Basic Resources Reviews

Work life balance- If they could handcuff you to your desk, they would do it in a heartbeat. PTO is not encouraged or respected. Managers will reach out to you on your time off to advise on “urgent” matters that could easily be handled by another team member or wait until you were back in the office. HR will tell you that being reached out to on PTO “comes with the territory” of the business. Also, if you have a family and value your personal life, this is not the place for you. You get the vibe that they feel honorable for ditching their kids to be at work, they prefer it and hope it’s used as a positive for their performance reviews. Growth- Managers are not qualified to set you up for success. There isn’t any managerial training provided. Performance reviews offer no guidance, you can tell by the feedback and goals that the managers are completely making things up as they go. One year, my goal was to “not let things slip through the cracks.” Nothing to measure against, no suggestions on how to achieve that goal. Incredible amount of job ambiguity, you’re always trying to figure out what you’re responsible for / what you should be handling. Management loves coming down on your for not doing something that they never told you was your responsibility. Work Culture- Toxic. The opposite of a team environment, everyone is out to get each other. Email etiquette doesn’t exist. People will threaten you, make below the belt comments, and take any opportunity to tell you off or deflect blame. It is a pointing fingers environment. You constantly have to stick up for yourself and it’s exhausting. You are told to get emails as evidence to prove your point, which is a huge waste of time and does nothing to solve the problem. Also, it is a major ASAP culture. Everything is urgent or top priority, which makes it impossible to prioritize or get work done. Covid Management: HR never provided an expected timeframe of when we would be required to go back into the office. Made it very challenging when trying to hire someone to watch your children while you work from home. Also, two weeks into working from home, HR sent out one of two emails to everyone in the company without warning managers. One email was you were getting a pay cut and the other email was you were going on furlough. Incredibly insensitive. Bottom line: This company will not set you up for success. Upper management improvises as they go, they are master manipulators and will consistently make you question your intelligence.

Only woman work here (just to note). Hours are long and dreadful. Environment is like a trading floor or sweatshop - this position is not conducive to growing your serious design portfolio. The VP I reported to (marketing) ran her team like a popularity contest, where she was the most popular and everyone else had to fall in suit. If you dared to be sufficient, independent and get along great with cross functioning teams, she would target and bully you and TRY to make you feel less than. You then get micromanaged and feel like you have to choose between your family and your job. She just won't want you there anymore. This work culture is not at all family friendly or flexible. No option to work from home if your child is ill or anything. You may get told that you do have that option but when it arises it will be held against you. You will be using all of your PTO to take care of family when life stuff happens. Also if you live in NJ and commute, beware. If NJ Transit is late (which they are about half the time) this will be held agaisnt you and you will be told to stay late to make up the hours regardless of getting all your work done. If you're a young woman with no kids or major responsibilities and live in the city, you could try this place out for a bit but that's the only group of people it might work for.