Pros
+ The work environment at ASU is great and very encouraging to learn new things. + All of the staff members I worked with were very inviting and willing to help. + Health benefits are insanely good, for both staff and their families! + Fun university-wide staff appreciation events throughout the year are a nice touch. + Pay is surprisingly competitive to industry standards. + Opportunities to work with some of the brightest minds in the state on projects is awesome.
Cons
- The job description was not at all what the actual duties were. I was getting paid good money, regardless, but was promised a far more technical job, that would help to greatly advance my career, than what I was given. This is not the first time I've applied to a position at ASU where the job was completely different than the description, but this time I accepted the offer after being lead to believe it was something it was not. - I was informed that that I'd have to buy a parking permit from the start, which is fine. What they didn't tell me is that it costs $800 and the only open lot is 2 miles away from my office. - If you drive to any location on-campus that your permit doesn't cover (which is most of them), you're expect to pay for metered parking. I had to pay $4 to park for 15 minutes at the HR building, just to turn in my hire papers. Ridiculous! - I wasn't told until two days before starting that my office wasn't actually in the location I interviewed in (my fault I didn't ask, I suppose, but the parking situation made this far more painful). - Only 11 days of vacation per year (12 sick days) starting out. However, this goes up to 16 days after 2 years and 22 after 4, which is awesome. - Higher administration is not approachable at all. I ran into Dr. Crow in the hallway once and said hi enthusiastically, he just looked at me and didn't say a thing. I've heard from several others that this is pretty normal. - Traffic. Ugh, it's horrendous. On a good day, I could get to work within 20 minutes. On bad (most) days, it took over an hour. Obviously there's not much that can be done here, but having to park at lots where students also park definitely doesn't help. Most days, I had to leave 2 hours ahead of time just to make it in a few minutes late many days... This means I lost valuable time with my family outside of work. - It seems like the university's mission anymore is to just make as much money as they can off of everything. The parking situation is the one that really hit home for me, but there's so many things that staff have to pay for out of their own pocket that just seems ridiculous.