Pros
The people that you work with are some of the best people you could ask for in a workplace. This is of course a bit dependent upon where you work within the company. There is a lot of room for growth and management responds well to being willing to trying to take on more responsibility. Does a great job of delivering great products to an industry that literally has others lives on the line. Always willing to go that extra mile for customer needs. Small town life at its best (don't really need to lock doors during the summer) Free mass prepared Friday Lunch that doubles as a company wide business meeting.
Cons
Process paralyzed. Since there is such high risk for what can happen if something goes wrong with our products we have to have a lot of process to ensure our products are the highest quality. The processes used, however, are not always applied in an intelligent manner, and it's hard to get any meaningful change to the process without risking upsetting people above your pay grade. The work life balance is usually work over life, especially if you want to advance in the company. Management is more than willing to let you take on a new task, especially if compensation for the additional responsibility can be delayed. There's some opaqueness between upper management and the low level workers, some of it is expected, but compared to the message (everything is open) it seems like a complete contradiction between the message and the reality. Inflexible work environment. Small accommodations are made based on need, but there's a lot that could be done to make work life more comfortable. We spend the majority of our waking hours at work, so every little bit of comfort that is invested into that will help make us want to be there. Taking a lesson from some of the silicon valley companies may help. Small town life at its worst (over 90 miles to the nearest "big" city on some of the most boring highways in the nation). Free mass prepared Friday Lunch that doubles as a company wide business meeting.