Pros
There are very few pros to working at this company, but they include: Up to $15 free lunch everyday A nice office setting with music always playing, a clean kitchen, giant refrigerator, pool table (that no one ever uses for fear of looking like they aren't doing their job), dart board (again which no one ever uses in fear of losing their job), and great computers for work efficiency. They also make you feel welcome ( not all of them) for a week before destroying your sanity. Your co workers are actually really funny, cool, and sweet (the majority of them anyway)
Cons
Now, the cons outweigh the pros a lot at Hometalk. I did not work there long at all, and within 2 weeks I wanted to throw in the towel. First, they over work you and completely destroy your work to life balance. You work 9 to 6, but you honestly end up working WAY over 10 hours, and you spend it doing the same thing over and over and over in an outrageously boring manner. They literally consume your time so much, that by the time the weekend comes, all you want to do is absolutely nothing and brace yourself for the chaos of Monday. You become so vehemently cranky, angry, and drained of energy working there. You work long hard hours, and get nothing out of it besides a check that only comes TWICE a month. Yes, you only get paid TWICE a month, not weekly, which would make more sense seeing as how you work so hard. Then, they have meetings for every little thing under the sun. These meetings will take 30 minutes to discuss something that is so simple they could have emailed you about it. Not only that, you waste that valuable time in a meeting when you could be getting your work done for the day. Additionally, management and others, when observed, spend more time in meetings talking to people and distracting them from their work, instead of being at their own computer working. Next, there is the fear. Everyone is PETRIFIED of being fired, mostly because they do it so OFTEN. I was there for 4 months, and I saw 8 people go. Yes, 8 people in 4 months. Seeing people get fired with such speed is alarming, especially because the amount of people in the NY office is so small. Not only that, ALL of these people spoke of their great achievements in our win meetings (meetings reserved for fridays specific for discussing our winnings and success at work), were diligent at their work, got praise, and got fired or "let got". There was even a girl who got promoted, and got fired not even 2 weeks after she got the new position. The thing is also, they refuse to tell you WHY they fired you. Additionally, this air of being disposable and axed at any moment breeds an unhealthy air of competition, even when there is none. Some people will demean you, go out of their way to be spiteful, ignore you when you say hello, and refuse to be nice to you. They will ultimately do all of this, and STILL get fired. Then, one of the most frustrating parts on top of what I listed, is that there are 2 offices. One in NY and another in Israel. You will have people transfer over to the NY office and start changing the scheme of things from how it was originally. Win meetings went from Fridays at 4, to Thursdays at 8 am (so you can do it with the Israel office, you had to attend, be there early, and if you didn't finish your work by then you still had to finish). There's a giant time difference, and if you email someone for help with a bug or broken page on your end they will not get back to you often till the next day or not even bring it up, tell you about the status, or ignore you if you ask about it. It is kind of like they don't know if they want to be an Israel office or a NY office, so you have to talk with people in Israel a lot, and also have meetings with them too that can go on for a long period of time and are often about nothing. Then, everyone cried every single day. Everyone who worked there went into the bathroom to cry because they were stressed, and very concerned about being fired. Then, it was the fact that you didn't know what was happening around the office until another employee told you about it. I can't count on my own hands how many times I heard I was doing something new, helping out with something, or involved with a project till a fellow employee told me about it. The boss never said anything to me, and it irritated me how forgetful and disorganized they were, and how they took advantage of me. An employee and I would be working on a project, but it would be me doing ALL of the errands, finding the supplies, and doing the test run of a craft while the other person sat on their butt and did nothing. They expect EVERYTHING for nothing. Then, it always feels like management doesn't know what they want. They tell you they want it this way one day, you do it that way the next day, then the day after the next day they don't like it and tell you to do it another way. Next, they offer benefits after 60 days of employment, I was there for 4 months, and I got not even a whisper about benefits or filling out a form for benefits. Then, there's ALWAYS problems with their broadcasting system, and always arguments and complaining over it. Finally, anyone who knows anything is stationed at the Israel office. Whenever anything goes wrong or not working, you have to talk to an Israel person. No one is EVER on hand to help with anything in the NY office. Ultimately, I do NOT recommend spending your subway fair traveling to this job, wasting your time and energy to just get sacked in 2 weeks, be overworked with no work life balance, and suffer under this company. Just do yourself a favor and don't work here. Also, the majority of these "nice" comments are only left on here because management asks them to leave positive reviews to bury the real honest negative ones.
