As toxic as a nuclear wasteland. Everything is demanded of you “now”. It doesn’t matter how many other “now” requests you have received. Everything has the same priority and things will pile up and overflow. You will burn out. If you’re full of energy and don’t enjoy sleep, you may succeed here. You will spend a large part of your day in meetings. Mostly pointless and having nothing to do with you or your role. But you’re expected to attend - on camera, if you're remote - regardless if you're sick that day just trying to hold it together. If you’re curious about digital marketing, these guys have mastered the art of lipsticking every internal pig they have and ensuring you can’t smell the “it” until it’s way too late and suddenly you’re up to your knees in “it.” If you’re willing to risk it and accept an offer from this place, keep your resume and job searching profiles active and live. You will be overwhelmed and frustrated before you know it. If you want to earn favor and promotion around here, I suggest the following: 1. Be a ventriloquist. The more you learn to sound like your boss and your boss’s boss, the greater your perceived value will be. This includes asking nonsensical questions, irrelevant questions, and scrubbing the deepest recesses of your brain to find a reason to criticize someone's work - even if you know nothing about it. 2. Waste time. This sounds counter-productive, but the goal is to waste other people’s time (so they can't dump their work on YOU). Ask questions in meetings that have nothing to do with your own job that will send that person scurrying for some answer, and then fail to acknowledge it when you get that information. Waste your boss’s time by copying them on every single email you send. And if you forget to send it on the original, make sure you send a followup right away with “adding boss for visibility!” This is also a great way to make sure your boss knows you’re giving other people work to do. 3. Trust no one. Consider everything you say as if your boss was standing right there. And before you speak, remember that what you say will be twisted around to make you look bad. An innocent question like, “I can’t remember… is this role bonus eligible?” will only be interpreted as “Sally isn’t a team player. She’s only in it for the money.” Speaking of the money, you will be treated like a cog in a big red wheel with the one mission of making The Master (Ric) even more wealthy. The man has a replica of his own living room built out as an executive meeting / conference room. When it comes time for performance reviews, the opinions and feedback of your “peers” weigh very heavily on your manager’s overall review of you. So, if you want a bigger piece of the pie, it is to YOUR advantage to ensure you are as truthfully unfair and critical of everyone you’re asked to review. Be honest, but exaggerate the negatives. Paint the negatives about other people in the biggest, broadest brush strokes you possibly can. That will look great for you - “This is how we get better!” and “Wow, you can really see the opportunities other people can grow in. You’d be a great leader.” Speaking of Ric, he's running a cult. He will stop an all-hands, town-hall meeting if you don't give him a standing ovation when he walks on stage. Literally. He will scold the entire company for not being respectful, demand you rise and clap, exit the stage and do it again... and again... and again until he's satisfied. I feel really bad for everyone who comes here for their first job and thinks this is how good leaders operate. The leadership behaviors here are NOT NORMAL in the rest of corporate America. Do not let yourself be gaslit into believing this is typical. But I feel even worse for someone who might be mid-career and comes to this organization to try to make a difference. It's not wanted. They already know everything there is to know and you can't add anything new. And lastly, they got busted for defrauding the United States Postal Service (google it) just because they thought they could. Do you think YOU'RE going to be treated any better?
