Laundry Service Reviews

You will likely be more unhirable after working here than if you spent the same amount of time unemployed. Management is inexperienced and full of emotional decision makers. This means you have no supervision when it comes to quality of work, but are monitored for behavioral things like how you contribute to the “vibe of the office”. What they mean by this is how much you can change yourself to act like a straight white bro. HR perpetuates this behavior by blaming it on broader agency culture rather than addressing realities like the fact that seven women from the creative department quit within one month. Inappropriate and discriminatory behavior is consistent across all accounts and throughout the agency. I had an overtly racist person on my account, who often made inappropriate comments about playing up my appearance and ethnicity for clients to see that we were a diverse team. When clients were not around, the same person complained that our content was not performing well because we had posted “too many photos of black people”. Several complaints to HR yielded no results and eventually, discouraged by the lack of action against racist behavior, I quit. This job will change you. And your portfolio will not gain one redeemable piece of work in exchange for the degradation you’ll endure. HR will placate you, management will belittle you, and your coworkers are so drained by hating their own lives that they have no energy to help you.

I'll preface this by saying that my experience comes exclusively from the Portland office, which is the most dramatic, unprofessional, unsettling place I've ever had the displeasure of working. For starters, onboarding is an absolute joke. My onboarding experience was a 15-minute phone call with someone on the HR team in NY. She walked me through a short powerpoint presentation that gave a high-level overview of the company (i.e. this is what we do, here's the names of a few clients, etc.) which is all information you can find on Laundry Service's website, and then quickly breezed through the company's benefit package. Then I sat at my desk and was told to review a few documents and decks to get up to speed with my client's work. I worked at the company for an entire month before someone could tell me who my actual director was. Once determined, my director sent me a 1-page Word document detailing what my roles and responsibilities entailed. A little too late, but, ok...thanks? With the exception of lunch provided on Fridays and post-work happy hour once a month, office culture is abysmal. Gossip galore, burnt out employees, etc. Once, there was an office outing planned...and then it got canceled a few days prior without explanation. Account managers were told to let their teams know in small groups so there wouldn't be an uprising. Nice! If you've read any articles about Laundry Service, you know that the company touts the same, generic line about having outstanding "transparency, accessibility to leadership, honesty, diversity and inclusion." My experience was the exact opposite. There is no transparency. Trying to book time with senior leadership or even have a short conversion with them is near impossible. I've never seen leadership try to sweep layoffs and client losses under the rug so quietly and quickly. Diversity is lacking from an overall employee perspective, and within teams. (Think: The Jordan team is an insufferable boys club, with 1-2 women added, recently.) Inclusion is hard to come by, but good luck! As for leadership...I truly don't have the words to describe their incompetence. It seems as though people are hired because they fit the "cool kid" mould, instead of being hired on having legitimate experience. Most perplexing of all? The most incompetent leaders seem to be the ones who are promoted the quickest. If you can't do the job you were hired for, how are you supposed to be successful in a role with more responsibilities and power? Issues trickle down the chain, so something needs to change at the top if Laundry Service wants to see their employees at the bottom of the chain succeed. TL;DR: Onboarding is bad. Company culture is bad. Leadership is incompetent. Honesty and transparency are two virtues you will not find at Laundry Service.