Vantaggi
• Unpopular opinion: the Quad acquisition was actually the best thing that happened to us. As our corporate overlords started examining the dark corners of Periscope, they've started to see all the festering issues in need of fixing. Some of them have already improved. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. • The people are great. Nothing like a shared loathing for the executive leadership to foster bonding and camaraderie. • Health benefits are good. • Dogs are a nice distraction from the vortex of ennui and existential dread.
Svantaggi
• Zero accountability at the top. Leadership preaches transparency, and delivers none of it. A company-wide survey was conducted to assess problem areas, and leadership buried the result when they realized how bad it made them look. Our executive committee seems to have no trouble taking credit for victories, but somehow all our failures are the fault of the client or broader trends in the ad agency. Lose a pitch? Dumb client. Employees quitting? Industry turnover. CEO gets sacked? Quad told us to. The buck stops with anyone but our leadership. • Trophy lust. Many project deliverables are almost reverse-engineered from the case study or award submission they'll eventually make. Any wonder why client doesn't want it? Whenever creative leadership makes an announcement about a recent award win, I could swear I can see them salivating out of the corners of their mouths. • Haven't won a major pitch since I joined. And while that alone isn't inherently bad, the process certainly is. The same teams get assigned to pitches, they do all the same things, and the work produces the same results. Definition of insanity, anyone? • Middle-management bloat. We seem to have a whole lot of managers and directors, and not many people actually doing the work. And many the directors we do have are hopelessly inept at managing people. My manager checked in with me maybe six times a year. • Reinforcing bad performance. Somehow, we manage to keep and celebrate the people who have let the agency atrophy on their watch. The new business pipeline is dry, but how great is our new business director? 100+ people quit in a year, but don't we all love our director of agency operations? • Poor compensation. Criminally underpaid bottom rung of the organizational ladder. But thank god the execs still get their bonuses.