Pros
The agency leadership is communicative and genuinely cares. Al, the CEO, does take the culture seriously. His responses here are genuine and he's a good person in my estimation, along with the rest of management. He's put unfathomable amounts of work into creating the agency as it is today and should certainly be proud of what it's grown into. The agency paid me well and I had no issues with the base compensation structure or bonus. I agree the agency reserves the right to divvy that up as they may. That totally makes sense to me. I also didn't notice any of the claims of racism, favoritism, etc that others are making here. The company is genuinely progressive and filled with open-minded people. There is a vibrant agency culture. Lots of fun events. The office is very cool. The company is not cheap on spending money on it's employees. And for the most part, I found coworkers to be intelligent, hardworking, and also able to have fun. I was welcomed by all and people go out of their way to be friendly.
Cons
I got crushed by my workload at Good Apple. While most others at the agency seemed happy, I simply could not keep up without stressing over getting my work done effectively. I had several occasions where I felt I needed support from my managers. Where I clearly voiced that I was not doing well with my workload. And I didn't get the support I needed to stay. I brought this up with several managers (and HR) and while they were sympathetic, they acknowledged that nothing could be changed in the short-term. The stress led me to a place where I wanted to stay, for the people, the culture, and the work opportunity, but I knew I could not handle the stress and workload further. And there seemed to be nothing to be done other than to tell my boss "I'm about to leave if things don't change." The volume of weekly reports, communications, deadlines, and meetings was beyond my capacity. And that made my overall experience at the agency poor. The agency puts client service first. And of course, that is the way we keep the lights on. But for me, the level of service required was beyond my personal capacity. And it negatively impacted my wellbeing. Perhaps I am simply not cut out for agency life. I don't know, I am afraid to work at another. It's possible you, the reader, may not be either. Remember that before you go into it.