• Incredibly bad pay.
• It's all special-interest magazines, so you get to work on something you really care about… but the powers-that-be are aware of that, and they will take advantage of that with crappy pay and zero other incentives to work there other than the very occasional free donut.
• Almost zero chance of being internally promoted to a senior position beyond editor level; these are only taken by a clique of staff (some great, but some godawful and struggling to stay relevant) who have been there since the 90s, or have come straight in at a higher position.
• Pretty much no benefits package or incentives other than pension and Bupa. The canteen used to be a Starbucks, then it was Costa, then it was eventually a terrible, nondescript company who were only there because they under-cut every other caterer for the contract. That's not massively important in itself, but it's kind-of representative of where the company once was and where it is now.
• They cancelled the Christmas party for a number of years - the only yearly party – so staff organised their own (most of the staff are pretty awesome like that). But Future failed to notice until they jumped on it last-minute and put some money into it. It was a bit pathetic, and unfortunately testament to how much effort they bother putting in. Come on, Future – if you're going to put everyone on low salaries, at least try and look like you care once a year.
• Historically, there have been wide redundancies every couple of years.
• Internal budgets cuts mean everything needs to be done on a shoe-string.