Pros
- Work/life balance (sometimes). I was able to leave at a reasonable hour every day. There usually wasn't weekend work either (unless there was a pitch or another big project.)
Cons
- NO PROJECT MANAGERS. They don't believe in them. You NEED project managers, especially if you're going to task creatives with multiple projects/clients at a time. All communications came from account people who were all trying to please their clients. - Terrible management. While they say that they care about the agency, it feels like they really only care about the next paycheck. - Bad place for brainstorming and collaboration. Most creatives here, CD level and higher, would get into shouting matches about which idea should be sold in. An executive would hear the shouting, walk over and then start yelling too. Then, the CEO would eventually make her way over to do the same. All of this would happen in an open office setting too, so it was impossible to ignore. - Weekly Status Meetings. While in theory, this should work in a small agency setting. But these were the most depressing and useless meetings ever. We would all cram into a small conference room every week and listen to the CEO tell us, "We're going to be the Wieden & Kennedy of Chicago!" Yeah, okay. Management would then tell us everything we were doing wrong and tell us to step it up. - Amount of work. Creatives are stretched thin on a ton of projects, meaning they behind on their work. - There's a lot of pointing fingers here. No one will admit to taking fault. - Unwillingness to change. Creatives voiced their opinions to better the culture and work ethic, but nothing changed. - Bad benefits. - Good luck getting promoted. - If they don't like you, they'll fire you.