Pros
Laid back atmosphere, interesting work, experience looks great on your resume, AMAZING people (I’ve made some great friends over the years), steady paycheck (if you survived the constant layoffs), health insurance , 401K match, free food and tickets to some great events. The reason I have stayed as long as I have is because of the people…day to day, they are great to work with! Most employees can work autonomously and independently; I hardly experienced micromanagement. Creative and forward thinking atmosphere. There is a lot of encouragement to try new things, especially digitally. A lot of my colleagues are artists, musicians, humorists or creative types of some sort. Most managers are approachable and have an open door policy. Friendly environment overall…everybody knows your name.
Cons
This company is very sick with having over $20 billion in debt. I’m not good at math, but $20 billion equals a pretty bleak future. This means layoffs that happen 2-3 times per year (usually once around the holiday season). It’s a great place to get experience, but I wouldn’t advise staying too long. Employees are just cells on a spreadsheet at corporate at the end of the day. The average employee (no matter what department) rarely receives a raise or bonus…and can often go years subsisting on their starting salary. You will make more money doing the same job for a different company. The scariest thing of all is that nobody is immune from the constant layoffs despite their work ethic or skill set…one never knows if they will still have their job when they walk through that door in the morning (especially midweek when the firings tend to happen). There is also a lack of bereavement and maternity leave. When I suddenly lost a parent, I only got three days of bereavement leave and had to use sick/vacation time to make up for all the time I was gone. Luckily, I had a lot of saved up time. Most of the computers and software, especially in the studios, is over ten years old! The IT guys do the best they can, but they are forced to keep fixing old machines/software instead of dumping them once and for all as there is just no money. People are losing productivity and are not getting work done because of such antiquated systems. Also witnessed some very blatant favoritism.