There are lots of genuinely nice people who work at MB that have no idea how to fix a system that relies on cheap exec labor (SRE, RE, RA) to properly service an account.
The truth is, it's basically a white-collar sweatshop. Forget about having a work-life balance; at MB you will find yourself burning the candle at both ends during the week, and often coming into the office on the weekends as well, just to meet deadlines. MB simply doesn't allot enough resources to service accounts so everyone just ends up working late all the time. It doesn't get any better when you're a manager or a director, either; they often work late, too, whether it's in the office with you or at home after they've put their kids to sleep. There has to be something fundamentally wrong with a business model when people work really really hard and still cannot get paid salaries that are commensurate to their efforts. I think this is because MB is, as one other reviewer pointed out, a "dinosaur" in the industry; it simply can't afford to command a premium price for its services because it's facing stiff competition from other research agencies.
And then there are the horrible managers. MB has a tendency to promote people because they threaten to leave, or because they've been there for a while. This leads to having a bunch of people in upper management who basically don't know the first thing about leading people. Just because someone is a good researcher doesn't mean he'll make a good manager. There is a lot of this "just get it done, I don't care how" mentality. The managers know the workload is insane. For example, a manager may be aware that his exec will have to pull an all-nighter for a project that came in at the last minute. But in the back of his mind, he'll console himself with this thought: "Well, I paid my dues; now it's their turn!" The few managers and directors that can't bear the guilt of having their team slave away eventually end up quitting.
