A good place to work unless you are caring for an elderly parent or child with mental health issues; single moms beware
Pros
service to country, work with intelligent peers, good federal benefits (insurance, vacation), job satisfaction
Cons
CIA managers are not trained to recognize FMLA or ADA protected absences, particularly for sandwich generation employees, or those with caregiving responsibilities. This disproportionately affects female employees, in particular, single mothers. In several instances I witnessed, this had a biased and negative effect on employees with caregiving responsibilities, both in caring for elderly parents, and young children. Managers consistently failed to effectively recognize and timely employ common accommodations such as flexible scheduling, intermittent leave without pay, and access to leave donation programs. Even worse, personnel evaluation policies fail to include language regarding extenuating circumstances, making it easy to paint capable employees struggling to balance medical caregiving needs of parents and children as poor performers. Although many CIA managers are willing to work with their employees to balance life and work during times of medical crises, CIA policy appears not to have changed much in the last few decades.
