Pros
Despite the stifling work environment and antiquated culture, I made lifelong friends here.
Cons
If you're looking for an employer that combines a massive corporation's mind-numbing bureaucracy and office politics with the chaos and unprofessionalism of a startup into a very insular family business run on nepotism, October Three might be the right workplace for you.
Besides the cringeworthy company name, October Three's Achilles heel is that it doesn't adapt its services to the marketplace; it tries to force the marketplace to adjust to its ideas. It's flailing about in a million directions at once without any focus or purpose.
It's the most cliquish, dysfunctional and overall worst place I've ever had the displeasure of working at. I also had the absolute worst, most incompetent management I've ever experienced. Micro-managing was a significant problem for my team, resulting in abysmal morale.
October Three is full of energy vampires who will suck the life out of you. If you object to a clique member's idea, you're immediately shunned because they only like sycophants, meaning most competent people are gone.
Please consider these problems before you interview:
-It's the only employer I've ever had that does NOTHING for non-profits. During my tenure, there were no matching gifts, fundraisers, volunteer opportunities or anything related to giving back, which is extremely important to me. A lack of charity equates to a total lack of character.
-Despite being federal holidays, they don't give employees MLK Jr. Day or Juneteenth off. You can infer a lot about the company's values from that mind-boggling decision.
-If you live near one of their offices, they force you to come in at least one day a week while most of your team remains fully remote. It's an inequitable policy that fosters unfair expectations and resentment, especially for people required to be there four or five days. The offices are also noisy dumps with dated, tacky decor.
-The blame culture mentioned in another review is very pervasive. Everyone is talking behind everyone else's back. Someone else always takes the fall for a favorite's failures.
-I was hoping that a small firm would mean less bureaucracy than the significantly larger, well-run company I came from. Yet, October Three was so disorganized that there was considerably more bureaucracy, drama and red tape. No one could ever agree, and there was no leadership to set an agenda, resulting in projects being held up for weeks or months.
