• You will not feel successful or talented. After leaving, it takes a long time to unlearn that internalized scrutiny.
• It is an intimidating environment. Everything is fine if you follow the grain, but once you push back, there is retaliation. We all saw colleagues fired without a word of explanation to the wider team.
• You are not trusted to do a good job. Occasionally, you may be given a bit of slack that is tightly reeled back by micromanagement if executives are unhappy with a s mall detail.
• Even for an agency, you are managed towards extreme utilization. You have very limited flexibility in your schedule, what you work on, and how you work.
• Very limited diversity in the team in terms of age and personal circumstance. The workforce is very young as the whole, which is taken advantage of. People work longer and harder than their peer companies for significantly less money.
• The environment favors the success of men, and that does not appear to have changed. Isolated examples of individual success of people outside the norm are the exceptions that prove the rule.
• Pay is low for the area, benefits are subpar. This is justified by making you feel worse about your performance.