A toxic, soul-sucking, ego-driven mess - Social Media Associate Real Chemistry Employee Review

1.0
May 4, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

A few genuinely good, hardworking people on the team, yet most have left in the last six months for greener pastures.

Cons

Read the negative reviews and BELIEVE them. My time here was marked by the complete collapse of my mental health. What was advertised as a fun, creative, collaborative experience turned out to be some of the most draining, defeating months of my life. The social team is led by some of the most toxic, arrogant, #hustleculture egomaniacs you’ll come across in your career. Be prepared to be on-call 24 hours a day. I was viciously reprimanded for taking three hours to respond to an email on a Saturday. The average work day here is around 16-17 hours, with most logging off at 10-11PM. If you’re not willing to work these hours, be ready for passive aggressive comments and judgment about your “commitment” to the team, or lack thereof. I constantly expressed the fact that I felt overworked, that too much was thrown on my plate (most of which were projects I had heretofore had no involvement in, thus making them extremely difficult to get up-to-speed on), and these concerns were met with classic condescending gaslighting techniques: “Do you lack time management skills? Do you lack ambition? What are YOU doing wrong?“ I woke up every morning terrified, wondering who was going to scream at me that day, how much was I was going to be belittled, and how much unexpected work was going to be thrown on my plate with the expectation I’d prioritize it over everything else I was working on. I felt like I was drowning, literally. The final straw for me was on an 8pm Zoom meeting. Earlier in the evening, a coworker briefly logged off to have dinner with her family. The Team Lead proceeded to humiliate her in front of everyone on the call: “Where were you? You HAVE to be more vocal about where you’re going. You’re showing a complete disregard for this team.” I sat there in disbelief, wanting desperately to stand up for my coworker, yet also being afraid of the TL’s wrath being redirected towards me. Keep in mind, this was completely outside of business hours, yet we were expected to work late because, I quote, : “It’s a pandemic. What else do you have to do?” Soon after that, a coworker lost a loved one and messaged the team that they would be logging off early. The same TL responded: “Couldn’t you have let us know sooner?” I put in my two weeks the next day. The icing on the cake? In my exit interview, I told HR these stories come among many others. I expressed that there was one person who majorly contributed to the toxicity of the team, who was solely responsible for over six people leaving. The very next week, that person was promoted. I’m writing this in hopes no one has to go through what I did.

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5.0
Jun 1, 2026
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CEO approval
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Pros

Remote work and flexibility, good work life balance

Cons

Can be disorganized and not many vacation days

1.0
Apr 20, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
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Pros

- none. this company is soul suckingly inefficient and they prefer it that way

Cons

- the most dishonest and toxic work environment that I have ever been a part of - the most unqualified management that I have come across (I have worked across numerous agencies - the work is sketchy at best and clients are grossly over billed. Pressuring employees to over bill clients and trying to force inaccurate or incomplete work through the purposely inefficient review processes is common practice at RC - if you do not over bill your clients your managers will begin to micromanage you in a manner that hints at you not doing enough. - Account teams know nothing about media or advertising and make the most uninformed promises to clients and that media activation is constantly on the hook and being blamed for - they hire very little or no men in general. this place is like a toxic middle school atmosphere, it is truly exhausting to be a part of. - managers will routinely insult you in a way you've never been insulted before at work and nothing will be done about it - information is usually gate kept and teams will prevent you from doing your job while management is asking that you contribute more.

7
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