Somewhat Adequate Employer Completely Crippled Post-Pandemic
Pros
I like the people in my group. I think that if we aren't strangled by a corporate entity that pretends it can dictate conditions to the market, we can do great things.
Cons
GA is an incredibly top-heavy hierarchical organization, with limited pay, benefits, and intellectual capital left over for support staff and junior level employees, coupled with a severely limited power to make change for managers. A lot of these reviews say people never leave GA- and it's true - if you bought a home in San Diego in the 80's when it was possible on earned wages, then you can afford stick around. If you're a new hire, good luck making enough to ever stop renting. Most departments are grey and tenured up to the point of being unhealthy - GA doesn't fire even very poor performers, so you can expect about a third of the workforce here to be completely ineffectual. And you'd think with such a seasoned (some might say salty) workforce, you think we'd be great at planning ahead. Nope. It's not just a lack of long term strategy, it's a failure in basic empathy. Management demanded the staff return to the office four days a week, with some managers demanding full in-office. This has resulted in a 50%+ turnover in some departments - especially IT, facilities, HR (and you can infer further- it wasn't the worst performers that left). Wages have stayed stuck at pre pandemic levels even after 10-20% wage inflation in some sectors. Simply put, GA is no longer a competitive employer post-COVID. Raises at GA are on a strictly annual basis regardless of performance or changes in job title, and even with 5% inflation, most people will be lucky to see 3% increases. GA has an adequate benefits package, but wages themselves are completely insufficient to cover the soaring cost of living in San Diego, so it's no surprise staffing is suffering so much. The results for productivity are clear - it takes several months right now for a new hire to get a computer because of shortages in ITS. Hired as an engineer? Hope you can work a slide rule. Purchasing similarly takes upwards of a month to make most decisions, and that's after the 5 managers you need to buy even a $5000 widget sign off on the purchase. Facilities tickets? Good luck. They still haven't cut a guy in my group a key to his office, and there's a 6 month old outstanding request to get it done. And now, as an outsized share of employees reach the age where they are either retiring or dying , there's a massive loss in capability because corporate didn't staff or otherwise plan for the transfer of knowledge. There is a massive gulf between what GA wants to be and what it is. And only utter detachment on the part of the CEO could make this possible. I recall one Christmas luncheon to our group where Mr Blue was talking up GA railguns. "Missile interception capabilities at the lowest cost per unit fired." Our group doesn't have anything to do with the railguns. Did he know that? Then it hit me - GA's actual raison-d'etre, "Government money sink at the lowest amount of attention per unit profit".