High levels of stress - the particular editorial department I was at works mostly in silence because they have so much to get through. A peculiarly highly strung office culture - I once heard my boss shout at an editor, and I heard that this was considered the norm at RH - the higher up you get, the more you have adults shouting at other adults. However, what I was most disappointed with was what happened after I left - after a mutual decision that the position wasn't a good fit, I moved away - I thought we'd left things on an amicable note and both of my bosses promised me good references with whatever I planned to do next - which seemed fair, since I'd worked really hard. On landing a role I was really excited about, I directed them to my bosses for a reference and then didn't hear from them for six weeks, when they sheepishly admitted they'd given the role to someone else.
Baffled, I made contact with a friend of a friend working in HR at the company I was hoping to work with, and she told me that my boss had been tentatively positive but then inserted a few choice statements like "Bright girl but she's bored by admin" - which caused the company to change their mind,since the role was entry level, and involved a degree of administration. Since my bosses had been the ones to state they'd give me a good reference, I thought this was surprisingly unprofessional - if they'd had reservations they should have declined to give a reference at all. So, as a heads up to anyone who worked there briefly and ended up leaving for somewhere else - skip the reference.
