Great people, brutal environment - Anonymous employee Jump Associates Employee Review

There's an ongoing debate in psychology about whether human behavior is more a function of our personalities or our environments. Jump may be the best argument out there for those who believe the latter. These same kind, curious, thoughtful, and committed people become so beaten down by this company's unforgiving expectations that they adapt by turning their frustration inward (the amount and intensity of self-denigration is staggering) or, less often, on others. Jump prizes learning and growth, which is wonderful, but I constantly wondered as an employee where sanity comes into play. Because unless you've signed up for management consulting or i-banking (and even then!), I don't believe it's normal to work until all hours of the night - 12am, 3am, even 'sleeping' at the office. I don't believe it's normal to be told in training on your second day that "if you don't hate your life here, you're doing it wrong". I don't believe mistakes should be punished by what are essentially public eviscerations. And in an office of not even 30 people, I don't believe it's normal to not only have to seek out a private place to cry on a regular basis, but to constantly run into others in tears who got there before you. It's not just an ethical issue, either. For a company for whom creativity is a crucial point of difference, psychological safety is essential for top performance - and despite constant verbal assertions to the contrary, Jump is the least psychologically safe environment I've ever been in. I struggled with this review because I do believe that people-wise, Jump has so much potential - but for a variety of reasons, I don't believe the culture will change. There's very much a vibe of "if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen," and maybe that's fair - but at what point do you question whether the kitchen's just a little warm, or actively on fire?