Odyssey Reviews

Like so many reviewers before me, I'm inclined to begin with, "Where to start?" This place is an absolute farce. It's like a bad parody of a nightmare company, except it is very much real, with actual humans who believe in its delusional mission and snake oil product. Not surprisingly, most of these humans are right out of college, have very little prior work experience and life experience, and are not aware that they're being severely underpaid to advance a company that is essentially ruining journalism. How is Odyssey ruining journalism? Remember TRL? Remember how they "democratized" music and, as a result, MTV was flooded with boy bands and pop stars and Limp Bizkit? That's exactly what Odyssey is doing to media. There's no screening process for writers, no accountability for poorly written, grammatically challenged, oftentimes bigoted articles that the company's "editors" then force the writers to share on multiple social platforms. Speaking of the Assistant Managing Editors, these people essentially make up a telemarketing sales force. Most media companies have one Assistant Managing Editor, assisting the editorial team's one Managing Editor. I was shocked to find that there are DOZENS of Assistant Managing Editors at Odyssey, some of whom were interns prior to this position. Instead of editing, Assistant Managing Editors' main priorities were to recruit more people to use the platform and to maintain an article quota. They recruit by cold calling college kids or literally stalking them on social media, then pitching them Odyssey. The AMEs who "closed more deals" were called "rock stars" for "crushin it" and "hustlin." It was like Glengarry Glen Ross in a company full of people who didn't know what Glengarry Glen Ross was. To call Odyssey cult-like is an understatement. The company indoctrinates all new employees with its Culture Code, which has become a staple in tech start-ups to perpetuate this cult-like model — it has clearly been effective in recruiting and keeping young employees at a cheap price. Terms like "shared vision," "bought in," and my personal favorite, "radical transparency" (what red herring that was) were used regularly, but very few people recognized how these terms were creepily reminiscent of how cults brainwash their followers. The Managing Editors and Editorial Directors offered very little actual wisdom or guidance. They were very hot and cold, as if they were constantly at the mercy of the CEO's mood. Their main job was to placate anyone who had genuine concerns and ride those who questioned the status quo, and put things in spreadsheets. All signs point to a plan to scale as fast as possible so the founders, investors, and a handful of upper management can quickly cash out in an IPO. The vast majority of the employees will be left with nothing, and yet they are working 60+ hours a week to help realize this very likely goal.

-First off, they'll title you as an "Assistant Managing Editor" when that's not the case at all. You're encouraged to forego all forms of editing, whether it be basic line-editing or even touching up poorly implemented jpeg and gif files -They'll say that this is a haven for future journalists, writers, and other creative positions but it's genuinely just a circle-jerk of people rushing to recruit lied-to college students to write freely for them (they promise monetary incentives that 80-90% of their writers never see) -You work more than 50+ on weekdays AND weekends for a company that's bleeding money (they're literally going through a major lay-off period because hierarchy couldn't manage investments accurately) -College students that YOUR paycheck relies on are incredibly unreliable as they're too busy being college students as opposed to your writing slaves -The "Managing Editors" (most glorified of the cold-callers) tend to come up with no real solutions and instead just take in others' venting rather than being authentic leaders -The higher-ups managed to racially profile and confuse the few minorities within the office (literally less than 15 minorities in a company of 100+) -You'll constantly be blowing up the DM's of teenagers nationwide on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and every other website in an attempt to dupe them into working for you, not with you -Company has unsustainable model solely based on page views and clicks; thinks they can compete with BuzzFeed but has no chance at all, metrics say they fold in 2018 -No relevant content on website, all of it is based around listicles of college frats and sororities and open letters to dogs and other inanimate objects; this company spits in the face of civic journalism and reporting -If you've come to work here to further your career, you're stepping into a maze of regression, aim for anything else that pays