Pros
Glacial has a lot of potential - smart employees, camaraderie, great company culture (snacks, beer, events, outings), and offer potentially profitable services in a competitive market. They have a great track record, producing high-quality websites for top ophthalmologists around the nation. Working here will teach you a lot - it taught me time management, thinking on my feet, and collaboration - but above all, it will teach you how a company should never be run.
Cons
Glacial has been in business for 16 years and suffers from such a loose structural foundation that I am shocked they are still a functioning company. The business model and strategy are nonexistent. Employees are mismanaged. The pricing structure for services is made up on the spot. Websites are very well-made by talented developers and programmers and, 95% of the time, are sold at extreme discount prices with free features included in order to maintain a “positive” client-vendor relationship. For the huge number of clients this company has, they should be a multi-million dollar agency with 50+ employees. This is not the case. Because services are so cheap, one employee does the work of 4, regardless of what department you are in. Account managers must be a consultant and salesperson for every aspect of the company - oversee web projects and maintenance (the work of a project manager), oversee advertising campaigns (the work of a campaign manager), oversee SEO campaigns (the work of an SEO specialist), and sell additional services including reputation management software, lead management software, video software, and financial software (the work of a salesperson). This would be a great position, during which you earn a breadth of knowledge, if account managers had the standard 7-15 clients. Account managers at Glacial are expected to uphold this standard for 60-80 clients each. They do not receive commission for sales they are expected to make. Yes, working hard and having lots of work is a great thing! - until the quality of work and the service provided is negatively affected and/or the employee gains so much stress that he or she has to work overtime (without pay) to cross just one item off their to-do list. I witnessed both of these instances, in myself included. Job descriptions are ever-changing, every employee’s workload is unrealistic, projects are carried out with loose ends, clients are promised ends for which we don’t have the means, and protocol is nonexistent. On the surface, these seem like growing pains. However, a strong foundation is absolutely necessary before you can grow or even consider evolving a business’s verticals - which the CEO has 5 of them (numerous ideas - midnight ideas - that he enforces his employees to uphold with no real direction). Similarly, I witnessed clients verbally abuse Glacial staff on numerous occasions, and management did nothing, giving employees the impression that humiliation and ridicule is worth the (little) money the client gives us. Many client relationships like these were one-sided - never a business partnership. Glacial saw such a low cost-benefit, but kept these destructive clients anyways. The long-term benefit is little-to-nothing. I cared about this company a lot, which is why I am detailing these crucial takeaways for anyone considering applying to Glacial or want to know what Glacial is like as a company. To avoid minimizing my anger in this review by continuing in detail, below are a few additional points: —A lot of hard working, talented employees are overlooked by management in favor of those who are smooth talkers to the CEO —The utilization of black hat SEO techniques is normalized If anything, I hope management can soon acknowledge: —The need for inter-department protocol and more organized communication —The need project organization (as many client agreements and projects were verbal, with no real steps in place) —The need for job titles and position descriptions —The need to recognize a toxic work environment caused by a destructive employee This individual drank and smoked weed on the job, had business calls with clients visibly drunk, verbally and sexually harassed other employees, and was an all-around bad employee. After complaint after complaint, it took management close to 6 months to finally fire said employee.