Pros
Meeting people from all around the world, very fun, great people-skills building. Lots of opportunities if you enjoy nature, exploring, and travelling. They are very conscious about their environmental impact. They have some fantastic policies and ideas for being "green". I am far from your typical "tree hughing hippie", but they talk the talk, and they really do walk the walk when it comes to recycling, using cleaner products, water and electricity consumption, and sustainability. Seriously, their "Ecologix" program is worthy of every award they've gotten. The Environmental Director at my location is absolutely fantastic and a great guy. Worth every penny they pay him, in my opinion.
Cons
They treat their lower end (read: the ones busting their tails every day) employees like absolute garbage. They micro-manage every detail of your job. Creativity, new ideas, and constructive criticism is not allowed, and you will be punished accordingly for not towing the company line. I was discriminated against and terminated despite following all written company procedures. My manager, when she terminated me, said "it doesn't matter" when I said I followed all written procedures. I had a very strong case for a wrongful termination lawsuit, but I have other family and very close friends that either work for Xanterra in other positions, or have their own business that relies on Xanterra's blessing to operate. I have no doubt that had I pursued legal action, retaliation would have occurred against them. Various departments are managed by nothing but "yes men/women". Nobody has the stones to question decisions made by upper management. But obedience is rewarded with promotions and raises. My manager got 3 promotions to positions that didn't exist before. She was compensated very, very well. She could take vacations on a regular basis, much more than any of us. For benefits, they have a very tight hold on what you are eligible for. When I was hired, we could accumulate 96 hours of sick time as a full time employee. A couple years ago, they slashed that by half, only allowing 48 hours. They claimed this was offset by giving us "free short-term disability." The problem with this is that short-term disability only pays 80% of your normal wage (and we were all minimum wage), still has medical benefits deducted, and taxes deducted. Also, certain criteria must be met to claim this. You couldn't just get sick for 3 or 4 days (happens a lot given the exposure to worldwide travelers) and use this. 48 hours with our schedule (11 paid hours a day) only gave us 4 days off for illnesses a year. 4 days. Really? For wages, longevity as an employee is not rewarded. I was hired at $7.25/hour when minimum wage was $7.15. The following January 1st, MW went to $7.25. I then got my yearly "review", and got an $0.11 raise (for "meeting or exceeding company standards" in every category). The following 1/1, MW went to $7.35. My next yearly review got me to $7.43. The following 1/1, you guessed it, MW went to $7.65. My wage went to $7.73, keeping an $0.08 gap. Upon my yearly review, I received no "performance wage increase", amd the reasoning given was "you already got your raise when minimum wage went up." The following 1/1, MW went to $7.80, and now my gap was gone. Over 4 years of full time service, and I was worth the same as the person hired yesterday. No loyalty for tenure. "Perks" for tenure always got moved to just longer than most of us had been employeed. Overall, the suits in the offices are so out of touch with the working class making the company their profits it's not even funny.
