Pros
The chance to live in New Mexico and be close to home. Every once in awhile a person finds a direct manager they truly respect, I found that at this site. There is knowledge sharing that goes on between all sites, both formal and informal. One gets to meet and exchange ideas with professionals from Florida and Canada.
Cons
The Carlsbad site is essentially alcohol fueled. There are many individuals who get together during the weekdays or use any company travel event as an excuse to get hammered. Unfortunately this type of behavior is condoned, encouraged and participated in by upper management. In one particular instance the senior manager pointed to a junior engineer during a company function and announced that everyone was to put there drinks on his tab. The next day the junior engineer had to submit an expense report for $5000 which was promptly signed and he was sent on his way. If one has any type of sensibility and refuses to participate in these types of behaviors they are ostracized and not part of the "promotional group". When people talk about the issue, it is shrugged off with the usual comment that it was because the Canadians were present and they like to drink. The site has severe safety issues. Part of it is being an 80 year old mine, part of it is lack of attention. Every year MSHA is shutting down the mine due to safety concerns. During year one working there, a shaft leading down to the main workings was shut down due huge chunks of rock spalling off. During year two one of the tunnels collapsed between shifts which was sheer luck otherwise people would have been killed. That shut down the underground workings for two months. Last year a huge storage shed collapsed because 50 years of dust was allowed to accumulate on the steal I-beams, harde and solidify and overstressing the structure. There were people working inside the shed in bulldozers when this happened. This is a scary place to work. It is a tough social environment at the Carlsbad site. The people from town are very cliquish. As one old timer put it "they will never be friends with you, you will never be one of them, the best that can happen is they will accept you as part of the landscape". In other parts of New Mexico the people are warm and welcoming, Carlsbad is cold and clannish. Many are relocated Okie's or Texans which might have something to do with it. There is a strong resentment by the general workforce against those who have any type of education. Since management is back-filling mid level management slots with 20 something engineers who have very little idea what they are doing, this resentment only grows. Carlsbad itself is roughly 50% Hispanic and 50% white. Yet there is no one past the supervisor level who is Hispanic. Since no one in the old guard has any education past high school this should not be the case (they were all on a level playing field). There is a pretty clear indication of Disparate Treatment going on or at the minimum, Adverse Impact discrimination.