My time at Circus Street was not all bad. I want to emphasize my experience collaborating with a team of exceptionally brilliant, hardworking, supportive, inspirational, kindhearted people. It is purely because of these amazing people that I feel inclined to share my thoughts below. As I am no longer with the company (I left to pursue an entirely unrelated field), I feel comfortable speaking openly about my experience. The employment of my exceptional colleagues is used time and time again to veil the profound disarray that exists beneath the surface of the organization. Furthermore, Circus Street systematically exploits its workforce under the facade of being one big, happy family. These sentiments were frequently and openly voiced by many, many employees during my tenure at Circus Street. Over the course of my 1.5 years at Circus Street, the company underwent three substantial reorganizations. These restructures resulted in the departure of top-tier talent, exclusively replaced by external hires. It should be noted that during a recent restructure, the new leader appointed to oversee the entire sales team discreetly stepped down after only a few weeks. Only one employee across the entire sales team was lucky enough to secure a promotion, and she had to explicitly argue the value of her contributions to receive an appropriate pay adjustment. While Circus Street claims they support career development, a quick review of LinkedIn titles shows that avenues for growth are exclusively reserved for the lucky few day 1 employees. Employees are routinely commended on their work and celebrated with praise; however, these expressions of appreciation are not concretely substantiated by promotions or salary increases. Instead of fostering career progression and equitable compensation, the company relies on minor title adjustments as a form of cheap acknowledgment. Circus Street salaries significantly lag behind industry standards, to the extent that almost all New York employees either rely on financial support from their parents or reside at a considerable distance from the office in compromising living arrangements. In 2022, I joined the company with 4 years of experience and negotiated a starting salary of $70,000. I was told that this figure represented the upper limit for the position. While I don't have exact New York City salary figures for my title in 2022, the average salary for my title in 2023 begins roughly at $105,000 and increases upwards to $185,000. It is also worth mentioning that upon my hiring, it came to light that my starting salary exceeded that of several employees in identical roles who had been with the company for 2+ years. I was also heavily assured that my base pay would be supplemented by a potential annual bonus up to $20,000, which would be based off quarterly performance across the entire sales team. Throughout my hiring process, I was reassured by several employees that the bonus had always been successfully attained. During my 1.5 years at Circus Street, I can only recall a single occasion when the team achieved an extremely small fraction of the bonus. The compensation concern extends to the London office as well, as most employees face the challenge of finding affordable accommodations within the city and nearly all employees live a significant distance outside of the city limits. For the employees fortunate enough to have their annual review appropriately scheduled and conducted by their manager, the possibility of a 1-5% salary increment does exist (on top of an already exceptionally low salary). However, if you're lucky enough to receive this small pay increase, it likely won't show on your pay check for several months. Regrettably, this reality reflects not only my own experience (my pay increase was not processed for 6 months) but also the shared experiences of several colleagues (some of whom did not receive their salary increase for 6 months to a year after it was promised). Circus Street continues to advertise smiles and rainbow colored dots from the outside, but in reality, the company clearly does not appreciate their employees when push comes to shove. The leadership team is vastly disconnected from their employees if they do not see these genuine sentiments seeping out from the cracks.
