Pros
-Free food -Coworkers are talented, positive, and eager to help -You get shout-outs for doing good or impactful work -Dynamic environment with lots of cross-functional opportunities -You get to learn a lot about running, marketing, and supplying a restaurant business -Each day is different and interesting -You get to up your Insta/TikTok game!
Cons
-Constant turnover. It's exhausting bringing new people up to speed -The positivity feels forced and aggressive after awhile. It seemed like leaders are unable to deliver bad or neutral news, which feels patronizing -It's easy to make immediate impact, but you are not given support to continue or automate your easy wins. The lack of automation or investment is done to "keep the organization agile” but ironically, this makes everything slower. You're bombarded with urgent ad-hoc requests that have to be handled manually -Management sets goals with unclear or unrealistic expectations -With no expectations, work is evaluated by criticism (sometimes public), stretching projects out indefinitely. Leaders don't know what they want, but they know your proposal is not good enough -Vague goals and public praise create an environment where people are anxious for recognition. Recognition is typically just a "shout-out" from leadership with no bearing on pay or performance rating -Emergencies or pet projects overtake daily work and pre-set goals -Small things are micromanaged but there is little guidance for big initiatives -Data insights are ignored for gut feelings -Diverse workforce, but all important decisions are made by the men atop the organization -Power struggles in the C-Suite play out with you receiving conflicting instructions, leading to learned helplessness and a pile of abandoned projects -Leaders are unsympathetic to different work styles, so you are expected to bulldoze others to deliver results -Outside consultants and vendors are pushed around and eventually ignored or cast aside -Management is indecisive and will stall decisions, travel planning, or spending on key initiatives until the very last minute -Key leadership roles sit vacant for a long time, leaving employees with no direction -New leaders are proudly and publicly put in the spotlight... until they flame out, are discarded, and someone is hired from a more "boutique" brand, restarting the savior cycle -Underwhelming salaries with no paths to promotion or development -Next year is always the big year -Layoffs! -It's not a culture, it's just another startup