Unreasonable leadership, fearful culture - Recensione dipendente - 3D Motion Designer presso Bask Health

I was full-time in-office and sat a couple desks away from leadership, so I heard everything that went on for over two months. My experience was that Bask has a highly unprofessional and punitive management style that was often openly hostile. It stems from the CEO and creates a tense environment across the whole company. First, the in-office vibe: I was told multiple times this is a “24/7 job” (in the interview process I was assured it was a 40 hr work week). The CEO does not like when people eat lunch outside the office, so people order delivery or pick up food from close spots. I saw a volatile and hostile incident in which the CEO threatened to fire an employee because they were uncomfortable accessing a storage space with a short ladder. I then heard him threatening bodily harm against this employee while they were out of earshot. I won’t quote due to moderation concerns but it was extreme and explicitly violent. The CEO comments on the attractiveness of female employees, makes gross jokes, just generally cringe behavior. They expect you to come to work if you’re sick, and people do. There’s a huge positive vibe shift in the office when leadership is away. The CEO demands attendance at meetings he schedules for after work hours, even with only a few hours of notice. My observations on PTO specifically: Requests were routinely met with negativity, pushback, and required justification. I saw the CEO try to intimidate someone into not taking time off with a sexual insult. On a day that a different employee took a day off the CEO ridiculed him and made a demeaning sexual comment about him in his absence. They don't think employees should take any time off for the first three months of their employment. There is talk of implementing a points system where people can "earn" PTO up to two days a month. I observed people working on vacation and overheard people being told they were expected to work on vacation. I saw an employee get nervous about forgetting to submit a PTO request for Thanksgiving with less than 30 days notice. No holiday is time off by default. Lastly, I’ll discuss my firing: the CEO yelled at and insulted me in front of the whole office for missing a non-urgent Slack message sent after work hours. I can honestly say I've never been spoken to like this in my life. There was no warning or PIP, although the day before I tried to rest on the couch for half an hour waiting for pain medication to kick in. I was told this was very bad optics and that I was being rude to the entire office. While my firing experience was intense, it ultimately came as a relief due to the work environment. Now that some time has passed I wished I'd listened to my gut and got out sooner on my own terms. The creative director who I directly reported to was very happy with my work and expressed this often and my impression is that my firing was not related to performance but to not being completely available outside work hours. My advice to prospective hires: Take the job if you need to but start working on an exit plan. Lay low and don’t take advantage of any benefits, whether it’s contractor expenses or PTO, this will invite scrutiny you don’t need. Perform optics and try not to exercise boundaries. Yes it’s unsustainable but you’re working on your exit plan :)