Be Very cautious - Mid Weight Interior Designer David Collins Studio Employee Review

Projects were interesting with great clients. Interesting work if you are into design and luxury. Standards are high and you can get some exposure to excellent vendors.

Management is horrendous. Too much ego and drama. It was more exhausting putting up with all the nonsense then the actual work stress.

Decent location, fun and friendly colleagues (outside of management and the samples room). Good name to have on your CV if you can survive more than a few months.

There is a SEVERE top-down culture issue within DCS. I am not the first person to note this and I will not be the last. I have never worked anywhere with such a high turnover rate and intensely toxic culture. Senior management are incredibly cliquish and immature. Lying about and bullying more junior employees is common - I witnessed colleagues crying at work more than once. I heard/saw senior staff yelling at people in the middle of the office over innocuous mistakes or a simple miscommunication that was technically the manager's fault. I personally experienced HR informing me that a senior member of staff made up lies about me in an effort to get me fired and was subsequently found out to have made it all up. Of course this individual faced no consequences. I was regularly and repeatedly expected to perform tasks outside of my job description. There was a company-wide unspoken rule to stay beyond contracted working hours. I frequently heard of colleagues staying until 9/10pm and still having to come in at 9am the next day. There are also numerous severe safety risks within the office that were ignored or only fixed to a minimum standard due to a preference for ‘aesthetics’ over an actually safe space to work. I once found an exposed live wire (connected to the adjoining wall) in the back of a cupboard and was told to ignore it. They unfortunately value adhering to an austere hierarchy and being deft at performing secondary school style social politics moreso than being competent at your job. Being senior in position or age is the only way to succeed at David Collins Studio.