Nice people, extremely poor management and lots of waste or money and energy
Pros
The people that are attracted to working at Habitat in the non-executive area are extremely warm, caring and lovely people. I made friends with people of all ages, from many parts of the country, of different faiths. People I never would have even encountered in my former life in academia. Pretty good benefits, although matching of 401K was dropped while I was there. Relaxed atmosphere, not too many rules, and genuine caring about staff and their personal lives. I personally loved my job there, but I carefully chose something I love to do and made sure I worked with a manager I liked.
Cons
Low pay for the original staff members and staff in Americus. Huge discrepancy between salaries of management in Atlanta and staff hired from outside. Americus, unless you are from there, is a really dismal place to live. When you really examine the financials, the organization is not particularly effective. It has very good name recognition (I was often told its value was equal to Federal Express), and the organization sort of rests on that. Extreme lack of transparency in terms of numbers and financial reporting. What's on the web, annual reports, etc., does not jibe with the numbers in the field. Horrendous human resources department: slow, rude. Georgia is a "right to work" state, and I heard many horror stories of people (many long-timers) getting fired due to age, being disliked by a new manager, not fitting in, or for no reason at all.
