Most toxic environment you could ever work for - Anonymous employee Capitol Debate Employee Review

1.0
3 Feb 2020
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The office is dog-friendly.

Cons

This is absolutely the most toxic and unhealthy environment you could ever work for. If I could go back in time, I would never work here and if you are considering employment at Capitol Debate, I cannot emphasize enough how much you should reconsider. At Capitol Debate, you are fully dispensable as a human being. This company will work you to the bone. Due to the stress of regularly working 80+ hours a week with NO overtime pay, many employees had health issues ranging from anxiety attacks to migraines and more. There are NO opportunities for promotion and the management cuts corners at every opportunity. As an example, one hourly employee (who has since quit), was literally flown home from a camp because the CEO of the company did not want to pay for them to work that week. Other employees regularly worked at 6 am or until midnight. On popular signup days, employes are often asked to work until 8 pm with no additional pay AND work as salespeople despite this not being your job. Additionally, one very important thing to note is the enabling that goes on with the COO of the company. The COO regularly interacts with underage campers on his own personal instagram, despite this being against company policy. He was also found in the room of underage campers at midnight and had an investigation conducted against him by the campus police. Despite this, he still continues to work for the company, causing many employees to quit in protest. This should be extremely disturbing to both employees and parents. Overall, my advice would be to get as far away from this company as possible. This company causes parents to be traveling for 6 weeks at a time, missing valuable time with their children and partners with no regard for employees. Most of the employees are kind and hardworking people who are fully getting taken advantage of and are regularly having stress breakdowns as a result of Capitol Debate.

Explore other reviews about Capitol Debate

5.0
9 Feb 2026
Anonymous contractor
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You make incredible connections with both staff and students.

Cons

Fairly long days, it can be tiring.

4.0
9 Oct 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I honestly had a wonderful experience overall and plan to do it again. The day-to-day is great and the work feels meaningful. You can see the impact and growth. Teammates are typically grrat to work with and local camp leadership is reasonable.

Cons

Central office leadership keeps taking away power and agency from the highly qualified staff they work so hard to find and employ. In addition, there appears to be a wide gulf and lack of trust between summer camp employees and office employees. In addition, you are always on call - no true downtime for which you are not accountable and couldn't be called on.

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