Vantaggi
The atmosphere is very friendly on a surface level. The owner, Ryan, is often very chill and understanding with helping to learn how things run there, whether you're new to the industry or not. It's a small team that gets along pretty well and will be happy to make you feel comfortable. There's also two very sweet office dogs who love belly rubs. There's some pretty decent equipment here, including two roll-to-roll printers and a flatbed printer, a laminator with heat settings, a laser cutter/engraver, and a routing table. There's a lot of things to learn with all of these. There's a bay in the back for vehicle installs, which sounds like the norm, but my previous job didn't have one. It's nice for being able to do car decals or wraps when the weather is rough. Searing heat and torrential rain are pretty common in Florida, so being able to get some jobs done in comfort in spite of that is nice.
Svantaggi
Don't be fooled by the friendly atmosphere. There's a lot of nice things this place will do for you, such a group lunches on Friday, and an occasional bonus, but if you're expecting true growth to be reflected in your paycheck, that's unfortunately not going to happen. Speaking from personal experience, I invested myself fully into this job, always made myself available to help others out with their work if they asked, kept the floor organized, endured heatstroke multiple times, and if I made a mistake, I would always be hard on myself to be better, because I enjoyed my job and wanted to help the place grow. In spite of this, my pay was stuck at $15 across the 2 and a half years I worked there. Despite 2023 being a very profitable year for the business, the pay never increased. This was not for lack of effort, skill, or dedication. None of that seems to matter. Even if you feel that your talent is worth more, you are likely never going to even hear about a pay-rise. I never even had an annual review. All of your accomplishments will be conveniently looked over in favor of your many non-specified mistakes. I lost this job only two days after finally expressing my frustrations about this. By the way, the owner does NOT lead by example when it comes to making mistakes, but he seems to consider himself exempt from the same criticisms he'll give everyone else. The flatbed printer is on the verge of failure, leaking from the ink tanks and streaking ink across prints even after several full cleans. Hopefully this will get fixed at some point, but I'm not gonna hold my breath with how expensive it will most likely be to repair it. In all likelihood, something will only happen when it goes beyond the point of no return. Installs at external locations can be very hit or miss. I've had a few jobs where I was given wrong measurements or not given the right amount of decals, for example. I once had to finish a job in heavy rain. I've turned up at places where I apparently didn't need a ladder (I did).
