Nice colleagues!
The way people were fired.
i loved working there before August 2013. it took me the longest time to finally be able to quit my relatively secure corporate job for something that seemed worth it and fab was back then when i applied really THAT company i wanted to do that for. the first couple of months were really great. i loved the job, the people and the company.
but the atmosphere has gotten rather grim since the massive layoffs started in August 2013. i feel truly sorry for everyone working in DBY, whose second day in berlin was to witness the layoff there, then the new york ditch and god knows where the axe will swing next. i don't know how the management will ever be able to restore the trust, that is pretty much gone now.
overall ok, but i was working within a very small and mostly self-managed team. we had weekly calls with a person (seriously, text scanning robots, get a life) in new york, that filled us in on company development, got our reports and assigned new tasks. on a professional basis rather good (apart from some argruments regarding more technical details), but on the leadership and people skill side rather poor. we were left in the dark about our layoff to the very last second to ensure we'd keep on working hard. it's understandable from the company's perspective, but rather cynical if a year of hard work gets you fired in the end anyway without so much as a hint.
there is this a bit over the top sometimes fab-face, you got to wear to be considered a cultural fit. humorous, quirky, witty... all those are actually requested and welcomed perks to your professional skills. even outside editorial. but don't worry, most of the staff is actually friendly and sociable in the end and i found a couple of people i love to see even on off-hours. and so did mostly anyone else.
communication was ok, sometimes a bit to scarce or lost in translation, as every project seems to be time critical and need to be done by yesterday, but overall you got there somehow.
the quality of the internal communication of company results seems to be a joke. everything was top drawer and rising up until the lay-offs. sure, there were some rumors flying, but everyone was hit between the eyes by the actual development.
none of the above. it's a giant working playground for everyone. which can be rather great at times, but gave us all grief in the end. it's more of a gut feeling, but i sometimes had the impression that buddy ties or simply being an american employee got you easier promoted than actual performance.
payments are punctual and ok for the berlin area. not always representing the responsibilities, as i learned later on and during water cooler talks.
very nice office. probably the best designed one i have ever worked and will ever work in. however, design always owned usefulness and so i pity the foo who ever has to run cables from the ceiling trays to the workplaces, who will try to maintain the cable distributions in the ceilings or desks (surprise, they were left out for being "too ugly") or try to have a printer not placed on a work desk. additional data runs in the walls were "not fab" as well.
good equipment. most people were given 2012 macbook pros 13". however, the underpowered standard edition, which led to quite some complains regarding the performance. it also took the longest time to outfit production with the needed adobe software and the poor sods never saw the true color screens they would have needed to do the truly amazing job that was requested. so again, the nicer office was more important than decent tools for the ones who needed them.
none of the above.
there was an obvious no-holiday-policy for the christmas season, but apart from that you were able to take your time off when needed. and you needed it. despite having 8 hour per day on my contract, my actions and input were required much longer. the typical fab day could easily have 12 hours or more. not always intense or continuous work, but still work.
weekend shifts were occasionally requested. sometimes you got payment, at other times not. it seemed as an unspoken rule to me to begrudgingly accept that, because "we are a start up".
i would be rather surprised if anyone here in berlin still has a good thing to say about fab at the time being.
- Volatile and dynamic working environment in a wonderful vintage industrial site
- shape your own processes as long as these get the company's stuff done
- awesome free lunch and candy/drinks catering (yes, even beer)
- very young and sociable staff
- management too young and still learning how to properly execute leadership or build a long term strategy for the company
- top-down-criticism and feedback, rather than 360 degrees
- american management totally failed to embrace chances of cultural interchange
- paradigm shifts in strategy might get you lay off sooner than expected and will be excused to the never getting old "but we are a start-up". rather bold for a 3 year old company that once employed 750 people.
There's very few 45+ colleagues, but the ones that are were a pleasure to work with
I immensely enjoyed the atmosphere amongst the co-workers, it was more like a giant meeting place for friends while doing your job. Obviously there wasn't too much of a work-life balance, as most of us put in that extra effort and went the extra mile to do a good job. I never felt that was a burden to my personal life, but then again I believe in a shift towards work-life integration of sorts.
Fab offers many perks as a free lunch (vegan, vegetarian and regular with a salad bar), free drinks, fresh fruit, cake every now and then, and the office is just an amazing place with a garden near the Spree, including full WiFi connectivity.
There was little coaching going on and most of the managers could have done with some training. But then again, literally everyone was forced to grow into his or her respective role over a very short period of time, as Fab acquired companies and accelerated everything by a significant factor.
