I would describe my time here as stressful. We were constantly told to speak up if we felt that we were overworked or if we couldn’t meet a deadline, but they always pushed back in subtle ways to convince you that you could manage it and then ignore you. The budgets always felt too thin and that pressure was certainly laid on us. As a designer you will feel personally responsible for financial success of the project and upper management will come into your team meetings to remind you so. Every final week of the month felt eerily similar to finals week which got quickly exhausting. The phrase “professional time” will get thrown around, which means working for free, as they try to get you to finish the projects. Constant promises that it will get better and that they acknowledge that work life balance needs to be improved but never deliver on that promise. Overall, I think this company is poorly managed from the top and their priorities are in the wrong places.
They also sold the company under the noses of the employees while it was still an ESOP. They just suddenly announced it one day with no warning and made sure to tell us that their lawyers verified that they couldn’t be sued. The company is now passed between different private equity firms on a semi-annual basis.
