Exploitive
Shady upper management. Any concerns you bring up will be passed off to HR, if you even get that far
Unpredictable hours. Sometimes you'll go weeks without a single shift (most opportunities for hours at CADY revolve around the yearbook cycle) and other weeks, you'll end up working a 14 hour day with no lunch break, only to have to be at the studio the next morning for a call-time of 5:00 a.m. These sorts of working conditions were understandably difficult on the physical and mental health of myself and many coworkers. Coworkers talked frequently of almost falling asleep at the wheel on the way to shooting locations. It was a common occurrence during "busy season" for photographers to have breakdowns.
You're required to pressure clients into leaving a review for the studio they visited. As a photographer, I was encouraged by studio managers to nudge clients towards leaving a Google Review instead of a Yelp review because managers didn't want clients seeing the large number of bad reviews on our studio's respective Yelp pages. We would be reprimanded if we didn't get our client to leave a good review, and were basically encouraged to get a review even if asking continuously for a review made a client uncomfortable
Your coworkers are diverse, but when it comes to putting diversity into action Cady really fails. For a company working largely with minors, Cady does not do a good job at ensuring that its employees are trained on topics like consent and diversity.
Many employees feel poorly towards the environment at CADY but are afraid of being fired for speaking out.
It's not an uncommon occurrence for your paycheck to be missing hours
Elite photographers make the most money for the studios (we're talking packages costing well over $1,500 dollars) but the company refuses to give these photographers any ounce of commission.
