Here we go.
TL;DR If you want to feel bad coming to work every day and want to put up with an offensive owner and questionable practices for low pay, this place will work.
The details. I couldn't be bothered to organize them by subject:
- It is required to ask questions to get basic information about a project.
- Very slow email responses from a particular upper management employee; Sometimes even takes over 4 days to send important quotes to client.
- Only 2 graphic artists in dept. can't do all the work they are pushed to do, especially with an upcoming surge of work from a new business venture. Some internal projects have been around for over 4 years because there is never time to do them, or if you DO have time to work on them, you're suddenly "wasting time and could be doing something more important" even though upper management will come back later and say they need to be done.
- You can completely take over the extra responsibilities of a previous employee above you and not get promoted into that position even after a year of asking.
- Extremely disorganized filing structure not only makes whatever training there is a headache for new employees but also makes finding files incredibly difficult which wastes time on nearly every project, especially ones involving photos. Hardly anything is named properly.
- Upper management and owner make questionable decisions and sometimes have downright bad ideas but are always right. They like to explain to you why they think they're right, too, which is wonderful to chew on nearly every day.
- Job duties can include everything under the sun, not only things associated with your department.
- There is an expectation to work unrealistically fast in many cases. If things get done in these cases and a minor mistake was made, you could be railed by the owner if he hasn't spoken with the general manager about it yet. The general manager is good at calming him down, though this is a sad practice.
- Very low pay for what you bring to/do for the business. MANY job duties and very detailed, focused work that comes with pennies in return. I even received two raises in almost 2 years and it wasn't close to what I should've been earning.
- Your work/help/dedication will be praised one day by the owner and dumped on the next depending on his mood.
- Music while you work is nice, but is very selective. The owner chooses what plays on any particular day when he comes in. You will usually not be listening to modern music from the past two decades.
- Baseline benefits. Look at any other normal business and they're offering a better package. Only thing going for UPC is the multiple choices for health coverage and the 6% 401K match.
- Almost no chance for a fully remote setup.
- "We care about our employees" exists in a sense, but definitely not in full. Personal lives, there is interest and care. Working lives, barely any. Expect to receive jabs for doing things wrong.
- "Training" translates to asking thousands of questions or figuring it out yourself. With so many processes and ways to go about doing things at this company, it's a horrible way to run. Depending on the department, a new hire can expect to be running into new "basic procedures" even after a year.
- Owner cannot take brutal honesty. You can answer a crudely written question of his with truth and honesty and be met with a teenager's response back that's clearly meant to incite anger and negativity. Basically, don't talk back to him if he says something rude to you.
- Owner is belligerent, loud, rude, condescending, impulsive, and stuck-up. I'm afraid the chip on his shoulder is giving him aches and pains due to its size and how long it's been there. He says wildly inappropriate things and curses often.
- You come to work each day with a certain bad feeling in your chest and the desire to go home. You're glad to hear when the owner or general manager will be gone for the day even though you might have questions for them.
- Talking with fellow employees each day about another rude email or another thing the owner did gets exhausting. There's complaining about work anywhere you go, but this is beyond next-level. There's a reason for it, though.
- I was once told my role was a small part of company processes in a 1-on-1. Without the two graphic artists, nothing new would be printed in the facility (which is all the time), let alone many other major issues that would occur.
- General manager can get visibly annoyed when a question is asked more than once (sometimes even once).
- Not always told about projects that need doing resulting in rushed project completion. Can go from "just learned about it" to "it needs to be done in 2 hours?" to upper management asking "why wasn't this done days ago?"
- General manager and owner oversee way too much and have their fingers dipped into too many sauces.
- Monthly attendance raffle only rewards employees who get to work early and has no flex. If you're 1 minute late to work that month due to traffic or road conditions, you're out. "We care about our employees and are always looking for ways to..." mmhm.
- Other employee events are extremely rare and usually include a food truck once a year and a couple holiday food events throughout the year. Maybe 4 or 5.
- You need to write a paper report logging your hours on projects AND a more detailed email report for what you do each day to upper management.
- I had to ask for my 90-day review twice and got it 2.5 weeks afterward. Was told there'd be a pay increase before accepting the job, was told during the review there wasn't.
- In these reviews you'll see some responses that claim 70% of employees have worked there over 4 years and 50% over 10. It's not a testament to amazing benefits and work culture, it's either because the employees are too loyal for their own good or just can't/don't want to search for another job and think this is "good enough".
- There's plenty more but I'm not writing a book. Just please don't.
