Pros
A relativity easy summer job. Campers are typically pretty nice.
Cons
Management is lacking. Caretakers/assistant caretakers can be incredibly mean if they didn't hand select you. They play favoritism. They typically like one or two girls in the office, and let them do whatever, but everyone else is treated like an inconvenience. No one cares if campers are rude to you either. Pay sucks, it's minimum wage and even though they promise promotions...they never happen. When the higher ups stop in, everything goes haywire. They ALWAYS find something wrong with how the park is being run, but that always falls on the Rec Aides heads for some reason. You work the hardest on holidays and weekends. DEC doesn't seem to actually care about the environment or animals. One of my coworkers was threatened to be fired for saving a bird from fishing wire since it took him away from "what he was supposed to be doing."