Still trash, but hey, at least you can't get fired
Pros
- Steady paycheck - Pay is decent - Semi-flexible schedule. They do a 9/80 A or B, or 4 10s. - Basically impossible to get fired. - Can literally ignore 70% of your job responsibilities and do next-to nothing most days and you'll be fine. - Many employees "work" from home several days a week (even though remote work approval is granted on a case-by-case basis if you get on the favorable side of the right people) - Medical benefits are ok, unless you get injured. Anthem was an absolute nightmare to deal with when I needed them.
Cons
They lure you in with decent salaries compared to whatever range you told them you're shooting for and the promise of exciting work, or whatever else they can say to get you excited. Then they provide little to no initial training once you're on your team & just throw you into the deep end. The work expectations are unrealistic and it's impossible to get everything you're expected to do routinely done on time and accurately, so most people just don't do a lot of their responsibilities and leave it for someone else to find and deal with later. I have 13 years of experience in my field and am now a glorified admin assistant because all I do is update Excel spreadsheets and sign forms. By the way, they don't use databases or repositories for anything. Anything you need to save (lists of users, hardware, software, etc.) are all saved in (quite literally) thousands of shared folders and Excel spreadsheets. I came in with a ton of knowledge 2.5 years ago and a ton of people here talk about "brain rot" which I can tell you is a very real thing when you don't use any of your skills for years. Despite the recruiter telling me that I would received annual paid training, I have been told 2 years in a row that "there is no budget for training" so I haven't received any formal training, except for a Cybrary or Linked-In Learning account, which I was told I could only use on my own time. Management is chronically terrible at this site (BWI) and absolutely nothing is being done to fix that because above all else, they protect their own. - During the last annual employee survey, my manager's highest rating in any category was 30% approval from her employees, and then quite literally demanded to know who rated her that way during the mandatory feedback sessions. - She essentially forced several of her subordinates who pre-dated her coming onboard to quit by making their job miserable. - There are only a couple "pre-existing" team members left, and during the above-mentioned sensing session, she loudly announced she was giving a cash bonus to two new employees who had been there less than 6 months each, while none of the pre-existing team members received anything (& we each got a flat 2% raise, despite all being Successful Performers). - One recipient of the cash bonus is someone she has a long-standing personal relationship with, inspiring questions about conflicts of interest. - She doesn't show up for work quite literally half of the time, and is very obviously not working at all when she claims she's working remotely, bc she's unresponsive to emails, Teams, etc., but god forbid we deviate from our stated core hours, even once. - She quite literally demands to have full access to our calendars (View All Details) yet refuses to share hers with any of us. - She consistently lies and gaslights us all, and when called out, becomes verbally hostile. - When I attempted to apply to other internal positions, my current manager was the one to call me and tell me I wasn't selected, which seems pretty messed up. - Promotions and raises seem to be designed like "Whose Line is it Anyway" because the rules don't matter and the points are made up. Basic office supplies like printer paper, pens, notebooks, etc. are not provided, with the exceptions of a couple lucky areas, and the internet is infuriatingly slow in most areas of the building. The cafeteria food is criminally expensive, and the bathrooms are seemingly impossible to keep clean and stocked with essentials like paper towels, soap, and sometimes even TP. The bathroom floors are always dirty and there's usually standing water on the countertops and floors. And parking is atrocious. Working here is great... Thanks to the brain rot, it's tough to get out once you've been here too long, so you end up getting trapped, like an abusive relationship where your abuser makes you think you'll never find anyone better than them, or if you do, you won't be able to measure up and they'll dump you (or fire you, in this analogy). They keep you here by stripping you of your skills and instilling fear of failure elsewhere. Don't get lured in. As Admiral Ackbar said, "It's a trap!"