Pros
Work life balance, bbq lunches. Pay was ok. Worker-level people were pretty good.
Cons
To "Solid company, good people," no I don't have an "axe to grind." My goal was to merely give people information on the department and some of the things that happened there. If this information helps people make a decision on whether to work in that department or not, that's up to them. Personally, if I had read a review on the department before coming on-board, I would have declined the offer. I am not sure how long ago you worked there but things could have changed in the last year or so. When I was there, there was more than one person in the department that had issues with management. After the fact I also learned of a very high turnover rate in the department. Suddenly things started to make sense. I was told by a teammate that I just have to get used to the behavior of management and quite frankly, it was not something anyone should have to get used to. When I was hired, it was for my experience (I had been doing the job for 16 years) but when your manager tells you in a one-on one meeting that you are not allowed to have any ideas or allowed to pass on tips and pointers to my co-workers, this reinforced that this was a place I did not want to work. After less than two weeks there, the manager came to me and said they were "overly concerned" at my lack of prioritizing, yet they did not tell me to do anything but research, read and meet/talk to people (I was 95% done since we had to track every minute detail of what we did). When you leave the building every day feeling stupid and inadequate because of the actions and words of your boss, it is not a healthy place to be. I could go on and on about what happened there (there was a lot more than this) but I won't. At the end of the day, it was the worst time I have ever had on a job and the worst boss I think I will ever encounter. It was so bad I packed up my desk after three weeks and started looking elsewhere. Just food for thought for anyone that wants to read this. No axes to grind here, just some facts of what happened to me during my time there and if this makes people question things when interviewing there, then this has accomplished what it was meant to do.