Surface Media Reviews

Company culture created by the CEO, Marc Lotenberg, promotes a lot of negativity via bullying, racism, sexism, ageism, etc. Notable quotes from Marc include: "Know why you don't get MLK Day off? ...do you see any black people here?" "Just like you don't hire a deaf waitress, don't hire a dyslexic designer." "Luxury has and always will include guns, weapons, bombs, self defensive items, etc." [as reason to not provide more sick leave] "the typical sickness is caused from not taking care of yourself, not eating well, not working out and poisoning the body with smoking, drinking and other chemicals" "You work for me 365 days of the year. I give you the weekends off to be nice." Super high turnover rate. In a two-month time period, over one-third of the staff either quit or set themselves up to be fired because the work environment had become so toxic. It's not a stretch to say lasting longer than a year there is a major accomplishment. They even forced a Designer to work all Thanksgiving day and weekend only to fire him when he returned on Monday. Also expected all employees, regardless of position, to stay past midnight every night on print weeks. Company frequently stiffs freelancers and vendors. They often made payments by the "squeakiest wheel gets greased" mantra and only paid vendors who would regularly call/email/etc. until they got paid. They lie in their press releases and media kits. A recent press release said there were "over 30 employees," which is completely untrue unless a dozen employees were hired (and none left) since my departure. Media kits blatantly defraud advertisers with false numbers. And all previous Glassdoor reviews were either written by interns, just hired employees, or sales staff encouraged by the CEO to post something nice. Also, there's no microwave in the office because management believes microwaves cause cancer. If you eat anything deemed "unhealthy," you will be criticized, if not by the CEO himself, by other mid-level "managers" who do his bidding. Ironically, he fills the kitchen with sugary snacks like oreos, gummy candies, twizzlers, etc.