Great Company No Sales - Recensione dipendente - Senior Project Manager presso MVRK

Worked on some cool projects

During the pandemic the team was mostly remote which was tough

There are a lot of really sweet, incredible people at MVRK. My motivation with this review is to warn folks about the culture and lack of vision, most of the people themselves were great.

Remote employees had to fly to Orlando to participate in game show inspired team building activities that pitted employees against one another for the possibility of monetary reward, in the form of $100 Amazon gift cards. I have debt to pay down and definitely needed the money, however I always chose the wrong prize doors (seriously) and wound up with such cheap, odd prizes that it was borderline insulting. This meant that some employees would leave an event with hundreds of dollars, and some would end up with literal junk, like kitchen sponges or plastic bag clips from amazon (this actually happened, I really wish I was joking). I got laid off days after the creative director expressed pride in there being a high turnover rate (red flag!), and after weeks of being gaslit about my communication skills. Which was… just nuts. I’ve been working remotely since 2018, and spent years traveling full time. I was one of those vanlife people, and so I’ve had to seriously factor in cell service and internet access into my day to day life, sometimes driving miles and miles to find a location where I could send large files. Making sure to be in contact with the folks that I work with has always been in the forefront of my mind. In all that time, and under challenging circumstances, I have NEVER had negative feedback surrounding communication until somehow this guy got in my head, and had me thinking that *I* was the one who was bad at it, not him. That said, I was repeatedly assured that the layoff was not due to performance, and that they “loved” me. I was a “cultural fit,” they simply didn’t have enough work to justify keeping me.. BUT, in the next breath they abruptly cut me off with no resources or assistance whatsoever, and everyone was apparently way too busy to send me anything useful for my portfolio. All I got were 4 low quality screen shots of renders, some of which had been drawn on, that I then had to edit. Upon reflection, this treatment was obvious, unprofessional, and punitive. Much of the work I did for MVRK was basically discarded the moment I did it anyway, without any review or explanation that went much further than “we want this instead.” When I would design conceptual things I was told that it was unrealistic, but when I designed with production in mind I was told that it wasn’t imaginative enough. However, I was also told, again and again, that my position was safe and that I was appreciated— and then had the rug pulled out from beneath me. This was all made worse because of having been in an environment where I was made to think that my voice just wasn’t valuable. This is a company where the creative department is a couple of guys who are used to doing all the design themselves, and see no reason to stop. There isn’t room for anyone to come in with a different perspective, something that never changed no matter how many hours they forced us to spend in DEI workshops. If I had been hired on in a rendering or detailing role that would be one thing- but I wasn’t. I was hired into a design position, and then not allowed to design anything. I was robbed of time that I wish I could have spent either continuing to look for a full-time position with a company that DID need my skill set, or just maintaining financial stability through the freelance clients I'd been working with at the time. On top of how it left me questioning my own sanity and work ethic, this layoff has ended up being the hardest time in my life financially. I cannot understate how stressful the last few months have been, and still, the thing that really upsets me about all of it is that I didn’t quit earlier. That the gaslighting and the toxic “team-building" weren’t enough for me to jump ship on my own. In the short time I was there (about 10 months), 3 other employees DID quit! 3 seems like a lot in a company of roughly 15-20 people. If I’m ever unlucky enough to be in a similar situation again, I hope that now I’ll have the foresight and self respect to do the same, regardless of the financial fallout. TLDR: If you accept a position here, budget for a therapist. Or, at the very least, when your friends point out that MVRK is weird and abusive (no one can get over the gift card hunger games, which is funny now, but also seriously unhinged)— believe them the FIRST time, and quit while you’re ahead.