Pros
*The worker bees in the cubicle-hive you are in are great and will maintain the friendships for a lifetime. *The experience you gain (although it's given to you without any training, oversight or infrastructure support) is amazing. *The ability to work with many types of clients and events is great!
Cons
Are you ready? This is one of the worst places I've worked at in my 20+ years of professional experience. I find it interesting that most of the high ratings have come from Chicago-maybe it's better than DC. I'll echo everyone else-work/life balance is non-existent. I was up at 2am to do Skype calls for international clients for months and was given no concession. Sr. Management was horrible, they never had your back and was more interested in trying to blame you than being good mentors. They ran it like a popularity club-if you weren't in the "in" crowd, you were most definitely out. If you aren't a "favorite", you have no chance in hell. I received good/great comments on my reviews (which btw, is a looong and arduous task), had over 20 emails from clients touting my abilities and happiness with my work but since I wasn't a favorite, was passed over for promotions, bonuses and growth. Every day was stressful because you never knew when you were going to be called in and berated for things. "Favorites" could do no wrong and take credit for work that was not theirs and "unfavorites" were annoying employees if you stuck up for yourself. You have multiple managers that have never been trained to be managers, don't care about your professional growth and are too busy trying to prove to their managers they are the best, that it makes for a very non-cohesive (haha old employees get that joke) environment. This place is so toxic at one point, you start believing the negativity and what once was craziness is now the norm. We joke, those who got out, that it was like an abusive relationship, we had to relearn to not expect the worst and stop cringing at our new jobs. When my current manager told me, "I'm here to make you look good and I'll do whatever I can to help you be successful," I seriously jumped for joy! They paid for me to get a certification, which was great but they did not give any compensation or promotion for earning it. They sure as hell used it to put me on contract proposals to get a client! Oh, and note, I was certified when 95% of of my managers had yet to be. But thank you for paying for something that helped me get my next position that is awesome! When I left SB, I had better benefits, better work/life balance, made almost $20k more in the first year and was promoted to a Director position within 18 months. At SB they had me locked in as a Coordinator until the end of time.
