Pros
Employees learn to be adaptable and to tailor their communication style in an attempt to be effective. The monumental inefficiency of the company's leaders and their chronically unprofessional behavior and mistreatment of their employees forces the development of these skills. I cannot stress enough that there is NOTHING positive to say about OMG.
Cons
Where to begin....? Although they call themselves a "media start-up" (despite having been in business for nearly 5 years now), the founders of OMG have very little knowledge about journalism and media best practices. The "chief creative officer" did not study journalism, and the "CEO" was rejected for admission to business school. Worse, they are completely resistant to learning from the expertise of employees who DO have such knowledge and the experience to back it up. They are consistently argumentative and dismissive of others' ideas, despite the fact that they love to talk about how team-oriented they are. This could not be further from the truth. While OMG's leaders would have clients and the public believe they are a major player in the world of college media, their flagship product—a weekly lifestyle newspaper for fraternities and sororities—is consistently criticized by readers and its own student editorial staff members for its low quality and lack of meaningful, newsworthy content. Unfortunately, no amount of journalism experience or fresh ideas from the in-house creative staff could change this, thanks to OMG's fundamentally flawed business model. Although they pay the student sales staff, student writers, editors, etc. get nothing in return for their hard work other than a little experience—which has little value when the publication you worked with is considered a joke compared to other quality publications. While managing editors and designers have good ideas and the work ethic to implement them, they receive no support from their superiors and are constantly threatened and criticized when they are unable to meet unrealistic goals for recruitment (which should not be a creative department responsibility in the first place). This creates a demoralizing atmosphere where creative staff constantly feel like they are set up for failure. OMG's leaders are so convinced that they have nothing more to learn about true journalism that at this point, they have driven out all but two of their in-house creative staff members. In terms of general employee turnover, the rate is somewhere upwards of 80%—out of 40-something employees hired over the past two years, 30-something have come and gone. And that estimate doesn't even factor in all the student staff members who have come and gone; if it did, the percentage would be even more astronomical. Lastly (although there is so much more I could say), Evan Burns is simply running an unethical company. They are regularly unable to pay employees. He sometimes asks certain agreeable employees to accept late paychecks, and he ALWAYS waits until it is too late on payday for employees to deposit checks so that he can float them over the weekend. Many times, paychecks are unable to be cashed because of insufficient funds. When employees have complained about this, he consistently lies straight to their faces and makes up stories about it being a "bank error," etc. etc. He offers incentives and bonuses that never materialize. I cannot stress this advice enough: If you are a college student thinking about an internship with OMG, do yourself a favor and apply for an internship with a legitimate organization that you can be proud of when your hard work is done. If you are considering employment with OMG, RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN IN THE OTHER DIRECTION. This is not a company where you can grow and improve your future prospects. It is a company that sucks the life out of every employee who comes through its doors.
