Arrow is all about the bottom dollar, no matter how often they preach how the company is like a family. They will use this mantra to guilt you into working late, doing menial or even janitorial tasks, and spending your own money on team lunches and other "company" events. They reward a workaholic mindset. My supervisor was working twelve-hour days, six days a week, and was touted as a model employee without whom the company couldn't function. When things go well, the salespeople and upper management get all of the credit. When things go poorly, the support staff usually takes the blame. The company hierarchy steeply bottlenecks so that only a few people have any real power, and those people variously fail to keep unprofessionalism in check or are themselves responsible for it. I came to expect being cussed out by salespeople, upper managers, and HR.
The HR manager (conveniently the only HR employee) is in general one of the major culprits of unprofessionalism. I liked her casual vibe at first, thinking she was setting a standard for a relaxed work environment, but over time she came across as a gossip as it was clear that no conversations were confidential. She also seems to be either severely misinformed in matters of policy or a flat-out liar: she furnished misinformation on a variety of subjects, from unemployment law (advising me that I could file for unemployment if I voluntarily quit) to the company's drug policy (telling everyone they were not allowed personal use of cannabis outside of work, where the employee manual only strongly cautioned that doing so might end up adversely affecting job performance). I was disappointed because I felt that she was in a position to be a valuable resource to employees and a powerful agent of positive work culture.
When it comes to the work itself, literally everything is on paper. From the day the customer signs the contract to when the job is complete, the paperwork accumulates in these ratty job files that get ripped to shreds over time. The release history is meticulously handwritten on the front of the file in a jumble of chickenscratch and shorthand, sometimes pages and pages of notes stapled on top of each other. Finding a specific document or discerning the current job status can be a long process. Beware Arrow's responses to past reviews on this site where they claim to be updating their processes: I have seen these "improvements" in action, and they address peripheral administrative issues at best while ignoring the root issue, which is the paper job files. Unfortunately they do not have any real plans to update because the system was developed by executives who have been with the company for 20+ years. They are the only ones who are fluent in the paper system, so they don't get that there's a problem. If you complain, their response is to conflate the concept of "paperwork", i.e. documentation, with literal physical paper and claim that the reason there's so much paper is that their record-keeping system is more sophisticated than anything you have ever seen before.
In fact, what they have built is a system so haphazardly nuanced that they are unable to effectively train new hires. As it suits them, they will flip-flop between saying that you should understand it in a few months to twenty years.... depending on whether they are pointing the finger over mistakes or avoiding spending the time to train you. After only six months, I was asked to self-identify additional training that would help me. My supervisor admitted that because I had learned so much on the fly, she wasn't sure what I actually knew or didn't know. When I said that I also didn't know what I was still missing, I was subsequently written up for failing to follow through on my training. At the end of the day, upper management is infallible. They will flatly insist that there is no problem with their process or work culture, and anyone who falls through the cracks must have been a poor fit from the start.
Their benefits are.... fine, I guess. They claim to offer more holidays and better PTO accrual than anyone else in the sign industry, but if you don't come from a signmaking background, you might find it to be criminally low. They hire a lot of women but are pretty sus about it. The CEO, a real dinosaur, refers to young women as "honey" and then makes you feel bad if you don't like it. They also don't have waste receptacles in the stalls of the women's restroom. You just have to carry it out with you to the main garbage. There's no way to avoid having to go up and down the stairs a lot, so try not to twist your ankle or anything. The sales cubicles are nice and sunny, but be prepared to settle into a windowless office if you work in any other department or get promoted to management. It's also in a pretty cutty neighborhood, so going outside isn't really recommended.
If that all floats your boat, then great! But if you like seeing the sun, or enjoying the 40% of your waking life that you spend at work, consider applying elsewhere.
