Pros
There are some genuinely hardworking and kind people at JOAN.
Cons
There is a reason all of the reviews, especially the more recent ones, have the same themes. An absolutely toxic and chaotic spiral with almost all of the toxic energy coming from leadership, or lack thereof. A constant pitch machine that has everyone working every night and weekend with nothing to show for it at the end because there is never any new business won. Never ending bad business decisions and delusion from the CEO and other members of leadership that is beyond repair. Men are very obviously respected and treated better than the women here, despite it being a female-founded agency with mostly female leadership. Burn out culture in a way that most agencies have grown out of, with many people lasting no more than a year. There is zero work life balance and even though everyone is only in the office twice a week, you are expected to work early, stay late, and go back on the computer once you get home. Culture is non-existent, unless you consider working 'culture'. As other reviews have stated, the systematic failure is blamed on the individuals, most of which have very little if any voice on how things operate. Once you are considered a failure, you will have fingers pointed at or be bullied or ignored until you are either pushed out or leave because it is so uncomfortable. There has been an over abundance of this in recent months and the overall morale in the office is so low because everyone is visibly overworked and miserable. The CEO is constantly spewing nonsense about how well the agency is perceived, both internally and externally, which almost no one believes. If they are perceived in any way that isn't one of these points, it's because they are successful at PRing themselves with nothing to back it up beyond baseless words rather than how they operate in reality. There is one major client, but once they are gone, the doors of JOAN will be shut, much to the relief of anyone who has stepped foot into them.
