Working in the 1980s
Pros
Coming in as a new motion graphic designer, I learn a lot of the basic skills of animation, sound and video editing in my position. I was able to work my way up to managing my own projects, holding client meetings by the end of the year. My colleague, the only other staff member in the team was great and very supportive.
Cons
The management style was very micro-manager and made me feel like I was in a time warp back in the 1980s. For a relatively calm client base, there was culture to stay over finishing time unpaid. I was also pressured later to cut my lunch break from 1 hour to 40 minutes. (That being said, I was the only one who would take a lunch break and leave my desk. My colleague would eat her food at the computer and keep working.) There was no justification for this request, I was meeting all of my agreed deadlines and delivering a very high quality of work. I was also told that I drank too much water and went to the bathroom too often during the day. I was also told that sick-leave that I had taken was going to be docked from my pay. Later, when I asked for the discussion to be made it writing so that I could get legal advice, the manager very quickly back tracked and apologised, saying I mustn't feel much company loyalty right now, and tried to persuade me that the opportunities would improve. For the year I was there, he would very proudly dis talk about previous employees that had resigned and insult them. This made me feel very uncomfortable. The manager was involved in an incident of racism with a client. He harassed the client to accept his apology and wondered why she wouldn't talk to him. Although he admitted fault, I'm not sure he full understood his actions. I had to take training in reaction to the racism incident. It was then I realised I was suffering from the working relationship with the manager. He also had an angry outburst which included shouting and hitting a desk in front of us.
