Where to begin? The company has no HR, which speaks for itself. The cons should be obvious: hiring/advancement is highly suspect as everyone is related to one another! The company struggles to find managers because it’s somehow incredibly difficult to find someone suited for the job, which is apparently why they just hire their family members. In reality, the issues are with the job itself (more on that later) and the massive logjam in feedback created by tiptoeing around everyone’s complex interpersonal relationships. Did you want to report to someone that you don’t think a particular person has the skills to do the work they’ve been tasked with and their lack of skill is doubling your workload? Good luck, because that low-skilled person is someone’s girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband, whatever. The lack of professional HR in a company this size means hiring practices are dismal, your ability to actively manage the people who work under you is constrained, and turnover is very high — not least because there’s no need for management to actually approach HR and make a case for firing someone. Again, all of that throws a major wrench in you being able to deliver the feedback needed to inform management at all levels. Naturally, it wont improve so get ready to take the blame! On to the issues with the job itself. If you should find yourself pulled up from the freelance writer ranks and sucked into a management position, you’ll quickly discover that there are massive issues with expectations about workload. You’ll find yourself working nights and weekends to catch up — an issue management is well aware of. But hey! Again, the problem here is YOU. If YOU were a better manager, this wouldn’t happen. Need help? Get ready for endless calls to figure out how to help you that’ll take up even MORE of your time while yielding little in actual help (spoiler: the answer is always “delegate more” even when that’s impossible to do). But just remember, the problem is ultimately YOU. It isn’t how management assigns projects (with little to no consideration for your previous experience). It isn’t the incredibly high turnover coupled with a refusal to hire new managers or bad timing that could’ve been alleviated by more attentive management. No, the problem is YOU.
