- The much-promoted “unique culture” mostly functions as a shield for dysfunction. Healthy workplaces are highly replicable; here, the culture is “special” because it relies on vague roles, unstable boundaries, and a fragile power structure. Questioning that structure is labelled a culture problem rather than a process problem.
- Leadership is unprofessional and insecure. The partners have limited experience in mature agencies or in-house teams, and tend to compensate by performing “thought leadership” instead of practicing it. Advancement often looks more like performative loyalty to the CEO than recognition of actual craft, judgment, or strategic thinking.
- This is not really a creative agency in the strategic or conceptual sense. Most work is low-margin, high-volume asset production with little room for real ideation or brand thinking. There is almost no appetite or time for deep design craft – just speed, compliance, and constant changes.
- Toxic accountability theatre. When things go wrong, the blame rolls downhill. PMs and accounts are not trained to push back on clients, so every scope creep and last-minute idea is pushed onto designers and writers. Loudness and urgency are rewarded as “leadership,” while quiet, competent people are expected to absorb irrational demands and somehow make it work.
- Design decisions are often driven by hierarchy, not craft. People will fixate on arbitrary kerning or tiny cosmetic changes to assert control rather than to improve the work.
- Work–life balance is essentially non-existent. Long hours, weekend “emergencies,” and constant last-minute pivots are normalized. Leadership promotes reading lists (just some selling or pseudo-intellectual books the CEO reads) that leave employees with no actual time or mental space to grow. It feels less like development and more like extracting as much as possible from people while calling it “learning.”
- Boundaries are blurry. Overly familiar physical “jokes” and personal teasing from leadership (e.g., someone from leadership admires and appreciates the CEO's fierce noogie, another one licks the CEO's lunch spoon in front of others) are often framed as a playful culture, but many people would reasonably experience them as uncomfortable or inappropriate in a modern workplace. There is little awareness of how this can read as harassment in a professional context.
- Double standards around professionalism. Leaders may blur personal/professional boundaries, yet in the same breath comment on whether employees look “professional enough” based on details like how thick someone’s jacket is. Their "professionalism” only flows one way – downwards.
- Any attempt to clarify responsibilities, introduce basic structure, or align with standard industry practices is subtly treated as a challenge to authority. People who try to work like normal, boundary-respecting professionals often find themselves pressured to apologize, back down, or quietly exit.