Pluspunten
Met so many passionate, intelligent people dedicated to activism, some who are still my friends. Directors have inspiring backgrounds in making change and have excellent understanding of how to make change and get attention. Many people had high education from top universities, or left ambitious careers to join PETA, so the place was full of people who were down for the cause, smart, and on the pulse with academics, law, and business. I enjoyed Ingrid Newkirk, she had a wonderful mind.
Minpunten
I would not recommend anyone to work for PETA unless you are willing to accept pretty low non-profit pay and pretty-low benefits. The poor work/life balance, minimal PTO (10 days plus a day for Bday), low desire for management and HR to help create a healthy work environment, low pay ultimately affected my will to do the job, as taking care of your employees should come first, but did not. Specific teams were notorious for burnout and without support for wellbeing (investigations teams, editing teams that had to go through investigative footage semi-regularly, travelling street teams that had very long days and very few days off). My team worked a lot, but didn't have it "as bad" as other departments. I joined PETA with a professional background in academic research, and was a professor with project management experience. In my role, I often had to be on call for breaking news related to my specific topics. There was a lot of pressure to drop whatever I was doing-driving, a meal out, on a walk-to immediately tend to writing something and immediately get it done so updates could quickly be posted online/on social etc. I was told I needed to check email when off the clock to watch for breaking news, which fostered a bad work/life balance. My manager also discouraged me from putting more than 41/42 hours a week on my time card, and was made to feel that overtime was a mark of my own poor project management. After about a year, I started to have mental fatigue from the workload. When I brought this up to my manager, I was made to feel that it was my problem for not being able to better manage my time. The solution was to send me to talk to HR and to attend a 1 hour training on work time management, which did not solve the problem on heavy work load and work/life balance. by the 18 month mark, I asked to have a day or two off for mental health, which was noted in HR documents as an option for full time employees with managerial and HR approval. My manager strongly advised me from taking the days off because it would be in "my file". I explained that I did not care if it was in my file, and offered to take the days unpaid. I was not granted the days off. My morale became very low and it became clear that my management, and HR were not interested in reevaluating my work load, or my obvious fatigue. Around the 2 year mark, with nothing changing, and a deterioted faith in the work environment, I left.