In news stories about Remezcla, one man, in particular, is painted as the visionary: Andrew Herrera, a finance-guy-turned-startup-magnate who singlehandedly built the company from the ground up. In reports focused on Remezcla’s growth and success, Herrera floats from workspace to workspace in an exposed-brick, open-plan office in Bushwick, Brooklyn, overseeing projects on both the agency and editorial sides.
But the former employees who spoke with Jezebel say that Herrera’s responses to their work went beyond being “unhelpful” or poorly coached, leaving them wondering if they should give up their careers altogether. “He broke me,” says one former employee, describing her 10 months at Remezcla working under Herrera.the site’s story in broad strokes, saying it “started as a grassroots project among writers and creatives.” But those writers and creatives had names.
“He could be very nice,” Frisbie remembers. “He pulled me aside, and said ‘Look, I feel like your heart’s not in this. If you want to leave it’s okay.’” One month later, when using Herrera’s work computer, Frisbie says she found a file she had emailed a friend from her personal e-mail address and realized that Herrera must have gained access to her account.
Yet twelve other women, all former employees and associates at Remezcla, tell a similar story: working punishing hours only to have their labor dismissed by a CEO who seemingly used startup culture as an excuse to create a chaotic work environment—a work culture so toxic that many employees cited taking time to “recover” or leaving the industry altogether after an often brief tenure with the company.
“I highly value, and highly compensate, my female employees,” Herrera told Jezebel, adding that in the future he plans on “doing better to watch and emulate my female peers who I have seen be exceptional coaches, mentors and motivators of talent.” But as they walked into a round of interviews with two senior editors, both women, Herrera whispered to Zaragoza that she shouldn’t mention the executive editor position to either woman and pretend that she was still interested in the culture editor role. After submitting a plan for executing her vision for Remezcla, Zaragoza says she was verbally offered the position by Hererra at a salary of $100,000 a year.
The lack of resources for reporting their complaints left employees at Remezcla with little recourse. Speaking harshly to an employee is not illegal, and there’s not much an employee can do about a boss who questions an employee’s intelligence in front of co-workers, refuses to make eye contact, interrupts in meetings, and laughs behind their backs, which former employees of Remezcla report were standard when working with Herrera.
This sucks. Sorry to read this. If you want to see some other shenanigans, mismanagement, & outright corruption look no further than the national association for chicana/chicano studies (NACCS). They ousted two national chairs for questioning their finances. True story...
Man this sux
When WOC shed the patriarchy we'll all be saved.