with Disney or Apple, but with a salary much below the industry average. No job, however low-paying it is, is ever worth risking your sanity for. It’s even more frustrating when you go into a new job, hoping to grow and learn as a person, and provide better work as you learn, only to be torn down my those in charge. In my opinion, Anntoine Marketing is based on countless assurances that never materialize and never-ending justifications.

This company is run by people who could not care less about marketing or design. It is a social club disguised as a business. They’re able to perpetuate this operation due to small town politics and the “we’re friends with everyone in the community” dynamic. Young professionals especially, do not be fooled. This is who they tend to take advantage of. Upon first glance, this company seems like a dream job. Beautiful office, tons of creativity, big promises, friendly faces. But beyond the friendly masquerade, behind the scenes is a very different story. Once hired, you’ll initially feel as though you just landed the best / most fun job of your career. After a few months, though, you’ll begin to see right through the people in charge and realize what is actually going on. Working here feels like one big stereotypical high school clique, with leadership that desperately wishes to relive their teenage glory days. Internal gossip is the backbone of Anntoine. The leadership seemingly spends most of their time gossiping about their employees in secret. The lack of respect, trust, and professionalism here is monumental. This means hard work often goes unnoticed and isn’t valued in the slightest. Upon evaluation time, feel like you’ve worked hard enough to deserve a raise? Forget about it. You’ll more than likely be told you don’t deserve one based on whatever reason they’ve created. There’s also effectively no structure here, meaning those in management are seemingly in a constant battle for control at all times. Instead of focusing on productivity or business-related matters, the owners seem to focus their efforts more on finding as many opportunities to get intoxicated as possible throughout the year. This is not to say that trying to have fun at work is a bad thing, but when it seems to be the primary focus of the company, it becomes extremely silly and obnoxious after a while. If you have a social life outside of work, this is viewed as unacceptable. You’ll essentially feel forced to have your entire personal life revolve around this company. If you’re independent minded or introverted, you’ll likely be shunned, and potentially even let go, as the leadership views this as a negative trait. Diverse personalities are not welcomed at Anntoine, despite their claim of being open-minded and all-inclusive. This would explain the incredibly high turnover rate relative to its size. Apart from the leadership, the employees tend to be highly talented and passionate folks who end up being wasted, since meaningless partying and public image is valued above all. All of this combined creates a toxic culture in which employees feel like their time and effort is worth nothing, and can be casually discarded at any given moment. This agency truly has the potential to be a fantastic workplace, if only it wasn’t crippled by the people running it. OVERALL: This company is a huge facade built on empty promises, endless cycles of gossip, fake southern hospitality, and manipulative leadership. Do yourself a favor if you’re serious about your career. Save your sanity and don’t bother applying to this private social club known as “Anntoine Marketing + Design.”