Lyric Opera of Chicago Employee Reviews about "work life balance"

Pros

There are some fantastic committed folks at this org

Cons

Where do I start? The President and almost every VP level staffer are woefully out of touch. Many of the senior directors and directors are heavily entrenched, will never leave, and will do everything they can to set anyone they perceive as a threat up for failure. Incredibly high turnover in most departments, due almost entirely to lack of work/life balance and lack of compensatory time when staff is expected to work late evenings and weekends.

Pros

It holds a special spot in the musical world that drives candidates and employees to WANT to work at Lyric.

Cons

The work environment is exceptionally toxic at Lyric. It is more focused on gossip instead of results, which surprisingly starts at the top and is fed throughout the organization. They don't invest in staff development which is critical to being successful in arts/music world. Your mistakes are always remembered, even if improvements were made. If they don't like you then you will find a lot of passive aggressive behavior and people will wait for/set you up to fail instead of offering support or help. The staff are incredibly negative and say horrible things about each other when they believe they are not being overheard. Furthermore, strong personalities end up leading departments instead of the actual “manager”. Often fear is used to manipulate management to do what these individuals desire. The pay here is despicably low, they try to say the benefits are great to compensate low salaries, but in reality the benefits are terrible. There is no work/life balance.

Pros

- work life balance - great culture - value their employees

Cons

- low salary - travel distance for me too far