When I initially accepted the job offer I read reviews on here that said it feels like high school. That is simply not true. My classmates and and I didn't act like this in high school This is what you call junior high nonsense that is circulating around the corporate office space in the unhappy hallways of Randa.
Gossip, suspicion, and anger pollutes the air like a puffy cloud of green smoke. Most people usually come in around 8:30 and leave at 5:30 at the earliest. If someone comes in as late as 9am or leaves a half an hour earlier, the cloud of gossip spreads like a storm from ear to ear. The co workers that you just enjoyed Chinese takeout with for lunch are now talking to your fellow employees about how you don't pull your weight and don't work hard enough. One time an employee was just notified that her grandfather had just passed away and one of the first things that came out of another employee was that it has to be rough knowing that she now has to waste a PTO on traveling to go to his funeral, I kid you not. These people are overall good people. There's something in this smoke of poison and toxicity that is clouding up the air and turning people for the worst. People are so quick to gossip about their teammates and throw each other under the bus. Call the fire station to clear the smoke, it's not a healthy environment to be around.
People work hard and tirelessly throughout the night and then walk in from the silver elevator doors before the sun even rises like soulless zombies that didn't get a chance to nibble on human flesh the night before. If you can't tell by the ghost-like look on their faces that the people are just tired, sad, and miserable, you can certainly sniff it in the air. The smell of cheap, stale coffee mixed with the aroma of pure exhaustion and misery wafts through the wall-less cubicles as you come in and prepare yourself for another long day of work. For a place with so many creatives working, it's one of the most dullest, unexciting, colorless places I have ever worked in. Not only is it a rather far commute from the city, it's located in one of the most boring suburbs of Chicago, where the closest thing to salvation is the awful outlet mall.
Employees aren't appreciated for their hard work. It's sad to say, but one of the best benefits about working there was the "summer hours" where you got to leave after lunch on Fridays. Sure you had to work an extra hour the days before, but leaving the cold, desolate office of misery and despair early to enjoy the epic Chicago summer days is like Oliver Twist getting more gruel. Everyone's so used to being treated like orphan children that a small reward like this feels like winning the lottery. P.S. Before I left, I believe they shortened this "benefit" to only a month in summer. Bravo!
