If you can find good management, working here is okay. Better than unemployment.
Pros
For a non-faculty employee, the best reason to work at Georgia Tech is to be in the Teachers' Retirement System, hands down. Other benefits are available, but expensive. The academic departments are very busy during school, but the presence of the students lends an energy that you can't get anywhere else. Younger employees who want to advance have to take advantage of every possible new opportunity and earn advanced degrees. Remaining long in one department may eliminate any hope of moving up, and those who are politically savvy and have a good work ethic will be successful. If you can get on at GTRI, it is generally the best place on campus, but you must expect to work.
Cons
Beginning 2014, the university is entering its sixth consecutive year of no merit raises. The old mantra of "work smarter, not harder," is worn out because the volume of work increases annually, while the hiring moratorium in place for at least the past six years continues on. Morale is low. Little is done to empower staff to find ways to improve their own work situations. Whiners and manipulators have the most power. Those who have time to build retirement elsewhere have already left and the ones in the market to take their places have limited skills, so the quality of the talent pool sinks lower with each passing year. Those with many years' experience are looking to retire as soon as they can unless a miracle happens and they find a better opportunity. It is a disappointment to those who remember Georgia Tech as a real community of support where creativity and quality work was rewarded financially.
