Pros
I worked with a group of over 20 of the most dedicated, clever, intelligent, hard-working, creative geniuses I could ever hope to work with. The copy team, web design team, video team, social team, and project management were all tremendously talented people who were fun to be around and pleasant to work with. The culture we created (despite management’s interference) was one of the most fun-loving and creatively-minded I’ve ever had the good fortune to be a part of. (I have plenty to say in the CONS section, so I’m going to cheat and put one con in this section: almost none of the people that made it so great are still there so beware.) There are also snacks and drinks, Monday morning breakfasts, and periodic required fun after hours. (I’m cheating again to point out that these are the classic “pizza party” maneuvers made by exploitive management in hopes you won’t notice you’re being exploited.)
Cons
High Five is run by people who tell you that you must do the bigger, more difficult job for an indeterminate amount of time before you are paid for the bigger, more difficult job. Underpaid and undervalued are both understatements, and this was the case for everyone. At the beginning of 2023, we moved into a needlessly ostentatious building complete with murals, water decorations, and the latest in audio-visual technology, yet we still couldn’t afford a decent coffeemaker. This new office then proceeded to break down before our very eyes. When the server kept overheating, the “solution” was to freeze us out in the main office and let an industrial fan pull cold air from where we worked into the server room. The server was, quite literally, treated as more important than the human beings that worked there. When the plumbing continually failed, we were repeatedly expected to come to work in an office without working bathrooms. We were expected to clock out in order to run to a nearby gas station to use their facilities. Again, a pretty dehumanizing situation where we, the workers, were expected to suffer through the choices of management. Speaking of work from home, if you have any interest in it, forget about it. Even if the weather is dire, don’t expect to stay in relative safety. They will insist you get on the road in the worst conditions or hold you at the office until the conditions are truly terrible before allowing you to leave. Of course, if you want to be safe, you’re welcome to take PTO in order to do so. Speaking of PTO, they are chintzy with it and don’t have separate sick days. Whether they mean to or not, management encourages you to come to work sick or lose your vacation time. You are expected to work on projects with which you might have a moral or ethical objection. For instance, when several of us, including women of color, were expected to work on a wedding venue modeled after a plantation, many of us felt uneasy but nobody felt confident enough to bring it up for fear of retribution. If you have agency experience, forget everything you know about how agencies operate. Almost no one in management has any agency or marketing experience, which leads to a deep undervaluing of the creative process. Our creative goals were “good enough” rather than “good” or, heavens forebear, “great.” Also, forget having any kind of support from account service. High Five doesn’t have an account service department, they have salespeople. This causes confusion and murderous deadlines, much of which could have been avoided if things had been done properly with the client in the first place. There is no safe line of communication to discuss any issues you have with your job, duties, pay, etc. There’s an atmosphere of mistrust because the partners are obsessed with workers sharing “propaganda,” a word I’m not entirely sure they understand the meaning of since the only propaganda I ever experience was their anti-worker and anti-union propaganda. Their attempts at creating a “communications committee” resulted in a three-hour tirade from one of the partners where he denied every single (completely reasonable) request. His remarks were complete with colorful language, an angry tone, a raised voice, and personal attacks on at least one of the people on the meeting. High Five has worked extremely hard at integrating plagiarism machines, aka artificial intelligence, into their workflow. This was never discussed ahead of time and employees were never asked if they had any ethical or moral quandaries about using AI. I don’t recommend anyone taking a job at High Five unless they’re in dire need, and, even then, don’t stop looking.