Okay. So. Prepare for layoffs. Every year, they gut departments. Every.single.year. The fear is real when October rolls around. When budgets stop, lunches are cancelled, education budgets squashed, you KNOW that layoffs are coming. Doesn’t matter if they just opened yet another office in another city. Winter is coming. There is NO job security and while they tell you every four years you’ll get a month paid sabbatical, know that you probably won’t last long enough to see that sabbatical.
Favorites are promoted to manager positions with NO experience or mentorship. Therefore many managers are stunningly inept, but there’s no one to guide them to help them do better so it’s not even their fault. Upper bosses come and go so often you’ll never have the chance to build a good working relationship with any of them. Departments are re-organized on the regular, leading to confusion. Meanwhile other workers who deserve upward mobility are never promoted due to favoritism running the show. Positions change willy nilly.
Example: I was hired to be a manager, then when the manager I was going to replace quit (all part of the plan), the position was suddenly axed. I then was required to prove to junior level people why I deserve to have a senior title by still doing manager duties despite having no managerial authority (who wants to feel bossed around by a non boss, thanks for creating an awkward and frustrating work environment for no reason!) and that title NEVER CAME. Months rolled into a couple of years, no title DESPITE having twenty years of experience. I put up with it because the mismanagement was not actually in my immediate coworker’s control, and their hard working, kind attitudes made up for a lot of the problems. In short, we all made it work because at the end of the day we cared about the actual product. Otherwise, why even show up every day? But that added stress was idiotic and unnecessary and just more proof of inept managers.
There’s also a reason why there are so few people here over the age of 35. In the entire company. Ageism is rampant here. The focus on millennials is almost pathological. Upper mgmt either does not understand they need senior people (because most of them aren’t actually senior either, pro-tip a handful of years of experience shouldn’t make someone a dept head or a director FACE PALM) or they just don’t want to pay the salaries for experienced staff. Maybe both. Managers now have no idea they’re making huge blunders because there’s no one with the experience to actually tell them they’re messing up. So how in the world can other junior staff expect to be better when their own managers are clueless and left that way? People in their 30s, 40s, & beyond aren’t a disease. We have insight & experience and know how to mentor junior staff. It’s like upper mgmt is playing house and this is just a silly game. Yet another round of layoffs decimating the technology department is a prime example of “we don’t know what we’re doing.” Young people playing at manager roles hired their own executioner, completely unawares. Expect more layoffs. That ticket has been punched. And expect managers to save their friend’s jobs over yours for no other reason than they like their friend.
R29 is a snake eating its own tail. They don’t follow their own inclusive spin with the lack of POC upper managers and the lack of older women. If R29 cares so much about women they why don’t they hire more POC managers & older women and then pay their staff accordingly? Stop the high turnover. Treat people better.
So if you ultimately decide to work here, use R29 for the experience, make connections with the good people here (there are stand up people here, despite the toxicity) and then get out. Use R29 the way it uses their empoyees, suck it dry for knowledge and leave, before they suck you dry. Do NOT work here for the pay or job security. Know what you’re getting in to, and do not wear the R29 cheerleader blinders or you WILL get blindsided.
