Norfolk Southern reviews

They took away the Department rotations and traveling during the program Office Culture: Very negative. If you ask someone how their day is going, common answers are "Another day in paradise..." or "X years until retirement" or "You know. Just another day." Managers talk bad about some of the reps' capabilities and personal lives behind their backs. You'll be in a cubicle all day. If you are in the OSS department, you can be working 12 hour shifts, 6p-6a or 6a-6p or sometimes both in the same week. You will also have to work weekends and holidays. So when you divide your salary by the number of hours, it isn't worth it. If you value family, don't work here; especially if you would be relocating. You won't be able to go home for holidays. Work also comes home with you, as you have a cell phone and have to answer and review emails throughout the night. Expect to get 500 emails a day, literally. There are easier ways to make the same amount of money by working less. OSS provides opportunity to grow and move up in the company. If you work in NCSC, you will not be able to move up as fast if at all. The managers try to keep them down there instead of trying to advance them. Many people come from "railroad families." So if someone introduces you to someone important in the office they say, "This is ______. Her grandfather was a conductor on the Piedmont Division." That can get annoying. Company Values: Retirement- When it comes down to it, retirement is what keeps people there. Safety- They take their safety values too far in the office. For example: you have to knock on the door to enter the public restrooms on each floor. This isn't such a big deal, but its just kind of strange to report a paper cut or bug bite. New CEO coming in. Lots of changes. They closed down the building in Roanoke. I approve of Wick, not happy with Squires so far. Work here if you want to work really hard for a good retirement. Don't work here if you care about family values or want a nice work culture.

However decent the intentions are, NS has failed to succeed in a culture shift, and I personally believe the retirement pension has a lot of unhappy people sticking around just to be able to retire. A lot of "position hopping" also occurs, which is good in the sense you have the opportunity to become a well rounded employee if you intend on being a lifer, but it also creates the scenario where poor performing employees who are toxic to their departments are able to climb the financial ladder by taking incremental pay bumps and their managers are happy to sign off on these to get the poor performing individuals out of their department, in this sense - poor performance/attitudes get rewarded. There is also an era of dry/lifeless impersonal workplace environment and a bit of a condescending detachment from some of the upper level executives, many of which don't have young children or families. Don't be surprised if you work here and don't form any close bonds with the people you spend 8 hours+ a day with. Not sure if this is a hard-nosed railroad mentality of "just do your work and go home, make friends later", or just the vibe in big corporate America in general. Maybe with some young fresh blood this negative energy will be replaced. Not much of a mentorship initiative to nurture development of young/new employees...