There is a very long list. First off don't think this is just a 9-5 job. Your hours will vary which is fine because you know what you signed up for. However they constantly change your schedule Including sometimes less than 24 hours in advance. You would think that making that switch would gain you some favor but they could care less. And god forbid you can't work that switch. Basically your career is over because in their mind you have something more important to do than cutting Ten 15 second videos even if you have a legitimate reason to miss work. Lets say you schedule a doctors appointment 3 weeks out. Then the day before you get switched. You will have to chose between the end of your career or paying a fee for missing your appointment. They expect you to always be flexible but it is not even close to being reciprocated.
One other example is asking for time off. Lets say you want time off in February. You have to request off by January 5th. Seems like you would expect to get your schedule for February in a few weeks. NOPE. At best you will get it on January 25th. Keep in mind that there is someone who is paid about 90,000 dollars a year and their only job is the schedule yet they can't even handle that. Also they try their hardest to shame people from taking off. If you request off you can almost guarantee that they will take other days away from you which forces you to not get paid or to get vacation days taken away from you even though that is not what you wanted. They never want you to take off during the season so when the offseason comes all the staff tries to take off. But that doesn't work either because they need people to work shifts so basically you never can take off. One employee was even shamed into postponing his Honeymoon. So much for work-life balance. You can forget that idea. This is your life now and they will never let you forget it. Many times they will force you to work up to 10 days in a row and will constantly switch you between day and night shifts so that you will never be healthy or get on a consistent sleep schedule.
This bring us to pay. They say that they base their pay off of the area that the company is located in. That could not be further from the truth. I'm pretty sure the janitors get paid more than this position. But don't worry you get an extra 5 dollar raise every year so that’s something to look forward to. Even the Associate Producers and Segment Producers are beyond underpaid. They expect you to do work significantly above your pay grade and they will NOT compensate you for it.
Its very clear that your work doesn't matter here. You can go 3 months without getting any feedback on your work. Then when your review comes up they make up something to criticize you for even they clearly have no idea what you have been working on during that time. Luckily if you are in the Boy’s club you will be set. So be ready to laugh at your managers jokes, support everything he does, throw your other co workers under the bus, and basically sell your soul for a CHANCE of moving up. If the head of the department doesn’t like you for some reason there is literally nothing you can do to change his mind. Its as if some people are picked as soon as they walk in the door and everyone else can forget it. I can't tell you how many times under-qualified people have been passed over for someone that is friends with the manager. They will dangle a promotion in front of you in order to squeeze every last drop of your effort. Then when it comes time for your meeting they claim that they have no money in the budget. Strange because the head of the department has gotten 2 promotions in the last 2 years. I wonder how much money that may have cost? Feel like they could have given us at least a 6 dollar raise each year. Nah that's too much.
The biggest problem is the raging sexism that exudes from this company. Guess how many female producers there have been in the history of MLB Network? if you guessed 0 then you are correct. It is beyond egregious. Many times the women are much more talented than the men that get work ahead of them. For example there was a Male and Female employee that started at the same time. The Male was an intern and the Female was an Associate Producer. He moved from intern to broadcast associate to Associate Producer to Segment Producer. The Female still has not been promoted. If that doesn't show you something then I don’t know what will. The talent and producers are constantly making sexist and inappropriate comments constantly. In meetings they may discuss masturbation, or they might just throw out a good ole Homophobic slur just to mix it up for a change.
