Good Company, but Cult of Personality
Pros
The company does good work, providing water to Loudoun County; but because they are a private monopoly, at much higher price than if they were part of county government. This translates into very nice benefits, like a short work week, higher pay than county workers, and a very generous health care plan.
Cons
The company is a monopoly and beyond the reach of the county voters, so they have no motivation or incentive to be efficient - the result is a culture of personality, where the upper managers run things to suit themselves and good industry practices are ignored. People are hired and fired based on how well management likes them, regardless of their actual skill -- they come "close enough" to looking like a professional operation and to a casual observer things appear as they should. It's only when you look deeper that you find the problems -- and some divisions are worse than others. They know that as long as the water flows the county will leave them alone, so they work to keep their privileged status. If you're good at being a "Yes man" to the boss, you'll do fine. Training is non-existent (it's given lip service, but rarely put into action) and industry recognized certifications are not encouraged. They talk a lot about how they "value every employee" but there are no protections at all, managers can pretty much do as they please, the existing policies are so vaguely worded they mean anything the manager wants them to mean. It's a place where -- this is written in the policy -- wearing wrinkled trousers to work can result in disciplinary action -- but that policy, like all the others, is only enforced when it suits management.
