Pros
Honestly? I'm here for the paycheck while I find something better. That's it. I'm actively looking. Have been for a while. And I know I'm not alone. Half the people around me are doing the same thing, quietly updating their resumes and taking calls while pretending everything is fine. That's the reality of working here right now.
Cons
I've been here long enough to remember when this place had something real going for it. That version of Allison is gone. What's left is a hollowed-out agency being run into the ground and the people on the front lines are the ones paying the price. Let's start with pay and promotions, because they're the things that keep me up at night. The most recent promotion cycle just wrapped and I got nothing. Zero. Not a promotion, not a meaningful raise, not even a real conversation about why. This after months of being completely overloaded carrying accounts that aren't mine, absorbing the work of colleagues who have quit / us being understaffed, and consistently delivering above my level. Apparently that's just expected now. You will work at the level above you indefinitely and be rewarded with more work, not recognition. It is demoralizing in a way that's hard to put into words. And it's not like the money isn't there. Somehow there's always budget to bring in another expensive senior hire who's friends with Ray Day / any senior leader and won't touch the actual work. As a mid-level employee, I am holding this place together with tape. Junior staff have been laid off in wave after wave — multiple rounds in just the past couple of years — and the work doesn't vanish with them. It comes to me. I am writing, strategizing, managing media relationships, onboarding new people, fixing AI-generated garbage, and somehow also supposed to be contributing to "culture." All of this for pay that hasn't moved in years and a promotion cycle that just passed me by entirely. And then there's leadership. The secrecy, the spin, the layoffs that happen with zero warning and zero humanity. You find out a colleague is gone via a vague all-staff email and then you're just expected to absorb their accounts by end of day. No conversation. No support. Nothing. The word "turbocharge" gets thrown around constantly by people who have no idea how burnt out and underpaid and checked-out the people actually doing the work are. I'm leaving as soon as I find the right opportunity. I'd encourage anyone considering joining to save themselves the time.
