Greatist sounds too good to be true. And guess what, peeps -- it is.
Companies like Greatist sound amazing. and quite easily draw people in through a glamorous job description.
"Flexible hours!"
"Amazing snacks!"
"A nap room?!"
But in reality, this was the harshest environment I've ever worked in. If you aren't a thin, white woman who wears yoga pants every day, don't apply, they won't like you. Out of the 50 or so pitches I sent to my editor, maybe two or three ever got approved in the six months I was there. It was hell to get them published and, in the end, my editor essentially started from scratch and wrote the piece herself. I'm telling you, I've never worked with a company before that's so rigid in its structure and unwilling to change. It was like working at The New York Times if the Times published content about weight loss. I was hired to try new things and change the way audiences perceive this brand, but guess what: I don't even have Greatist on my resume. As far as any future employer is concerned, I was simply freelance for six months.
There is no flexibility, no loose office structure, and certainly no nap room. It was a 10 to 7 gig and BOY would you get angry stares if you left early. No one talks to each other and by god I swear people would nervously look around if they laughed too loudly.
My editor and I exchanged maybe 100 words my entire time at Greatist, but that doesn't mean we didn't talk. She would Slack me about every single typo in my writing and ask me "if I meant to do that." They should write an article on passive-aggressive behaviors. I was actually once accused of plagiarism because I forgot to link to a source. You can't just accuse people of that stuff. The actual work this website puts out is insanely forgetful. Best kale smoothie recipes, ab workouts, "New Year New You" -- the kind of pseudo-intellectual garbage you'd find on any mommy blogger's site.
When I got fired/laid off/whatever, I was the happiest I'd been in months. Handsome-ish severance package that made up for being let go a few days before Christmas. There were totally some good people at Greatist -- solid women who produce incredible work -- but most of them have left for better things. When I think back at my time at Greatist, I feel like I was duped. Lured in by the promises of a high salary and lax work environment, but what I got was six wasted months of my life that *quite literally* lead me to have several nightmares a week.
