Where to begin? If you're a woman, don't even think about working here. The only people who ever have the chance to work on anything remotely interesting are men. The women on the team don't even get the chance to pitch ideas and are stuck on social accounts no matter how much harder they work to prove their worth or ask to be challenged. Which is sad that they have to do in the first place. Even with a female ECD, this was the kind of stunted behavior we had to deal with. It was brought to her attention multiple times, but nothing changed. That was disappointing. 'Woman owned' but so what? Women get talked over in meetings. Their ideas don't get taken seriously. They get stuck on social. No matter how much they ask to be more and do more, they don't get the chance to. Spare me the BS excuses of "they're not ready to be on set" and "there isn't enough bandwidth" Newsflash to the ACDs and CDs who work here: did you know that even if someone on your team isn't ready to go on set that it is your literal job to teach them how to get there? Or maybe create opportunities for growth so they can be ready? Did you know that? Also, FYI, everyone who was on the team at the time I'm referencing had been on (much bigger) sets at previous jobs multiple times. Funny how that works.
The leadership team is a mess. They will create surveys where they encourage you to be honest about this dumpster fire of an agency and then never share the results or implement any sort of change. It is embarrassing. They promote a culture based on fear and reactivity. Every project is a constant chaotic fire. But it's all okay because we're a 'family'. This family will fire someone without cause and immediately cut off their access to their computer only to reach out to them weeks later for files. This family will also tell an employee who gave their two weeks to only stay for one and then not pay them. The owner wants everyone to RTO simply because she wants to watch everyone. She thinks people don't work at home. She has zero faith or trust in the team she hires and will hire freelancers to work on pitches vs her actual team. Speaking of freelancers, they seem to burn every single bridge they have with good ones because they don't pay them on time. There is zero opportunity for growth. Pay is WELL below market average. You'll get a lot of meetings with your 'CD' and be told you're doing an incredible job with no feedback as to how you can grow or improve, but you will get denied a promotion and raise. Yet the account team receives promotions so often a lot of the titles seem completely made up. Members of the account team have also been known to tell people they wrote scripts and came up with creative concepts for commercials. Expect the account team to be making most of the creative calls since one CD in particular needs their hand held every step of the way and can't make executive creative decisions which is scary. This CD is a known problem within the agency. But the owner refuses to listen to the multiple people who have complained countless times about the nonstop issues with this CD. There is zero process and it seems to get worse by the day. Burning people out and working unnecessarily late hours for mediocre work. No holiday parties, no bonuses, but don't worry when you come into the office they'll order a rotisserie chicken and bread to show how much they appreciate you and maybe if you're lucky, they'll even ask you to bring a meal to feed 40 people for a potluck where you're told how amazing the agency is doing despite rampant layoffs. Despite all of this they are still renovating an office because that's the most important thing to them, having their 'family' come into the office because the owner says she knows what's best for all of us. Yes, she actually tells us that. The turnover is beyond laughable, but are you surprised? If you want your mental health to decay at a rapid pace this is the spot for you.
