- PETA love to use the excuse that ‘the animals have it worse’ to justify stress, overwork and no work life balance. For an organisation that stands for compassion, it’s very rarely extended to its staff and it is baffling how even those in higher management positions let themselves live on the cusp of burnout for years on end.
- People don’t leave PETA because they decide they’re against the cause. I would have stayed indefinitely if I didn’t have my confidence shattered, my spirit broken and become completely burnt out. All these people who are passionate about making the world a better place for animals have that taken advantage of and end up belittled for their choice to prioritise their own lives.
- There is so little trust in anyone - even people who have been there for years - to the point that inboxes are read, chats are monitored and each week a report of what you have done is sent to president to monitor staff. Not until I left did I realise quite how bizarre that is. Not a casual chat with your manager about work progress but a full blown written report of your completed and ongoing tasks that is passed up through varying stages of management and is often questioned if the output doesn’t look good enough.
- When I left, the entire office was white. Any members of staff who were not white had left after being tokenised or completely mistreated by upper management. Any staff concerns raised about this - or around any kind of intersectionality - were ‘listened to’ but completely dismissed. Nothing in my time was ever changed, and there was a limited effort to rectify huge inequalities.
