Grossly Unprofessional. - Anonymous employee PB Creative Employee Review

Working at PB Creative was the most bizarre and unpleasant experience of my career to date. The design agency is owned and run by 2 directors and is undergoing 'growing-pains’, as they both struggle to cope with the responsibility (and both seem to lack the skills) to manage a workforce of approx. 12 people. At first meeting, they are both charming and persuasive and do a very good job of selling PB as an agency that values its team, and offers exciting prospects to those who wish to join. Unfortunately, they seem to have learnt this is the right thing to say during recruitment. In reality I found this façade soon crumbled shortly after joining, as an oppressive atmosphere pervaded the office and the previously charming directors seemed to be constantly grumpy or irritated. Part of their client business is graphic design, but the directors are both of a structural design background with little graphics experience – however, this doesn’t seem to have prevented one of them from becoming the self–appointed Creative Director of the graphics team. Needless to say, in the graphics area creativity is not their strong point, and the input of more experienced graphics designers tends to get stifled or ignored. Neither of the directors are naturally a ‘people-person’, and they seem to be out of their depth running their own agency. They seem oblivious to their own lack of competent business management skills and don't recognise that they create the majority of their own problems. They seem more comfortable directing their frustration at the members of their own team, creating a very divisive 'us' (directors) & 'them' (their staff) culture. I was witness to a number of alarming ‘fits of rage’ from one director, (involving actually throwing objects around the room), and other grossly unprofessional behaviours - which in a larger company would have made the HR department very nervous. At least 5 previous members of the team have left PB within only 12-months – it seems they were unwilling to tolerate the unpleasant and unprofessional culture, and were tired of waiting for any of the promises made during their recruitment to be honoured (career development, etc). I am yet another person who has left PB, preferring to work somewhere/anywhere else.